It’s pretty obvious to anyone who has been shoveling the last few days that our winter is back on. This is the point in the ski season when it is sort of difficult to motivate for training and racing. On the other hand, conditions are great and the next 4 weeks of racing feature some really fun events. Paraphrasing my college coach, “Everyone will drive 15 hours North to find snow in December. When they have great conditions on their front doorstep in March, they don’t bother to get on the snow.” It’s really true though.

Maybe just pick two races to do instead of doing all four. Focus on technique. Do some adventure skiing somewhere new (up the fiberboard freeway maybe?) The race today was a great return to our usual winter conditions, and the good base makes the next month very promising.

I hope to see some busy ski trails!

Hello from West Yellowstone, Montana.  Sorry about the lack of bloging the last few months. Life kinda spun out of control.  Anyhow, do to lack of snow many of the races I planed to do this winter got postponed or canceled. As a result of our poor snow year I have only raced twice since the beginning of January.  One race being the 10^th Mountain Biathlon at Auburn Ski Club, I fell on the second lap breaking my pole and fell again on the start of the third lap broke my binding. Luckily, I had a warm up ski in the stadium to replace the broken binding ski and Glenn provided me with a spare pole when I came into the range. With all that drama, I still finished second behind Jordan McElroy.  Besides racing very little I’ve had lots of time to get some good training when usually I spend my time racing and recovering. After Nationals I plan on racing the Mammoth Biathlon, Tahoe Rim Tour, and the Billy Dutton Uphill.

We have solid California representation currently at US Biathlon Nationals.   Glenn Jobe is coaching Britt from Mammoth, Sam Zabell from Truckee, Rick Eckert from Reno and myself.  Jordan McElroy from Truckee is participating in a USBA junior camp and is being coached by USBA.  Also, Ted Hulbert from Palo Alto is competing this week in West.  Today was the sprint competition; overall the shooting was our weak link especially standing.

Far West Placing in age group:

Phillip Violett-5^th 7misses

Britt Cogan-5^th 7 misses

Jordan McElroy- 6^th 6 misses

Sam Zabell- 11^th 8 misses

Ted Hulbert- 6^th 4 misses

Rick Eckert-10^th 9 misses

Hope the rain at home turn to snow.  Good luck to those who participate this weekend in the rescheduled Snowshoe Thompson at ASC.

Training has been a bit sporadic these past few days. I’ve done all of the races that I had scheduled for myself at the beginning of the season, and my training has reflected it this week. no direction. I’ve been doing whatever I’ve felt like doing for training, and it has been kind of fun. I’m going to try to keep some of the intensity up to stay sharp for the rescheduled Tahoe Rim Tour in April, but it’s beginning to feel like I missed race season entirely. Hopefully this new snow storm will remind me of what winter feels like.

 

Here’s a band my sister showed me a long time ago, but she has only recently convinced me they’re worth a listen. Plus, who doesn’t love a stop-motion video. The band is Trampled By Turtles, and I hope you like them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT8gaiNVqOM

-G-span

 

After the Great Race got cancelled because of lack of snow – on the day we got a bunch of new snow, unfortunately – I decided I would drive up to West Yellowstone for the Rendezvous. I had to get some revenge for my Birkie. This time I wasn’t going to freeze. All bundled with balaclava and all, this one went a whole lot better. I ended up 5th, only about 15 seconds from the podium. It was a really fun race. And a tougher workout than anyone could have imagined when we woke up to blistering winds and 5″ of new snow on the track. You know it’s slow out there when the winners are in the 2:40 range. Way fun though. And great to mix it up for real with all the old Idaho master blasters from back home. A few Far West folks made the trip as well.

As an addendum  to the Birkie report, here’s a great part of northern Wisconsin: live bait in gas stations.

That was a crazy race. I started in the first wave, where there’s about 700 or so skiers all jostling to get a spot on the front line before the start. As soon as the official lets us move up to the line, it’s a mad dash to the line. I did my best from the front of the mass of people, but still only ended up getting a spot in the third row. Stage one over, 54 k to go.

I got out to a decent start, was moving up steadily, then got tripped up in the first 1.5 k. Just as I finished passing all the people that had gone by at the top of “power line hill” and was descending down the back side, I thought, “dang, it’s really cold here.” It was about 10 degrees, but the sun was still below the trees and the humidity was high (at least compared to Nevada). 8 k in I caught my Colby college buddie Jeremy Blazar. Two man wolf pack. Time to start catching some elite wave skiers, baby!

But another 10k later I started to get really cold. Another 5k and Jeremy dropped me as I began to shiver on the downhills. Then the birchleggins crowd and other gray old master blasters began to blow by me. I was practically walking. At the second to last aid station, with 12 or so k left, I skied up to a volunteer with feeds and said, “I need a coat”. She said, “You’re coming with me.” Inside the warming hut, I was given massages, hot drinks, food, and a spot next to a wood stove. For 20 minutes. Until I finally stopped shivering. Then, determined to finish, I took off with a donated purple patagonia sweater beneath my race bib.

I felt great after that as I slalomed through about 200 people on my last leg – many of whom were old skiers and tourists wearing bulky clothing under their bibs just like me. The crowds on the last stretch were awesome, and I had a blast soaking up the Birkie madness.

All in all it was a great day and a ton of fun. It was also a great learning experience: wear plenty of clothing and eat a lot, especially early in the race. It’s easy to ski a bit overheated; skiing frozen is slow and dangerous. Hypothermia isn’t fun and isn’t something to mess with. Lesson learned.