A ski-centric weekend—without much skiing: Writing for the Loppet

The last in a three-part series

As late as Wednesday, I was wondering what I was going to do all weekend. It turned out I had way too much on my plate (and never got around to my taxes). I got an email on Friday from John Munger at the City of Lakes suggesting that maybe I wanted to write a City of Lakes Loppet race report, and perhaps focus on some interesting people there. Yeah, that might be fun. Then I got a call from him saying that I had been volunteered to do so.

Okay then.

I got the contact information for all the winners (classic and skate, male and female) as well as some other assorted dignitaries. And to their credit, everyone responded to me. Props to Andy, Audrey, Matt, Kristina and Caitlin for that. I sent out an email asking them to email or call me please on Saturday after I got back from Wirth. By the time I woke up Sunday I got an email from Andy Liebner, the classic winner. Then I got a call from Audrey Weber, who also won the classic race. I had about 500 words—what John wanted at a minimum, and figured that if none of the other skiing superstars called back, well, I'd have something.

I had an email from Caitlin, too. But that one seemed like a long shot. She was in Norway for a World Cup race and would be back later in the afternoon, could we Skype then? We could try. So instead of enjoying the sunshine, I was booting up Skype. It took us a while to get it to run correctly (I had to disable my video from trying to load, it seems) but once it did, she talked to me for more than an hour, which was beyond awesome. We each thought the other had a dog barking because of the feedback, but I got, well, way more than I needed from Caitlin. About the City of Lakes, which she won in 2008 (coming 10th overall—she said she knows she is ready for the World Cup when she is skiing with the top men in the US). About being a poor athlete in the Twin Cities. About the Olympics. Oh, yeah, did I mention that she was in Vancouver? Garrott (Vancouver) on Friday, Carolyn (Torino, biathlon) on Saturday, Caitlin today.

Anyway, Caitlin is awesome—she offered to show me a week of Olympic training this summer. Maybe I'll write that up for a local publication; I think it would be interesting. If not, it will get me in to shape. She offered to do a strength session with the Mac ski team, too. Collin says "very tight."

She finally had to go to bed in Norway, and Matt Liebsch called. He had "five or ten minutes" while he shuttled his kids around. Half an hour later I had pages of notes from talking to him too. Matt won the Birkie last year, the Mora two years running, and the City of Lakes this year. Oh, and he has two young kids. Yeah. Wow.

Finally, I called Kristina Owen, who won the women's skate race. I got some copy from her and set to writing. By the evening, I had condensed it all down to 2100 words—less than three times what John wanted, although I think the word count might be malleable—and some great stories. I'll post them here soon.

So while I had skis on for a total of about an hour, it was a very ski-heavy weekend. It was 64 on Sunday, the snow is gone (but might return later this week) and I'm off to Colorado next weekend. And it's probably the most I've thought about skiing—without actually skiing much—ever.

A ski-centric weekend—without much skiing: Wirth kids race

The second in a three-part series

Last week on Facebook, I saw a video of the ski-ter–totter they'd set up over at Wirth:



I said, in a sense, "I want to go to there." I asked how I could and they said "come volunteer at noon on Saturday." That I can do. I am usually racing in races, so I can't volunteer for them; this is a chance to give back. And little kids skiing around are cute.

On Friday, I got an email. They were starting a bit earlier. Could I be there at 10:15? Sure! It's not like I went to Hayward the night before. So I set my alarm, woke up in the morning, and hopped on my bike for the ride over to Wirth. The ride went well with two glitches. First, when I tried to navigate the ramp from West River Parkway to 1st Street and 5th Avenue S (southeast corner), I found out that my skis were rather wider than the ramp. I got stuck, stopped, backed out, and walked my bike up the stairs.

The ride through Downtown Minneapolis (yes, down Hennepin with my skis) was fine for a while; I was not too wide for the Bassett Creek Trail spiral bridge (although it was close, and I took it very easy) and zoomed off towards the park. The one problem was that someone decided to groom the bike trail for skiing, and where it had been groomed it had not melted (everything else was dry). The Googles bike directions say it was a third of a mile, and I walked/hike-a-biked most of it. (Here's my whole route on Google bike directions; I did not follow what it suggested—hence all the waypoints—and took the Greenway home.)

Once I got to the race site, I was put to work. As the races finished up, John Swain and I set the course for the SkiX-c course. This entailed carrying V-board (well, C-board, well, painted PVC pipes) around, putting in a ton of flags, and making sure the slalom course was not too easy or too hard. Jojo Winters helped out as well. The kids had fun, no one went in to a utility poles, and the biggest mishap of the day was when I lost a ski while carrying the snow auger downhill (to put in the slalom gates). I wound up sitting on the ground with a 18" long drill bit and Ed Swain (John's dad) laughing at me as I chased my ski downhill. One of the bindings on my rock skis had broken; I spent the race trying to figure out how to put it together and finally used one of the tools in my bike bag to do so. The plastic is still cracked, but it works.

I skied the course a couple of times—it was about the right difficulty, and took a few trips over the ski-ter–totter. Then we played ski soccer (like the game, but a bit less tackley, and with the stipulation that you kick the ball through the goal, which I didn't really like) which was fun. It was adults vs. kids and John and I were on the kids team (apparently the age cutoff was about 26, as Carolyn Bramante, an olympic biathlete and former City of Lakes champion, and the one performing the sweet tele landing off the ski-ter–totter, was on the adult team). Everyone won. Everyone was soaked. Okay, especially me; I tackled the adults.

Then it was time to clean up, switch in to the slightly-drier bike shoes, and bike home. Slowly.

But the ski weekend without much skiing (today was the only day I actually donned ski boots) was not over yet!

Loppet Report

Not too much of a report (I think). The Loppet, as a trail and event, was fantastic. Great organization, a perfectly groomed trail (good snow to thank for that) and a deep field. The start was a bit chaotic, and I definitely didn't get a good position; I'd missed the timing on the first double pole and everyone was off.

And it didn't get much better. The first couple turns were all double poling, and we then headed down in front of the quarter pipe on the snowboard hill, which, on my warm-up, I'd realized was a jump. Not realizing it was a race I tried to catch air. And did so perfectly. I sailed about ten feet and then stuck the landing. Barely. Another skier said "good save" and I said, "that was stupid."

And then for about 10k I felt slow. I think part of it was not having had enough to drink. I really need to remember to drink more. Lots and lots. Three trips to the bathroom the night before. I was cramped up through the hills and flats and across Wirth Lake, and only salvaged some piece of decency by having a couple cups of water at the feeds.

I felt slightly better in the hills in Bryn Mawr, although not good enough to jump on when the first girls passed us. Before we got out of the Flower Gardens, however, the fourth and fifth women (Carolyn Bramante and Lindsey Dehlin—both olympians, which is some consolation for getting girled) passed two of us guys and we jumped on. At this point, Ben Pedersen had been catching up with me and was only a few seconds behind, and I wanted to be ahead of him. The girls set a good pace—not hurried, but solid—the pace I wish I could set for myself at the start of a race, and we steamed through the woods, catching Freddy Kueffer on the last hill and through the feed and on to the lakes. The girls didn't seem to mind leading; they knew they were far behind the top three and would hold off those behind him, and a couple of us guys didn't mind the help. Although on one hill, a guy cheering yelled "let's go ladies—" and added, as an afterthought, "and guys."

That was fine. I was feeling slightly better on the lakes. We went on to the Cedar Lake Trails and after the U-turn Carolyn caught an edge and ate some snow, but there was no reason to try to drop her. She jumped back in. We were headed for the canal when a second waver stormed past. Carolyn jumped on his tail (a draft!). I did too. Lindsey did not. This guy was moving, though, and I didn't quite keep the draft. So I went through the canal on my own, and then around Isles.

Isles was rather well groomed and was very wide, so we were able to cut a couple corners. A couple small groups came and went, and at the end we headed up the ramp and in to the sprint. I was neck-and-neck with a guy going in to the finishes but outsprinted him (always makes things better) and finished, feeling pretty okay.

I grabbed a cookie and talked with Jakob and Emily and John and others, and then went to cheer Macalester skiers on the lakes. Fun times. Then it was time to eat soup, get a brat (so good) and go home. No, it wasn't the Surly festival after the Trail Loppet (when they gave free beer—one per person—until they had more beer than people) but it was good. Then I went home and went to sleep.

My results? 92d place—the lowest I've ever scored in the race—and 120% of the winning time. This is a drop from last year, but it's actually a bad comparison. Matt Liebsch skied this year, and took the title by quite a bit. In last year's race, I finished 17% behind the top three guys. Compared to the third place guy, Andre Watt, who skis about the same pace, I was 16%. I'm rationalizing here, obviously.

Anyway, drink more before races and ski fast. Right? Right. Still best Loppet ever!

City of Lakes

The lakes are good, but soft, and need a groom. I hit the lakes during the luminary this evening, and skied through the canal to Cedar. Isles is pretty well packed but definitely soft from four inches of snow this week, and probably got loosened up by the thousands of luminary skiers. The canal was soft and thin in a couple places and needs a groom, as was Cedar. The section on the trail on the west side of Cedar was loose and pockmarked by footsteps; I assume it is going to get a couple passes tonight. Hopefully temperatures will dip low enough for long enough (sitting at 20 right now) to allow it to set up. Otherwise, get to the front of the pack!

City of Lakes

We skied from the Chalet south along the course through the trail up behind Hidden Beach. The trail is in excellent shape, including across the lakes (the new snow makes a big difference, especially since it was sticky and fell with little or no wind) so the coverage is full. Snow was being hauled to road crossings, too, and grooming with a sled was in progress; it was still very soft after the sled had passed but hopefully it will go down to 15 at least to set up some for Sunday, otherwise it will be a very soft race! The only minor problem spots, and I mean minor, were at either end of the I-394 bridge where water on the road was being kicked up by cars on to the snow, making or very slow, sloppy sections. A couple tubs of shoveled snow and it would be all better—the middle of the bridge is in good shape.

It should be a fun race Sunday.

Flurries awards: race of the year

When there is good snow, there are good races. That was the case this year. From all reports, nearly every race around went out on great conditions without a hitch (the minor exception being the Snowflake-Inga Lami). So how do we select a race? Well, we can base it on several factors: logistics, course, grooming and organisation.

And on pretty much all these counts, the City of Lakes Loppet takes the cake. Despite a warm-up the day before, the trail was in great shape (at least for the early waves), fast and fun. The volunteers were superb, the competition good and the ending fun as always. It was probably the best Loppet yet, and whilst other races were fantastic, I think the COLL takes the cake.

City of Lakes Loppet report

On Friday I'd said that barring a major catastrophe, it would be the best Loppet ever. (For the record, I've skied every non-lake Loppet save 2007, when it was something like -10 with -30 wind chills: not the Best Loppet Ever.)

And Saturday it was 45 out. Thank goodness for a 8 inch base, which stood up to the sun (and thanks to the Loppet folks for closing the course—the Mac ski team had a nice day of shirts-off skiing at Battle Creek, and the course stayed good). I thought the snow would firm up overnight, but it actually stayed rather soft, not icy, which was good for my softer skis. We did the bus thing this year, which is always fun (school buses are made for kids, and people my size—higher than six feed—don't fit, not to mention skis). The bus rolled in to the start as the classic race hit the trail, and we watched out the windows.

One of the very nice things about the race is that it started in rather warm weather. Up until last year, it had a track record of being cold or canceled. The aforementioned freeze in 2007, around 10 in '06, canceled in '05 (51 the day before melted everything), 0 in 2004, and cold and on-lakes-only in 2003. So being able to lounge around at the start watching the classic race come through the start hill (a great new addition, fwiw) was fun.

The main event started on time, with temperatures nearing freezing and brilliant sunshine. The snow was still somewhat powdery, not too wet or icy—just fantastic conditions. The gun went off, I went out not-too-hard from the second row, and made for the top of the hill—I'd been doing some intervals on the hill and knew it, as I know the entire course. Zach Handler, with whom I go way back (when I was in high school in Boston we worked together at the ski place there—he having just graduated from Carleton, and he helped sell me on the Midwest for college), had fallen and passed me at the top of the hill. "Hey, maybe I can stay with Zach!" I thought. Nope, he got ahead of me in three of four strides. Oh, well. It's definitely his home course, he lives a couple blocks away in Bryn Mawr.

I was in line up the first big hill on the course when a skier started calling "on your left" and passing everyone, skiing half "in the rough." I said to myself, "well, I'm getting girled today." Caitlin Compton must have had a crap start, but managed to finish in 10th, overall. And way in front of any other women.

The course was great and of course I knew it like the back of my hand, but I didn't feel particularly strong. I did manage to catch Collin (from Macalester) who is a far better skier than I, but had returned from South Africa a week earlier and had been on snow for all of six or seven hours. He had gone out very hard—top 10—but looked to be fading. Once I got in front of him, I wanted to keep him behind, as it might be my only chance, ever, to beat him (and he had guaranteed me he'd kick my ass, and I'd agreed), although I think I may have out-sprinted him at a race at Telemark, back when he was a young punk in high school.

In any case, I skied with a pack in to Butler and decided, in the Bog, to catch the folks about 25 seconds ahead of us who we'd seen. Over the next four or five kilometers, I laboured to make up precious seconds and finally, with my last bit of strength, caught the group as we hit Brownie Lake—not a moment too soon. There was some lake winds and I didn't want to have to ski alone.

I stayed with the group across Cedar and then after we took the shore for a while (It was the only snow-issue area, there were a couple very icy sections. It's a nice idea to hit the shore, but a) there are a couple narrow sections, not great with 5k to go and b) there were a couple nasty, icy sections.) I decided to break the group and catch the one in front of us. So I did. I hit the lake and broke, after almost losing a couple guys on the sidewalk, I made the time back up. On Isles, with about a k to go, I realised that there was another pack about fifteen seconds in front of us. So I jumped.

But there wasn't quite enough distance, and I didn't have quite enough gas. That pack had broken up, and I almost caught the end of it, just missing catching one guy off of it (Danny Kueffer) but gaining some time on folks I'd been skiing with. One of them is a (female) olympic biathlete. To her credit, she is in med school.

So I came 52d. Not horrid, not great, but about where I'd expected, and less off the lead than in the past in the Loppet. Just 17% off the lead, which is nice, and just 25 seconds out of 42d, because of that pack in front of me. Oh, well. At least it was a very nice race. And I did beat Collin, although he recovered and only was about a minute back. And, heck, in six years they have built this up in to a great event. There's nothing like it in the country.

Some linkiness:

Results

A pretty sweet video of the race:


About the best start around. Birkie might be better, but lacks the Minneapolis skyline in the background (there's something about skiing the Front 9 with downtown Minneapolis behind).

In the bog, the pack which I caught, displaying good downhill technique.

Me, displaying bad downhill technique (tired from clawing my way back to this pack).