Houghton

Day one here in Houghton. A long but uneventful trip yesterday with 5 hours on a plane and then a 6+ hour drive that started about 8pm, but we pretended we were on Alaska time so we got in at around midnight. After sleeping in and getting checked in and settled we went out for a ski. 1.5 hours nice and easy with some speed to wake up the legs. Felt good but the best part was being on plenty of snow with classic tracks, kink of makes up for being in the Midwest...

Tour de Ski starts today, no Americans but it should be fun to watch.

Besh Cup 1

Here is the top 10 from yesterdays sprint. I am pretty sure this is the first race Anders has won since college, hopefully he can keep it rolling. I was in second for most of the final and made tactical mistake and tied up a bit in the finish. Still felt much sharper than I have. Today will be the fun one...


Anders Haugen
Justin Singleton
Vahur Teppan
Patrick Johnson
James Southam
Eric Packer
Bart Dengel
Andy Liebner
Tyler Kornfield
Reese Hanneman

Besh Cups

It has been a few years since I have raced in Anchorage and this weekend I get a chance to go at it again. The Besh Cups, Alaska's junior national qualifiers, are happening a few miles from home at Kincaid with a skate sprint tomorrow and 15k mass start skate Sunday. Both of them using some of the new additions done to the trails the last few years and they look pretty good. The snow is a little thin, most likely I will go on rock skis, but still not too bad.

As for the body it seems to be coming around. I have been skiing once a day with some speed to keep sharp and doing a little Christmas season dieting to get down to my fighting weight and I have been feeling a little better every day. Hopefully it will be enought to get me skiing where I should be in time for Nationals and the World Cups.

Better

Back home now after racing in Soldier Hollow over the weekend. That place is just awesome! Housing is always good, and the skiing is usually great, the best race trails in the World and this year was no different. They skiing was amazing, manmade on the sprint course and the natural snow was a hard and fast as manmade on the rest of the course. Really couldn't ask for much better.

I sat out the sprint race on Saturday since the races to date have been less that optimal to be ready to go on Sunday for the 15k skate mass start race. The race went better that the previous ones but still not quite there. The good side of it was I was at the front with the people who were going to make the race happen, which is where I should be. But once the pace got real high in places I didn't quite have enough to go with them and ended up fading back to 8th or 9th in a sprint. They hadn't figured out who beat who and I haven't bothered to check, either way the effort was better but the result not what I should do.

So now I am back home in Anchorage for 10 days before I head down to Houghton, MI for nationals and the middle part of the season. I need to get skiing a bit faster than I am for the World Cups, otherwise race in the Midwest and make a little $$, not too bad either but the World Cup is where I want to be.

3rd gear

Today I was just stuck in 3rd gear, I felt good in a few sections but like one of the girls on the team said is just don't look like I have the same cadence as when I am skiing well. I ended up 12th about 1:50 back and in a distance skate race, that shouldn't happen. I don't think I have been out of the top 3 in a 10 or 15k skate for 3 years, so this was a little bit... I've done more than enough training, which is part of the problem. So all there is to do now is relax and rest up for next weekend at Soldier Hollow. The plan now is 2 days of rest and pretty mellow thru the week mostly just do enough to stay/get sharp and test skis. Saturday is a mass start skate which I couldn't ask for a better race or a better place to get back on the horse.

A great 10k...

Too bad it was a sprint day. I made it thru qualifying in 18th thanks to them taking 30 to the rounds in a relatively weak field. The course started with a 30-40 second climb then a downhill that you couldn't quite tuck then turn at the bottom for a longish gradual climb to the finish. The climb felt really good and the rest I couldn't quite get in a rhythm, but I made it thru. In the rounds I wanted to be towards the front at the top, relax to the bottom, and hammer to the finish. I didn't have any problems getting to the front at the top but I couldn't relax on the way down and then didn't have much left for the gradual climb up.

I felt good today and the course tomorrow is a good one and the first real one of the year. Been looking forward to that one for a bit. Until then...

Bozeman

We arrived in Bozeman on Wednesday to no snow and an announcement that they might cancel the races. Woke up Thursday to a snowstorm so once again the races were saved at the last minute. They were still grooming in the morning so we hacked around on a snowmachine trail and hade a late lazy lunch. They might not have a ton of snow here but they do have some good food.

Today we got to go up and check out the courses and they had to change them up a bit but they look to be in good enough shape and there is quite a bit of climbing on the distance course for Sunday which is a huge relief after West.

A little break

This past week was a surprise recovery week. Things have been rolling along better than planned so far this year but it has been starting to wear a bit. So rather than start digging a hole and get to the first races a bit flat I figured it was time to take a break. There have been few days off and a few days easy and tomorrow I do my first hard workout in a week and get to see how the body has responded to the break.

It's here!