I’ve been in Alaska now for about a week.  I would have been here sooner, but I ran into some airport trouble.  In total, it took me over 2.5 days to travel from Duntroon, Ont to Anchorage, AK- where I spent a week before coming up to Fairbanks.  At one point, the airlines considered sending me to Tokyo because that was the fastest way they could find to get me to my destination.  Awesome.

I didn’t quite go to Tokyo, just Juneau.  Where I spent 9 hours in the airport, as my plane had broken down, again.  You can imagine my ire towards Alaska, considering the last time I was here races were cancelled left and right.  But the next morning brought blue skies, and beautiful skiing.  I hit up Kincaid Park, saw some moose, and reveled in the March Madness (I’m definitely going to win my pool).  I even went for a hike and checked out the mountains.  Pretty cool area they have up here.

That’s all in the past.  For now I’m in Fairbanks, the temperatures are rapidly rising, and I think there just may be a great race series on the horizon.  Redoubt has exploded, but the ash is miles away.  Temps are in the 20s.  The snow is fantastic. Conditions are fast. We have a quality field with the top Americans and Canadians.  I’m trying to suppress the optimism but it keeps oozing out.  It may not be like the spring series’ of old, but this should be a great way to close out the season.

First it’s wicked cold, then it is balmy, then it is way too warm, then it’s wicked cold again. The weather in MN over the last month has been all over the place, but one thing has been constant: the racing is as competitive as ever. Here’s a recap:

City of Lakes Loppet:
Bjorn Batdorf was the skier of the day putting in a huge effort to close the gap on Anders Asthus and Nikolai Anikin on the lakes near downtown Minneapolis. He then laid down a great sprint to beat Anders to the line and win his first major race. I saw this all happen from about a minute back as I just didn’t have it over the last few k’s and finished 5th.

Mora Vasaloppet:
This is my favorite race in the Midwest! It is my hometown race and I have had particularly good luck over the years with the hometown crowd pushing me to the line each year. This year it was Matt Liebsch putting in an impressive day and skiing away from the group. I skied about 30km by myself after I got dropped from the lead pack, but still had a nice ski coming in 7th.

Snowflake:
This is a little 10km that Gear West puts on the weekend between the Vasa and the Birke. Bjorn, Ben Popp, and I hammered it out with Bjorn just taking it at the line. Bjorn’s in great shape this year, not bad for a med school student. Speaking of, Carolyn Bramante is another med school student lighting it up on the Biathlon circuit and skiing at World Champs.

Birke:
The big one in the Midwest couldn’t have had better conditions this year. The snow was great, despite the half inch of fresh snow they decided not to groom which really made things slow. Matt Liebsch used the perfect combination of power and wicked fast skis to pull away and ski down Main Street by himself. I got yo-yo’d off the back of the lead pack at about 11km and then got swallowed up by the next BIG pack a few k’s later. I ended up skiing with this pack to the finish, which included Matt Weier, good friend Ben Popp (who is doing solo RAAM this year – crazy!), and a bunch of other guys who just wanted to hammer. I couldn’t really ski harder than the pack was going, but threw down a pretty decent sprint on Main Street to finish 29th. The Factory Team had a great day with 5 of the top 6 women and Rebecca’s stretch to the line to take the win by just an inch.

Well, the big races are over here in the Midwest. It has been a great winter and we just got hammered with about a foot of snow so there should be skiing for a little while yet anyway. I’m just psyched to get out a few more times and pull Anders around in the Chariot!

Keep skiing!
Chad

The Boulder Mountain Tour has come and gone and I am happy to say that we had a fantastic day. In typical Sun Valley fashion, we were greeted with sunshine, blue skies, a perfectly groomed course, and just all-around pristine conditions. It was impossible not to smile as the gun went off at Galena Lodge at 10am. The superb conditions made for fast times, and the top men completed the 30 km course in approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes, with the women just 5 minutes behind. Mikey had a strong race, skiing in the lead pack, taking one of the preems, and sprinting to the finish to take 4th overall. He was the obvious home-town favorite and was cheered along by the locals all the way to the finish line. 

The women’s race proved to be a strategic one- a group of five of us broke off the front right from the start and skied together for the majority of the race. Four of us were Factory Team skiers (Rebecca, Laura, Evelyn, and I), and Nicole DeYong (Fischer-Craft) was right in the mix. We skied together until the second preem, where Rebecca made a move and broke off the front. Laura, Evely, and I tried to keep her in sight but she proved herself to be the strongest of the day, winning the race by over a minute. I outsprinted Evelyn for 2nd, while Laura came in 4th, and Nicole 5th. It was an impressive day out there, skiing with such strong women and pushing each other mentally and phsically. Congratulations to Rebecca and Zach Simons (Rossignol) for taking the overall wins! And contrats to the Factory Team women for sweeping the podium…we’re already looking forward to next year.

The SuperTour has finally made it to Telemark and we’re enjoying warming temps and new snow! Lars, Kristina Stranberg, Mikey, Fabien and I (Kristina T-S) are happy to be out in Wisconsin, and Mikey, Fabien and I are enjoying the wonderful hospitality of Dennis Kruse (thanks Dennis!). The sprint races went off yesterday without any glitches. 10-15 degrees, hardpack conditions, and a small but strong field of racers. The 1.5 km course was surprisingly difficult, comprised of 2 long, grueling uphills and fast, sweeping downhill turns. The small field size called for a modification of standard sprint protocol, and only the top 8 advanced to the heats. Our team had a solid day–I won the women’s qualification, Strandberg came in 5th, and Mikey was 7th for men. Lars is resting up and cheered us on.

The heat were smaller than normal- four skiers in a heat and we only had to do Semis and then A/B Finals. The awesome grooming made for wide trails and crashes were minimal, making for fairly clean heats. Fast skis proved to be critical, and there were many upsets on the final downhill coming into the stadium. Mikey finished 2 in his B final, and Strandberg and I finished 3rd and 1st in the women’s A final. Thanks to Fabien, our skis were consistently fast and we had an awesome day. And thanks to all the volunteers for all your work! We’re psyched for the weekend distance races….

More to come….

Hello from a frosty Anchorage, Alaska!  Two huge events takes place in Anchorage this month.  The first event is Alaska’s 50th Anniversay Celebration of Statehood.  It kicks off on Jan. 3rd at the Civic Center (check www.anchorage.net).  The second big event is the one I am most excited about:  US Senior Nationals.  

If you are coming to Nationals and you  haven’t started the travel yet, don’t forget your long underwear.  We are in the middle of a nasty cold front that is sitting over the entire state.   Let’s just be happy we will be racing in Anchorage and not Fairbanks.  As I write this post it is -42 degree F in Fairbanks, way too cold for xc ski racing!  

Several teams have already arrived and Kincaid park is full of skiers testing the courses and preparing for the races.  Conditions at the ski area are really nice with hard pack tracks, cold and humid snow.  Today VR30 kicked well and Zach Caldwell’s cold grind ZR1 worked really well.  Most weather forecast are calling for a brief warming this weekend with a high of 15 degrees F. That should feel like a heat wave after this cold spell!   

For the inside stuff on the Factory Team for Nationals, this is the lineup: Tad Elliot, Lars Flora, Mike Sinnott, Andrey Golovko, Justin Freeman, Kristina Strandberg, Evelyn Dong, and Kristina Trygstad-Saari.  All of us are looking forward to what should be a really good week of racing. 

The Saab/Salomon Factory Team wishes everybody a Happy New Year and we hope to see you out on the trails!