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From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.

Tag: Vakava Race Team

  • Cross Training

    6-31-12
    Mary Beth reports:
    Had an amazing day of cross training yesterday! My son, Will and I climbed half dome in Yosemite. We started by moonlight and finished about 9 1/2 hours later. I think we’ll take an easy day today.

  • Vakava Race Team 2012-01-31 22:53:00

    King Boreas 10 km Freestyle race summary 1/8/12

    The King Boreas ski race, which is part of the St. Paul Winter Carnival, is typically held at Phalen park. This year it was moved to Green Acres Recreation, like many other races, due to the lack of natural snow. The chilly morning race was very fitting for the King Boreas name sake. For most of the first lap, several of us stuck together in a lead pack. No one wanted to go out too fast, me included; the race included four tough climbs up Pers Plunge. Half way through the first lap, me and another skier fell trying to get around a slower skier from the men’s race. After picking myself up I managed to catch back up to the leaders by the second lap. My good friend, Jan Gunther, and I skied together for some time. Jan even had the energy to crack a joke about the farm smells and the possibility of me being the cause of them. During the last lap I managed to pull away for a win. It was great being out and skiing with some fun and really good friends, but I still missed racing this one at Phalen.

  • Vakava Race Team 2012-01-31 22:53:00

    King Boreas 10 km Freestyle race summary 1/8/12

    The King Boreas ski race, which is part of the St. Paul Winter Carnival, is typically held at Phalen park. This year it was moved to Green Acres Recreation, like many other races, due to the lack of natural snow. The chilly morning race was very fitting for the King Boreas name sake. For most of the first lap, several of us stuck together in a lead pack. No one wanted to go out too fast, me included; the race included four tough climbs up Pers Plunge. Half way through the first lap, me and another skier fell trying to get around a slower skier from the men’s race. After picking myself up I managed to catch back up to the leaders by the second lap. My good friend, Jan Gunther, and I skied together for some time. Jan even had the energy to crack a joke about the farm smells and the possibility of me being the cause of them. During the last lap I managed to pull away for a win. It was great being out and skiing with some fun and really good friends, but I still missed racing this one at Phalen.

  • An Unexpected Journey

    Recently I was offered to opportunity to go down to Antarctica for the winter. The only catch was that I had about 12 hours to think about it and about two weeks to get ready to go. The offer came out of the blue. I had applied last May for a summer (Oct. – Feb.) position and hadn’t really heard anything back from them. So I assumed it was over and was getting ready to apply again for next summer. As it turned out, the guy they had hired for the winter position backed out at the 11th hour and they were scrambling to replace him before the ice closes and it gets too cold to fly down there. So, I got the call.

    Obviously, I jumped at the chance, and with where I’m at in my life (no major ties that aren’t going to be here when I get back, no leases, no payments to keep track of) I had no excuses for saying no. So, tomorrow I leave for Denver, and then New Zealand on Saturday, and Antarctica by Feb 8th. In Denver I’ll get a physical, a dental check-up, and a psych eval. In New Zealand, I’ll get my extreme cold weather gear (ECW). Then I’ll fly, with that gear on, in a ski-equipped LC-130 Hercules turboprop plane, down to McMurdo base, on the coast of Antarctica. Then I’ll take another flight 1000 miles inland to the South Pole base, where I meet the people I’m going to be spending the next 9 months of my life with. Should be fun.

    I spent the first part of last week letting people know I was going, trying to get paper work done, and getting my blood taken. I also got to go on an awesome trip with WI up to the BW and ski and dogsled with some great ladies. It was a good way to relax a little bit before this next adventure. Yesterday, I packed like mad and got most of the way done. Hurray! I also went to a going away party thrown my my friend and Vakava teammate, Cheryl. It was great to get to say good-bye to the Vakava folks and some others from the ski community. I’m grateful to Cheryl for getting the party organized, and on extremely short notice.

    I am going to miss everybody and will try to post regularly to my new blog (http://antarcticdispatches.blogspot.com/) to keep folks updated.

    One favor, if anyone has book recommendations, please let me know. I am trying to fill up the Nook that Robb, the coach over at Central, has lent me.

  • 2011 Fossavatn


    In April Dave and I skied the Fossavatn 50k race in Iceland. Minnesota Trails Magazine asked us to write articles and submit photos for the winter edition featuring the Skinny Ski Series. We dutifully sent in our stuff but since the Series is not happening this year they didn’t get published. Dave’s article focused on the race and the editor asked me to focus more on the experience around the race so here’s my article. I would highly recommend this race experience to all ski adventurers out there. Check out this video of the race: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWVIci3PdRE

    Dave and I were joined by Dave’s wife, Paula, and my dear, longtime friend from our Austin, Texas years, Martha FitzSimon. Thank you, Paula and Martha for the awesome race support!!!
    The Fossavatn Ski Marathon began in 1935 as a 20K race and has since added 7K, 10K and 50K distances, all classic. It is a small race in terms of number of participants (approximately 300) yet it attracts an international field and occasionally some of the best skiers in the world (past winners have included Oskar Svärd and Suzanne Nyström, both Swedish Vasaloppet champions and World and Olympic champion, Thomas Alsgaard).
    The intimacy of the race is further bolstered by its setting in a small fjord town. Ísafjörður is tucked in the remote West Fjords region, an 8,500 square mile peninsula in the north we
    st corner of Iceland with a population density of less than 1 person/square mile!
    If you arrive in Ísafjörður by noon on Thursday
    you can attend the master class lead by one of the international guests. Imagine getting a personal critique by a former world champion!
    On Friday a bus takes visitors to the venue to preview the course. I was struck by the unique beauty of this sparse land. There is no vegetation but plenty of hills and mountain plateaus. Imagine the moon with snow. From a single vantage point we could see much of the 50k course.Despite being literally a few miles

    from the Arctic Circle the temperature never gets very cold, but that doesn’t mean weather can’t be severe. The winds can be brutal although, mercifully, we had almost no wind this year but we did have a heavy fog. Because it’s nearly always above freezing for the race the locals are good at selecting and applying klister (whereas we cold weather racers from the Midwest US are hard wax experts). Knowing that getting good kick could be tricky we brought lots of klister but to cover our bases Atomic Ski rep Henry Wisnewski also sent ‘zero’ waxless skis for Dave and I. Since it snowed several inches the night before the race and we weren’t sure what to expect at the higher elevations on the course, we elected to go with the zeros.
    The locals successfully opted for klister so I think both were working that day.
    Towards the end of the first half is the first of two long climbs in the race. Checking my heart rate monitor altimeter after wards I learned that it was 45 minutes of continuous up. About 20K later is the second big climb. This one is shorter but steeper and unlike the first climb there is a reward at the top: a 7K downhill run to the finish line! So even though my thighs and triceps were protesting with spasms, I enthusiastically ‘ran’ up the hill and thoroughly enjoyed the ride down to the finish line.
    After crossing the line each skier is given the traditional post-race treat: A little blue bag with a bun and a hunk of chocolate. We lingered a bit to pose for pictures and talk to fellow skiers but we needed to hustle down mountain because there were celebrations waiting in Ísafjörður.
    The cake feed and awards ceremony at the high school gym is amazing. I think nearly every family and bakery in town brings a Scandinavian treat. Hungary skiers and their friends and family load up plates with more pastries than I could count, most of which I’d never tried before! I took small portions because the servers kept replacing empty trays with something brand new and I wanted to make sure I left room for seconds………OK, thirds.

    After a couple of hours to digest we dressed up and headed to the cultural center for a late night of food, drinks, entertainment and dancing with fellow skiers from Iceland, the US and Europe. Local talent included a magician, a jazz band and a rock band.
    The Fossavatn marked the end of a long but fun ski season that included the Skinny Ski Series, Birkie and Masters World Cup. Now, on April 30 I completed my last and longest race of the year and I could not think of any better way to mark the occasion than to celebrate with friends in a beautiful, remote, vibrant village in Iceland.

  • Low Flying Hamster

    Dear winter,
    I miss you. Please come back.
    Love,
    Nate

    Since the snow is not cooperating this year (dang did we get spoiled last year!), and all the races for citizen racers were cancelled, I figured that we needed to take things into our own hands and organize our own opportunity to go fast. So last Wednesday while sitting in my car in the pouring rain I called up Dave and proposed a time trial on the man-made snow of Elm Creek. Dave started spreading the word at practice that evening, an event was made on the Vakava facebook page (feel free to “like” us), and by Saturday morning we had a group of 40 to 50 skiers ready to knock the cobwebs off their racing muscles. This was made even more entertaining by Cheryl’s idea to make the time trial an “ugly race suit” contest too.

    When the start time rolled around everyone lined up and the race was on. I was lucky enough to have Bjorn Batdorf and Jon Miller show up, and the three of us soon formed a lead pack,and we traded off the lead every couple of kilometers. With about 1.5k to go in our 10k race I went to the lead to push the pace. The conditions were pretty soft and granular, and I figured if I could be in the lead going into the last uphill it would be hard to pass. This, in addition to a pretty ill-defined finish line, allowed me to just stay in front of a hard charging Bjorn. Jon came across another 5 or 10 seconds back.

  • Fall Training Camp

    Friday late afternoon we started our 3 days of training in the Hayward/Cable Area. Those of us who got up to 00 by 4:30pm that day did a 2 1/2 hour pole hike on the Birkie trail, mostly north of 00. It was warm and the trail was full of leaves making a lot of noise as we hiked through them. We finished our pole hike in the dark, hungry and thirsty. Next stop, the Sawmill Saloon in Seeley for dinner. The rest of the team met us there, giving us a total of 17 members for the camp. The food was great, although they ran out of  Dark Beer on Tap. A bar in Wisconsin on a Friday night running out of any kind of tap beer? What is the world coming to?! But the Spotted Cow on tap was still a very good alternative.
    Pole Hiking on the Birkie Trail
    Saturday morning was classic rollerskiing near Hayward. We started with a warm up and video taped striding and double pole kick. We then moved on to some specific strength, single stick poling up a slight hill, and double pole starts up a larger hill. We finished with a cool down, then it was time for lunch. We ate lunch and watched our videos while Dave and Mark critiqued our technique. That afternoon, it was up to Cable to do some classic intervals. After warming up on the interval course, it was time for some hard work! We did 4 intervals of 2.25 K on a hilly section of road. Our team had an average time of about 7 1/2 minutes per interval. We cooled down then went for a dip in a local lake before heading to The Rivers Eatery in Downtown Cable. We enjoyed some of their pizza and micro brews on the outdoor patio to finish off the beautiful day.
    Sunday morning we donned our new safety orange Vakava Racing shirts and did a 50k+ skate rollerski on the rolling hills of Cable. This was a hard workout because many of us were tired from the amount of training we did on Friday and Saturday. After a little over 3 hours, we finished our rollerski, packed up and headed home.

  • Fall Training Camp

    Friday late afternoon we started our 3 days of training in the Hayward/Cable Area. Those of us who got up to 00 by 4:30pm that day did a 2 1/2 hour pole hike on the Birkie trail, mostly north of 00. It was warm and the trail was full of leaves making a lot of noise as we hiked through them. We finished our pole hike in the dark, hungry and thirsty. Next stop, the Sawmill Saloon in Seeley for dinner. The rest of the team met us there, giving us a total of 17 members for the camp. The food was great, although they ran out of  Dark Beer on Tap. A bar in Wisconsin on a Friday night running out of any kind of tap beer? What is the world coming to?! But the Spotted Cow on tap was still a very good alternative.
    Pole Hiking on the Birkie Trail
    Saturday morning was classic rollerskiing near Hayward. We started with a warm up and video taped striding and double pole kick. We then moved on to some specific strength, single stick poling up a slight hill, and double pole starts up a larger hill. We finished with a cool down, then it was time for lunch. We ate lunch and watched our videos while Dave and Mark critiqued our technique. That afternoon, it was up to Cable to do some classic intervals. After warming up on the interval course, it was time for some hard work! We did 4 intervals of 2.25 K on a hilly section of road. Our team had an average time of about 7 1/2 minutes per interval. We cooled down then went for a dip in a local lake before heading to The Rivers Eatery in Downtown Cable. We enjoyed some of their pizza and micro brews on the outdoor patio to finish off the beautiful day.
    Sunday morning we donned our new safety orange Vakava Racing shirts and did a 50k+ skate rollerski on the rolling hills of Cable. This was a hard workout because many of us were tired from the amount of training we did on Friday and Saturday. After a little over 3 hours, we finished our rollerski, packed up and headed home.

  • Fall Training Camp

    Friday late afternoon we started our 3 days of training in the Hayward/Cable Area. Those of us who got up to 00 by 4:30pm that day did a 2 1/2 hour pole hike on the Birkie trail, mostly north of 00. It was warm and the trail was full of leaves making a lot of noise as we hiked through them. We finished our pole hike in the dark, hungry and thirsty. Next stop, the Sawmill Saloon in Seeley for dinner. The rest of the team met us there, giving us a total of 17 members for the camp. The food was great, although they ran out of  Dark Beer on Tap. A bar in Wisconsin on a Friday night running out of any kind of tap beer? What is the world coming to?! But the Spotted Cow on tap was still a very good alternative.
    Pole Hiking on the Birkie Trail
    Saturday morning was classic rollerskiing near Hayward. We started with a warm up and video taped striding and double pole kick. We then moved on to some specific strength, single stick poling up a slight hill, and double pole starts up a larger hill. We finished with a cool down, then it was time for lunch. We ate lunch and watched our videos while Dave and Mark critiqued our technique. That afternoon, it was up to Cable to do some classic intervals. After warming up on the interval course, it was time for some hard work! We did 4 intervals of 2.25 K on a hilly section of road. Our team had an average time of about 7 1/2 minutes per interval. We cooled down then went for a dip in a local lake before heading to The Rivers Eatery in Downtown Cable. We enjoyed some of their pizza and micro brews on the outdoor patio to finish off the beautiful day.
    Sunday morning we donned our new safety orange Vakava Racing shirts and did a 50k+ skate rollerski on the rolling hills of Cable. This was a hard workout because many of us were tired from the amount of training we did on Friday and Saturday. After a little over 3 hours, we finished our rollerski, packed up and headed home.

  • Fall Training Camp

    Friday late afternoon we started our 3 days of training in the Hayward/Cable Area. Those of us who got up to 00 by 4:30pm that day did a 2 1/2 hour pole hike on the Birkie trail, mostly north of 00. It was warm and the trail was full of leaves making a lot of noise as we hiked through them. We finished our pole hike in the dark, hungry and thirsty. Next stop, the Sawmill Saloon in Seeley for dinner. The rest of the team met us there, giving us a total of 17 members for the camp. The food was great, although they ran out of  Dark Beer on Tap. A bar in Wisconsin on a Friday night running out of any kind of tap beer? What is the world coming to?! But the Spotted Cow on tap was still a very good alternative.
    Pole Hiking on the Birkie Trail
    Saturday morning was classic rollerskiing near Hayward. We started with a warm up and video taped striding and double pole kick. We then moved on to some specific strength, single stick poling up a slight hill, and double pole starts up a larger hill. We finished with a cool down, then it was time for lunch. We ate lunch and watched our videos while Dave and Mark critiqued our technique. That afternoon, it was up to Cable to do some classic intervals. After warming up on the interval course, it was time for some hard work! We did 4 intervals of 2.25 K on a hilly section of road. Our team had an average time of about 7 1/2 minutes per interval. We cooled down then went for a dip in a local lake before heading to The Rivers Eatery in Downtown Cable. We enjoyed some of their pizza and micro brews on the outdoor patio to finish off the beautiful day.
    Sunday morning we donned our new safety orange Vakava Racing shirts and did a 50k+ skate rollerski on the rolling hills of Cable. This was a hard workout because many of us were tired from the amount of training we did on Friday and Saturday. After a little over 3 hours, we finished our rollerski, packed up and headed home.

  • In her spare time

    Vakava has always had individuals from many different professions on our team. Here is a nice little profile on what 2006 Olympian and Vakava skier Carolyn does in her spare time (when she is not skiing with us). And I complain that I have a hard time finding time to train!

  • In her spare time

    Vakava has always had individuals from many different professions on our team. Here is a nice little profile on what 2006 Olympian and Vakava skier Carolyn does in her spare time (when she is not skiing with us). And I complain that I have a hard time finding time to train!

  • In her spare time

    Vakava has always had individuals from many different professions on our team. Here is a nice little profile on what 2006 Olympian and Vakava skier Carolyn does in her spare time (when she is not skiing with us). And I complain that I have a hard time finding time to train!

  • In her spare time

    Vakava has always had individuals from many different professions on our team. Here is a nice little profile on what 2006 Olympian and Vakava skier Carolyn does in her spare time (when she is not skiing with us). And I complain that I have a hard time finding time to train!

  • In her spare time

    Vakava has always had individuals from many different professions on our team. Here is a nice little profile on what 2006 Olympian and Vakava skier Carolyn does in her spare time (when she is not skiing with us). And I complain that I have a hard time finding time to train!

  • A new season has begun

    Dang, I can’t believe that we are already a week into the 2011-2012 Vakava season!

    Last season was another good one for the skiers of Vakava Racing. I am sure I will get around to a recap post of the season with numbers and such (I still have a half-written post recapping my Birkie that I need to finish). Sounds like projects for another day.

    The upcoming season promises to be another great one for the team. I am pretty sure that we will be returning our full roster from last year, and will no doubt add a couple of skiers too. Can’t wait to see what everyone will do with another year of training together (I am looking over my shoulder waiting for the Russian Rocket to blow by me – with another year of technique I think he might!). We are going to try better to keep the skiing community up to date on our team’s adventures and exploits this next year – we are a pretty unique group of skiers considering the nearly 40 year age range of skiers in our group all working together and skiing fast, and I think our stories need to be told better. To start with, we will try to keep this blog updated!

    As for the latest in my life: Nichole keeps rocking along on her marathon training, and I just try to keep up on her easy days. Working full time keeps cutting into my training, but I do love my job (and being done with school!). We lost a training partner about a month ago when our awesome dog Ellie was hit and killed by a car, and things have been a bit boring around our house since. Solution: we are adopting a new dog this weekend – a 5 year old Vizsla named Mesa! I don’t know if that poor dog knows what she is up for and the miles she will put on. I can’t wait to pound the trails in the Carleton arb with a dog again. Fun times!

  • A new season has begun

    Dang, I can’t believe that we are already a week into the 2011-2012 Vakava season!

    Last season was another good one for the skiers of Vakava Racing. I am sure I will get around to a recap post of the season with numbers and such (I still have a half-written post recapping my Birkie that I need to finish). Sounds like projects for another day.

    The upcoming season promises to be another great one for the team. I am pretty sure that we will be returning our full roster from last year, and will no doubt add a couple of skiers too. Can’t wait to see what everyone will do with another year of training together (I am looking over my shoulder waiting for the Russian Rocket to blow by me – with another year of technique I think he might!). We are going to try better to keep the skiing community up to date on our team’s adventures and exploits this next year – we are a pretty unique group of skiers considering the nearly 40 year age range of skiers in our group all working together and skiing fast, and I think our stories need to be told better. To start with, we will try to keep this blog updated!

    As for the latest in my life: Nichole keeps rocking along on her marathon training, and I just try to keep up on her easy days. Working full time keeps cutting into my training, but I do love my job (and being done with school!). We lost a training partner about a month ago when our awesome dog Ellie was hit and killed by a car, and things have been a bit boring around our house since. Solution: we are adopting a new dog this weekend – a 5 year old Vizsla named Mesa! I don’t know if that poor dog knows what she is up for and the miles she will put on. I can’t wait to pound the trails in the Carleton arb with a dog again. Fun times!

  • A new season has begun

    Dang, I can’t believe that we are already a week into the 2011-2012 Vakava season!

    Last season was another good one for the skiers of Vakava Racing. I am sure I will get around to a recap post of the season with numbers and such (I still have a half-written post recapping my Birkie that I need to finish). Sounds like projects for another day.

    The upcoming season promises to be another great one for the team. I am pretty sure that we will be returning our full roster from last year, and will no doubt add a couple of skiers too. Can’t wait to see what everyone will do with another year of training together (I am looking over my shoulder waiting for the Russian Rocket to blow by me – with another year of technique I think he might!). We are going to try better to keep the skiing community up to date on our team’s adventures and exploits this next year – we are a pretty unique group of skiers considering the nearly 40 year age range of skiers in our group all working together and skiing fast, and I think our stories need to be told better. To start with, we will try to keep this blog updated!

    As for the latest in my life: Nichole keeps rocking along on her marathon training, and I just try to keep up on her easy days. Working full time keeps cutting into my training, but I do love my job (and being done with school!). We lost a training partner about a month ago when our awesome dog Ellie was hit and killed by a car, and things have been a bit boring around our house since. Solution: we are adopting a new dog this weekend – a 5 year old Vizsla named Mesa! I don’t know if that poor dog knows what she is up for and the miles she will put on. I can’t wait to pound the trails in the Carleton arb with a dog again. Fun times!

  • A new season has begun

    Dang, I can’t believe that we are already a week into the 2011-2012 Vakava season!

    Last season was another good one for the skiers of Vakava Racing. I am sure I will get around to a recap post of the season with numbers and such (I still have a half-written post recapping my Birkie that I need to finish). Sounds like projects for another day.

    The upcoming season promises to be another great one for the team. I am pretty sure that we will be returning our full roster from last year, and will no doubt add a couple of skiers too. Can’t wait to see what everyone will do with another year of training together (I am looking over my shoulder waiting for the Russian Rocket to blow by me – with another year of technique I think he might!). We are going to try better to keep the skiing community up to date on our team’s adventures and exploits this next year – we are a pretty unique group of skiers considering the nearly 40 year age range of skiers in our group all working together and skiing fast, and I think our stories need to be told better. To start with, we will try to keep this blog updated!

    As for the latest in my life: Nichole keeps rocking along on her marathon training, and I just try to keep up on her easy days. Working full time keeps cutting into my training, but I do love my job (and being done with school!). We lost a training partner about a month ago when our awesome dog Ellie was hit and killed by a car, and things have been a bit boring around our house since. Solution: we are adopting a new dog this weekend – a 5 year old Vizsla named Mesa! I don’t know if that poor dog knows what she is up for and the miles she will put on. I can’t wait to pound the trails in the Carleton arb with a dog again. Fun times!

  • A Crazy Idea…