What a busy weekend.  Even and I drove up to Mora on Saturday morning to race the new Vasaloppet sprints at 2:30.  Brandon Ostroot came up with us and gave us ridiculously fast skis for the finals and my teammate Andre Watt took 1st with me a very close second.  That evening all the guys crashed in a hotel room in Hinckley while Marybeth and Angie (Evan’s wife) stayed in another room with the kids.  The idea was that the guys would sleep better without the kids waking us up in the middle of the night… but as it turned out the teenage kids getting smashed in the room next to us was more of an issue than our own kids getting up for bottle feedings.

The morning of the big race I woke up feeling less than good but I was not very worried because my best races this year have happened when I’ve felt less than ideal in the morning.  All the prerace activities went well and I got to the start line with plenty of time.  Once the cannon sent us on our way Andre and I went to the front right away and pulled for the first k or two but it was so fast we still had a group of 30+ skiers.  We moved aside and let others do work for the next 30min but after this our group was still huge so Andre and I took turns breaking off the front of the pack and making other skiers chase.  A little bit of team tactics but nothing unfair.

This is where it gets fuzzy but I let Andre get away with 40k to go and he really got away.  The group I was with could not see him and I was sitting comfortable in the group wondering what I should do next.  With 37k? to go I broke away from the chase group and bridged to Andre after 5 min of very hard skiing.  I caught him and we skied together for another 5 mins.  I was very worried the group behind us was going to reel us in so I pulled very hard.  With 30ish K to go I turned around and no one was behind me so I had a decision to make… do I go now and try to hold the lead for 30+ K into the wind or do I wait for the group and try to go later in the race.  I decided to go for it and it ended up working although I don’t think it was the easiest option.  At one point the chase group was close enough to see but thankfully a twisty wooded section ensued and it was out of sight out of mind.  I was never sure how much of a lead I had so I pushed hard to the end and found out I had a 5 min gap at the finish line.  It was a weird feeling being chased for that long but it was a very fun race and I am feeling good today.  I am so happy I finally won the Vasaloppet after being close the last 2 years.

Today was a special day for Grant… his first time on skis!  He is only 11 months old but has been walking for the last 3 months.  Some people said I should have had him on skis before he could walk but I think before the age of one is pretty good.  He was able to kick and stride a little bit and I was very impressed until he fell over and started to eat snow.  Next time we will work on double pole once I get him some short ski poles.

Getting the skis on…

Getting going…

Standing up…

Kickin and gliding!

This past weekend included some great races at Telemark Resort in Cable, Wi… home of the American Birkie.  I raced well with an 8th and 5th place finish on Saturday and Sunday, but the fun thing was the entire CXC team raced very well this past week which was great.  Bryan Cook won the classic 10k race by a good amount with Watt, Kuzzy, Gregg and I finishing within 8 seconds of each other in 5,6,7 & 8th. Gus finished 16th which is amazing since this is only his second race of the season since he is recovering from surgery.  It was a good classic race for me… especially since I am not as keen at classic versus skating.

The 15km skate race on Sunday was a lot of fun.  I lead too much of the race but was fearful of skiing in the group and risk breaking a pole or having a crash.  My race strategy was a be as close to the winning time as possible so I would hopefully get some very good points for making next year’s Olympic team.  Points are based on percentage of time back and field strength.  I finished 7sec back on a 33min race with a strong field… should be some good points.

Here are a few pics from race day on Sunday.  It was a lot of fun having Grant, Marybeth and my Dad at the races along with my mother and sister in-law, Sherri and Emily.

Grant getting a race feed.

Grant asleep after a tough race for Daddy.