Making Skiing

By Brayton Osgood

We got the inevitable pre-Christmas rain storm here in Vermont on Sunday. 35-40 degrees all day and raining hard at times. Most years that would make for brown trails, but we had plenty of snow to handle the water. Now that the temps are back below freezing, things have frozen up pretty hard. The perfect powder tracks are a distant memory, but the pole track firmed up quite a lot and things are fast.

I spent a good chunk of yesterday driving my parents' snowmobile and tracksled around the trails here on Dusty Ridge. Probably three and a half hours through the day yielded 10-11k of pretty good skiing this morning. Good skating I should say, putting in a classic track with our equipment is close to impossible right now. It's good for me to get out grooming at least once a winter, mostly because it reminds me how much work it is to make good skiing. It's back above freezing this afternoon, so unless I go back out again tonight, I'll be on boilerplate again tomorrow.

As a racer I'm pretty lucky, in that just about every place I ski is getting ready for the upcoming race, and so is putting a tremendous amount of time and energy (not to mention fuel) into making their trails as close to perfect as they can be. I guess it makes me a little spoiled, and it's easy to get frustrated when the tracks aren't perfect.

I guess I'm getting at a big thank you to all the groomers out there who toil away in the dark making race trails for us. We couldn't do it without you. Now if I only had a Pisten Bully with a tiller to drive around...

Early Season Races in Review

By Colin Rodgers

The first part of the racing season is now over and it is time to really start firing the body and mind up for finding the next level of speed on the racing boards. Overall, I would say my results have not been what I desired this early season, but right now I am in a good place. Ketchum is getting hammered with snow and the skiing is perfect! I am not skiing too much right now as it is getting to be tapering time for the biggest races of the season, but it is a challenge to hold back when the white stuff does not stop falling from the sky.

What I learned most of all this first month of racing is how I need a good pre race effort in order to ski remotely fast on race day. I would say I had two performances in this first period that gave me a good feeling about my racing- the NorAm classic sprint in BC, and the 15k skate on Sunday. Both of those days followed hard efforts the day before. My other races- the 15k cl in West Yellowstone, 15k sk in BC, cl sprint in Bozeman, and cl sprint in Soldier Hollow, were all poor and although I tried to do speeds the day prior I frankly just felt flat each time.

The first good race I had was at Sovereign Lakes in BC. It followed a somewhat disappointing finish in the NorAm 15k skate the day before in which I pushed really hard but did not go very fast. The sprint day felt easy though. I qualified on skating gear in 5^th and rolled on in every round no problem. I wanted to be closer to Stephan Kuhn who qualified fastest, but I have been improving in qualifying so I am headed in the right direction. I ended up 3^rd overall and was treated to standing on the podium which is always sweet. The double poling felt good all day long and it just faded a bit in the end otherwise winning the race was very realistic. The two Canadians, Roycroft and Widmer, were not too far out of reach.

My second encouraging performance was in the 15k mass start skate on Sunday in Utah-(again following a disappointing day one.) Skiing up those hills at Soldier Hollow felt easier than they ever had before. I really like skiing mass start 15k races. They are perfect for me because I feel like I can push hard the whole way when I am on. 30k though still feels like threshold skiing for me. By the end of the season I plan on being able to hammer an entire 30k, but so far it has not happened. Anyway, Sunday I skied with Johnson for the last 7k or so and it was fun trading leads and learning from a very smooth skater.

Early on the excitement of skiing in a pack kept the tension high. There were a few big crashes out there. Brian Gregg, of CXC, I heard finished his race on a broken ski and Jeff Ellis, of APU, screwed up his shoulder pretty good after going down. Whoever thinks x/c racing is not exciting needs to be pushed down the whale’s tail at SoHo surrounded by 30 guys going 35-40 MPH and then have the guy leading throw their skis sideways to come almost to a stop. Trust me if you don’t bite it you will at least have the hair standing on the back of your neck and a good adrenaline rush.

While finishing 7^th is not amazing, I did have a strong feeling in my body and being aggressive the day after a tough sprint day is an indication of good fitness. Now with a little more rest, some hard intervals, and some speed the next two weeks I am excited to see what I can put together the first week in January. That is when it really counts!

An Old Man's Reminiscence...

By Andrew Johnson

This past weekend we were hosted by Soldier Hollow for the last Super Tour stop before the Christmas break. The crew of Soldier Hollow staff and race volunteers did an incredible job as always at creating a truly quality event that was made even better by perfect weather. Cold and sunny…that’s how I like it!

I always like racing at Soldier Hollow. For one it’s pretty much a home course for me. Secondly, I’ve been racing and training out there since they first broke ground on the venue. I think that was in ‘99. Well, I know ‘99 was when I first saw the place…they may have started carving some of the trails out of hills and hollows that make up Soldier Hollow a year earlier. I’m not sure as I’m getting old and my mind is quickly softening but I know that Soldier Hollow has been a very big part of my racing career both as a training site and one of the world’s best racing venues.

I have a lot of good memories from “SoHo”. The first time I raced there was for Senior Nationals in 2000. I raced my first 50K that week. That was fun; I was nervous about the whole pacing thing and so I let the lead pack get away from me a few k’s into the race. I ended up skiing about a minute behind the leaders, by myself, for over 40 kilometers. I learned a lot that day. The next year I skied my first World Cup when Soldier Hollow held a “pre-Olympic” week of racing. I was 25^th in the 30 k skate race in what was probably one of the most fun races of my life. In 2002, the Olympics! The 30 k skate race there was the first event of the Games, on a cool, sunny, classic SoHo day. And that race was the most fun race of my life. I was 21^st and still remember throngs of people chanting my name on the uphills and yelling “U-S-A! U-S-A!”.

Not all my races at Soldier Hollow have been so fun. The 50K classic at the Olympics was one of the last events of that two weeks. That day was dark, windy and very rainy as I recall. And that 16.7 kilometer loop was one of the toughest I’ve ever skied. Long hill after long hill…with a bunch more long hills to follow. Times three loops. To make things a lot harder we missed the wax that day. I think the problem was that the klister binder we used was too hard for the conditions and the top layer of klister sheared off. I had great skis for about 10 kilometers before I realized that this was going to be a very, very long day. Long story short I ended up double poling and herringboning the entire second loop before stopping at about 35 k to re-wax! One of the coaches handed me a tube of red klister and a cork and I put it on. I’d like to say I put it on as fast as possible but I was so tired at that point that I think I kind of enjoyed the break. I put so much red klister on my skis that I could barely glide the last 15 k’s. But I finally had kick and that’s all that mattered to me. Although that was a tough day I was really proud that I finished the race. I wasn’t last and I didn’t stop for that chocolate bar that Gordon Lange offered me at 40 k. I wanted to though!

So, what I’m trying to say is that I really like Soldier Hollow. And this past weekend we had enough snow to race the 15k on the Olympic 5 k loop. The loop has been modified slightly since the Games which bums me out a little…that original course was so great! But it’s still mostly the same thing and although I didn’t have one of my more memorable races yesterday I still had a lot of fun. The snow and course were so fast that there was some pretty exciting racing. Large packs chasing each other down and super fast descents made for a classic SoHo day!

Superior Skiing

By ADAM SWANK

While I do feel very fortunate to have a flexible work schedule, there are still occasions when conflicts between work and play arise. As a result, I wasn’t able to get away to Utah for the supertour races this weekend. Instead, I did a weekend of racing closer to home, on the south shore of Lake Superior. Despite what racers who attended U.S. nationals in Houghton, MI last year believe, this area averages around 200 inches of snow each year. Last years snow cover was less than sparse through December and early January, however this year is looking promising.

Saturday’s race was an interval start 10 K classic at the Wolverine trails in Ironwood, MI. They had cut some new trails intended to add more climbing to an already challenging course. This trail system is one of my favorites because of its long sustained climbs that are very skiable, and the new section added more of the same masochistic climbing along with a screaming ½ kilometer descent into the finish. The tracks were deep and rock solid, and VR 30 grip wax was kicking well in the cold temps. I held a small lead the entire race until the final decent, when I was overtaken by fellow Duluth native Nikolai Anikin.

Sunday was a mass start 10 K freestyle race at ABR, also in Ironwood. Eric and Angela at ABR have also made improvements in their trail system over the off-season, and these were quite evident in the race course as well. The mass start went off without a hitch, and I assumed the lead on the first major climb, never to look back. The course has two significant climbs in the first three kilometers that separated the field immediately. The pitch of these climbs nearly necessitates single sticking, however in a 10 K race with a solid groomed track all of the leaders were able to V1 the hills today. The rolling hills of the rest of the course follow the Montreal River for a spell, and then return to the hardwood covered hills before one final climb prior to the stadium. All trails were plenty wide for today’s mass start event. A win today for me capped a good preparatory weekend before the U.S. nationals, which will be held just up the shore of Lake Superior, in Houghton, MI in two weeks.

Snow is like sex - you never know how many inches you’re going to get, or how long it will last.

Today - I raced

By Kate Whitcomb

I had a lot riding on today’s 10k - It was my first Super Tour of the season after missing the first 5 and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t anxious for it.

Arriving the night before, I was tired but mentally ready. I shut out the 24 hours of poor rest and training leading up to the race and focused on the present – there is no reason to dwell on things past.

I woke up this morning to a perfect day. The track was hard, the boards were fast (thanks Hallsey) and my result was a good one -5th (13.5 seconds out). My season has begun!

I have been healthy for over a week now, knock on wood, and I am starting to absorb the intensity training. I am coming around and I am recharged mentally. US Nationals is next – the first race is the 1st of the New Year and they are the final World Cup qualifying races. I think that I have cut myself out of skiing in Canada this year (World Cups), due to missing the first 5 qualifiers, but I could pull it off with the right results at Nationals (those races count double). If I am skiing fast enough, I will make it. I will leave it at that and stop trying to calculate my chances.

For full results from the Soldier Hollow Super Tour, click HERE

The Sprinting is Coming Along...