And We're Off!

Cheering one of my athletes to a win in the girl's 4x100m relay

This past month of April has been a busy one. After returning from Craftsbury and ST Finals, I jumped immediately into coaching the Junior High track team at my old school. With a team of almost twenty athletes I have certainly been challenged by the job, as I have almost no experience with track field events. Fortunately there are some knowledgeable folks in the Methow who have stepped up to lend assistance from time to time, and with their help we're pretty handily winning all the meets we attend.

One of the other major tasks this spring has is planning my wedding in June. Alison and I have opted to take care of much of the reception planning and food logistics ourselves, so we've been scrambling to develop menus, source ingredients, and line up cooks to cover the day-of-event tasks. We have recruited some really fantastic folks to help us and we're really starting to get excited about the wedding, now that it's closer than ever!

Nikki taking a power snooze during our ski tour into Silver Star basin

Training has started up again, too. I took about a week and a half off in April before I started agitating to get going. My first few weeks of "training" weren't structured much; I spent a lot of time in the backcountry and getting my running legs under me again. Also, in a change of pace from the last few years, I'm back in the weightroom three days per week building some strength.

Hill sprints = Power building

Finally, we kicked off the new season of training (officially) on Monday. This year's focus shifts us a bit away from what we did last year with so much aerobic work; this season will look to maintain that aerobic system while bolstering and solidifying my anaerobic and power bases. These have traditionally been my strengths so the hope is that once they're back up to a high standard, the three systems working together will provide me with a great racing engine.

More to come!

Blegh. And maple syrup.

The briefest of notes about today's 15km CL mass start: woof. I was pretty tired coming into the race after four starts in the last five days, and definitely felt the fatigue in my legs at the start line. Because of yesterday's finish I was seeded 8th in the mass start but quickly lost the leaders and from that point focused on staying smooth and conserving my power for the long climbs without totally blowing up. I kept dropping farther and farther back but just didn't have the gears to make up time. Not the best day.


After the race I took the opportunity to replenish my spent glycogen stores with some tasty Vermont confections at the Mansion House Sugar Farm in Johnson, VT. This weekend is Vermont Maple Weekend and a lot of the sugaring shacks opened their doors to visitors to share samples of syrup and other maple products. My folks and I had some "sugar-on-snow" - reduced maple syrup poured over snow which then cools to a taffy-like consistency. Also, maple creme donuts. That helped recovery.

Sampling the different grades of syrup

This particular sugar house processes between 700 and 1300 gallons of syrup a year, in a season which generally spans from January to late March

Super Tour Finals - Prologue

This morning was the 3km prologue of ST Finals in Craftsbury, VT. The organizers here have done an astounding job of preparing this course despite record high temps in the 70s all last week. The weather is starting to turn now and it got just cold enough last night to firm the track up a bit. I felt pretty good this morning in my warm up and despite not being able to test skis myself, MWSC coaches Will Sweetser and Seth Hubbard did a great job on the boards and gave me confidence when they handed me my skis before the start. Nordic Ultratune's m1d grind continues to fly in these conditions with my SC camber Madshus skate boards.

The ribbon of snow...it has been non-stop work for the course crew to keep snow on the ground. They're laying down snow from a stockpile until early in the morning and then grooming around 3am.

The prologue is perhaps one of the toughest races to do. It's long enough to where you need to have some semblance of pacing, but short enough that you have to go really hard the whole time. Basically I skied the first lap like a sprint then tried to do it again, and when the bottom started to fall out about 500m from the finish, tried to hold on as best I could. I ended up 8th, 21sec out of 1st. Not a bad start to the week and it gives me a great start position for tomorrow's 15km classic mass start. Former MOD athletes and Methow natives Sadie and Erik Bjornsen both racked up some great finishes in their first races on domestic soil in a few months - Sadie was 3rd and Erik tied for 3rd with USST member Noah Hoffman. Good to see the Methow packing the top ranks in the nation!

Canadian Nationals Sprint

Last week I was in Mont Ste Anne, Quebec for some races at Canadian National Championships. I primarily wanted to focus on the skate sprint as I knew the Canadian National Team guys would be home from Europe and their recent successes and corresponding points profiles would make for a competitive and fun event. I've been fortunate through this Eastern racing series to have been taken under the wing of Maine Winter Sports Club coach Will Sweetser, who has been providing amazing ski service and will continue to work with me through Spring Series.

But to the sprint. The course, which for the entire week had been slush and mush, was generously salted the night before the race and firmed up really nicely. The qualifier had some icy sections and some wavy sections but mostly was firm and fast, just my type of skiing. I had really fast skis thanks to Will's superb waxing and an Ultratune M1d grind, and qualified 11th, about 5.5 seconds out of 1st (Harvey) and right in the mix with some strong World Cup skiers.

Leading out my quarterfinal - me on the right (111), Harvey on left (101), Darragon behind (121)

My quarterfinal was quite a doozy. It consisted of, amongst others, Harvey and Roddy Darragon, a veteran French World Cup skier. The start area was quite small and only had three lanes, so the first three guys picked the front and the last three had to stand behind in a second row. Being third ranked in my heat I picked a lane up front. Out of the start I double poled hard and seemed to get a little ground over Harvey and Nish, who both then apparently tangled up and I think Harvey broke a pole. I suddenly was in the lead by about 5m and found myself leading the charge. I tend to not like leading in sprints as it leaves one prone to attack and being overwhelmed in the latter half of the race, but with the circumstances such as they were I put the accelerator down and went for it. I led over the first big climb, down a hill, over another, and into the stadium. There was a lot of commotion going on behind me and I could hear poles breaking and see coaches running from the sides to offer replacements. Occasionally my baskets would get stepped on so I knew all the racers behind me were jockeying hard.

At the far end of the stadium Harvey made his move and shot strong forward beside me. At that point I hadn't realized Darragon was so close, until he slipped right in behind Harvey, and ahead of me. As we turned into a short, steep pitch Nish and I were side-by-side and at the top he got the inside corner and pulled in front. At that point we were on a narrow lane and I skied hard to maintain contact. Coming down a short bender and into the finish stretch we all pulled hard for the line. I ended up about 2sec behind Harvey and a little less than 1sec behind the other two. Because lucky loser was determined by heat time (akin to the World Cup format), finishing fourth still gave me a chance at the semis. I waited until the end of the quarters to find out I just missed the cut, along with a few other Americans.

Needless to say, Canadian skiers are A BIG DEAL. Harvey, Kershaw and Valjas were mobbed by media, autograph-seekers and well-wishers everywhere they went. There was a low-flying film helicopter during all our heats taking video and tons of fans. It was quite a different feel than racing, even US Nationals, in the states. And the level of competition was certainly elevated; definitely a worthwhile experience, esp. given that they ended up being my best sprint points of the year.

Now I'm in Craftsbury, getting set for Super Tour Finals this week on a narrow ribbon of ice, dirt and rare snow bits. The organizers here are putting forth a superhuman effort to get these races going and I'm psyched to see so many athletes out enjoying preparation. When there's racing fever in the air it really doesn't matter what the conditions are; everyone will have fun and go like hell.

First race tomorrow: 3km skate prologue. More to come!

Off to the Finals...

After a four week training block rotating intensity every other day, it's finally time to get back on the plane and head to the last races of the season. I'm going first to Quebec to compete in the skate sprint and 15km skate race of Canadian National Championships. Then it's on to tropical Vermont for Super Tour Finals and the National 50km Champs. Interestingly, the only other 50km I've done was the Craftsbury Marathon, my freshman year of college. Hopefully this time around I won't bonk like a fiend...

Most important thing when heading into a spring racing series: fresh Nordic Ultratune grinds. Specifically: i5. Booyah.

Methow Endurance

When you spend the vast majority of your time in pursuit of athletic success you're bound to get pretty involved in the process. For the past two years Alison and I have talked each others' ears off about running, skiing, and endurance training and preparation. How to do it, what to focus on, what is and is not working, etc.

Recently, we came to the conclusion that with all this generated knowledge and enthusiasm, we should put it to work by helping other folks do similar things we strive for in sport.

Introducing Methow Endurance: a Mazama-based coaching and training source for endurance athletes of all ages and abilities. We currently have on our schedule two camps for this spring - the first is a Women's Running and Yoga retreat which reprises a very successful format which Alison began last year. The second is a Spring "Jump-Start" clinic for runners and skiers to learn how to best utilize their time and energies and how to direct them at getting faster, and fitter.

Learn more about what we're doing at the Methow Endurance blog or Like us on Facebook.

Weekend Clinic

Yesterday I led an all-day clinic for Methow Valley Nordic, our locally-based ski club dedicated to establishing and maintaining the strong ski community here in the Methow Valley. MVN is a very generous sponsor of MOD so I was excited for the opportunity to give back to some of its members by imparting some of the technical knowledge Scott and I have worked through over the years.

I've come to believe that the best way to teach someone how to ski is to understand how the best skiers in the world are doing it, and then adapt those techniques for other levels of skiers. With that in mind, I started both the classic and skate portions of the clinic out with some video analysis of top skiers, highlighting the emphases on weight transfer, forward momentum, and complete motions. We then spent about two hours with each discipline outside on the trails in Mazama, working on hills, transitions, and flat ground.

All of the attendees left the clinic with a markedly-better understanding of technique and much improved form in their own skiing. After seven hours of instruction they were still raring to go, so I considered it a success.

If you're interested in becoming a member of Methow Valley Nordic and participating in any number of the clinics and camps they offer throughout the season, go to www.mvnordic.com.