Skijoring 2 Laps - Highland 9-Hole

Downright balmy compared to yesterday although I did get cold fingers. Mellie had the dickens at the beginning, so excited. And she was dipping for snow throughout. Have to figure out how to get her to drink before training so she does not have quite that compulsion. Super conditions, in spite of the cold temps glide was very good and the wax seemed to hold on.

Summary

Name	Highland Skijoring 2 Laps
Location	Highland 9-Hole
Start Time	12/8/2013 8:12 AM (UTC-06:00)		Category	My Activities:Cross-country Skiing
Distance	7.23 km		Time	00:28:54.0
Time Moving	00:28:54.0		Stopped	00:00:00.0
Average pace	03:59 min/km		Max. pace	02:55 min/km
Average heart rate	148 bpm		Max. heart rate	160 bpm
Total Ascent	43 m +6 m/km		Total Descent	-41 m -6 m/km
Weather	Snow; -15.7 °C

Heart Rate

Splits: Recorded laps

Pace

Splits: Recorded laps

Elevation

Splits: Recorded laps

Created with Activity Documentation Plugin for SportTracks
(see http://www.sporttracks-plugins.com)

Early Season Skijoring 2012-13

Early season snow in 2012 made for a few nice skijoring outings and brought some hope and promise for a better season over last year. It was better alright, nine skijoring outings with 65 quality km for December-January, including the King Boreas race over last year's three skijors totaling less than 18 km for the entire season. Unfortunately, the snow on the trails that allow dogs was soon whittled away by thaw and rain events that left Mellie and me high and dry after the first January week.

January 4 at Highland 9-Hole Golf Course

It came to no surprise that after a week of forced rest, Mell was raring to go on January 13 King Boreas race, which had to be moved from Phalen Park in St. Paul to the man-made loops of Green Acres. Mellie was so excited to be out there and so unruly that I was glad for the help of a kind ski patrol person who helped to subdue the wild beast.

We are kind of wild before we start running.

When the start finally came, Mellie pulled me with such force that I lost my balance and sat down, fortunately in a position that only cost me a few seconds. She had also managed to pull apart the cheapo carabiner hooks I was using to secure the pull rope to my harness. The left separated just shortly into lap 1 of 3 and the right just before the finish, letting Mellie and me cross the line together, but without being tied up. We finished in the middle of the pack, Mellie pulling a solid performance without slowing down at all on Green Acres' lower loop.

Two cheapo carabiners were no match for the Mellster Unfettered. 

Good luck wrecking this new getup, Mellie! New and improved skijoring
hardware. Petzl Maillon Delta P11 8B (times 2, in steel), Attache 3D
(yellow) and snap shackle (brass)

As a consequence of the equipment failure I did some research, looking for appropriately strong and functional replacement hardware. I replaced the broken carabiners with two Petzl Maillon Rapide P11 8B Delta for the sides (opting for steel rather than the much more expensive aluminum) a Petzl Attache 3D Screw-Lock Carabiner. These new components let the force of the pull go to the corners of the hooks, unlike with my previous setup. Equipment failure should not be a problem any longer.

In the meantime, I am hoping for more snow to do a few more practice runs at Highland 9-Hole, and also for the City of Lakes Skijoring Loppet.

City of Lakes Loppet Chuck & Don's Skijoring 7km

7 km is the original distance, two laps on Lake of the Isles. The two ersatz laps at Theodore Wirth added up to only 4.2 km, as per my Garmin watch. Shorter for sure but also zestier, because of the hills.

After joining the Sisu Masters Year-Round Group and starting preparations for the next ski season in May '11 I went out on a limb and signed up for a few races early: the Sisu Ski Fest in Ironwood, MI, which I later upgraded from 21 km to 42 km, both the Test Your Lungs skijoring and freestyle events and the City of Lakes Chuck & Don's Skijor and Freestyle Loppets. I was tempted to sign up for the Birkie, too, but changed my mind when I considered the numbers. As my buddy Gestur said, "that's 18,000 elbows and 9,000 a**holes."  I decided not to sign up for the Vasaloppet, either as it became obvious that this winter's snow remained mostly a pipe dream.

I couldn't do the Test Your Lungs because of my lungs, a nasty two-week cold with ear infection that put me out of commission. I declined to sign up for the Como Championships and the King Boreas skijoring race because they had to be moved to man-made loops at Green Acres. The Sisu Ski Fest Marathon was great, on fresh and real snow and I along with most other metro-area skiers was holding my breath about the City of Lakes events. One week before the event the organizers decided to move the events to Theodore Wirth Park man-made loops and it seems amazing that we are having the Loppet at all. I think if it hadn't been for the fog that blanketed the area for most of last week even the solid base at Wirth would have melted away.

For the first day skijoring event, which is normally held on Lake of the Isles I was a little worried because of my dog Mellie's propensity to turn around in steep downhills to grab the rope and there are plenty of downhills on this course and also because this would only be our third time out as a team this winter. Mellie was a trooper.

I took Mellie on a short warmup run but she was so excited that she made us fall in the first sharp downhill turn. So I brought her back, tied her up and reconnoitered the loop on my own. Turns out that the organizers did a good job routing the trails to make the hills more gradual for the event and my concerns evaporated.

Tractor-pulling dog

Because of the barking (including Mellie, the darn dog) I could not understand what was going to happen at the start area, which was quite narrow. The three first teams lined up abreast and were sent off, Mellie, who saw this from the third row went right after them. The officials jumped in the way and I looped back where they asked us to take of immediately. By now, Mellie was confused and had to be coaxed across the starting line. Once we got going she took things and the tow rope into her muzzle and we got going at a good clip.

That dog's got sisu! The first couple hundred meters I'm always pulled by
mouth. (Picture at Skinnyski.com by Marc Lahtinen)

Mellie's pulling the rope with her mouth got us delighted cheers from the spectators in the starting area. The woman who started with us had some trouble getting her dog to stay on the trail, whenever there was a turn, of which there were many, the dog wanted to go straight. We soon left her behind. We even caught up to a few people who left ahead of us or who had passed. Chris Sachs, one of of our sometime Sisu coaches and his German shorthair left us in the dust (and ended up winning the race).

Working hard



Fun with the turns. What a dog! (Thanks to Sarah Gutknecht for letting me
post this photo!)

Closing in on rivals

We actually had fun on the curvy trail, I just wish the snow had been a little better. In places, the sugar was ankle deep and the skis sank like in quicksand. Avoiding the occasional fallen skier added to the excitement. Mellie kept pulling hard during the first lap and about three quarters of the second. Only on the last hill did she slow down but did not hold me back. Great race, even though our nemeses Dallas and Comet Johnson and my doppelganger Chris Franken finished ahead of us.

Almost there!

Results

A nice video from Youtube. Mellie and I are about 2:08 min. into the video, look for the sweaty bearded guy with bad hair.

First Ski of the Season!

This Sunday we got to do what we had been waiting for a long time, we got to take advantage of the 10 cm of fresh snow (measured in my back yard) and head for Highland 9-Hole for our first time on skis and in harness. While the park was uniformly white, but the tracks showed grass. Thus, it was good that I had picked my old Landsem Telemark Touring with the big Asolo backcountry boots for this outing. Using the heavy things were not that good for technique but they sure as heck were good to build some strength, sort of like skiing with dumbels strapped to your feet. The forecast does not look that great for additional snow but since the temps will be dropping to about -15 C and staying below freezing for the foreseeable future, the little we have should last us some time.

First time out, trying to tame a black dog who appears to have
had too much black coffee ...

We did not see many other dogs but there were quite a few smiling skiers. Since trails had not been groomed we did our best to reconstruct our customary lap by following the tracks of skiers who preceded us and breaking our own trails. we did this two times and in spite of my weekly Sisu group I was sore from the workout. And I had the honor to file the first trail report of the season for Highland 9-Hole at Skinnyski.com!

Summary of Cross Country Skiing Season 2010-2011

Our trip to Breckenridge was a wonderful way to end this year's winter sport season. I had known by mid-January that this would be my best cross-country ski season to date, thanks to the fantastic snow cover. Like last year, I replaced my running routine entirely with skiing. Because of the low-impact nature of the sport, I was able to much more, a lot of it in the company of my faithful companion Mellie.

	Time	km	mi	km/h	min/km	mi/h	min/mi
Skijoring	18:25:08	264.63	164.43	14.37	4:11	8.93	6:43
Skate Skiing	11:57:53	150.91	93.77	12.62	4:45	7.84	7:39
Classic Skiing	5:59:33	55.52	34.50	9.26	6:29	5.75	10:26
Totals	36:22:34	471.06	292.70

Some thoughts on those metrics:

• Initially, I thought that my dog Mellie was slowing me down. While this may be the case for long distances, it is clearly not the case for the shorter ones, those under 10 km. Especially during races, Mellie was pulling hard.
• More than half of my activities were with that faithful canine. I am very thankful for the opportunity to be able to ski with a dog at Highland 9-Hole. I hope we will continue to be able to do so.
• While there was some improvements in my performance without dog, it was by far not as remarkable. I do need to work on my technique.

Skiing Breckenridge New Nordic World

The boys slept in this morning, i.e. when I made the wakeup call at 7:30, they requested another 30 minutes. They did get going shortly after eight. Joe was doing his morning toilette when I suddenly heard him call my name. There was something in the tone of his voice that made me think "emergency." Being afraid of mayhem or illness I was relieved to be greeted by I flood of water emanating from the overflowing toilet bowl when I opened the door. Joe had attempted to undo a blocked toilet using the brush, with no effect. Furthermore, the valve was stuck open and water was still flowing from the tank. I made him turn off the valve and had him use the bathroom rug to mop up the water, wringing it into the shower.

Part of becoming a man ...

I do hold him in high esteem to have done this unpleasant job with only as much as some gagging noises. A call to the rental agency got maintenance and housekeeping on its way. The whole thing ended up being a minor annoyance over what I had thought might be the stomach flu or a severed artery.

The boys were gone and I followed soon. I had called the Nordic Ski Center to inquire about grooming on the New Nordic World trails. I was told that the pisten bully was just on its way. So I went and checked out Mellie at the kennel and headed for the Peaks Trail parking lot, also the trail head for Gluteus maximus and minimus, the connectors for the Heavens Gate and Elk Dance trails. I started with two locals who were doing a quick run with their friendly golden retriever. I left them behind and began ascending Gluteus maximus. After about 100 m (which seemed to also involve an ascent of 100 m) I decided I would be in way over my head following this trail. I ate crow, took off my skis and slid back down to the intersection with Gluteus minimus, a narrow single track combined classic and snowshoe trail. I decided to keep walking. Some returning skiers reassured me that Gluteus minimus would soon join the maximus to terminate at Heaven's Gate. I am pretty sure I know why they call it Heaven's Gate, it's up-up-up. On top of a pass I spotted Hallelujah Hut, indeed a sight to behold.

You gotta be kidding? Up that way?

At the hut, I also joined my friends of the golden retriever and then took a break. A woman with four dogs came towards me and we chatted for a little while. It turned out that she was from Minnesota, too, but came frequently to her second home in this area.

Trying to get Mellie back into the backpack at Hallelujah Hut

After a short rest I kept climbing, made it past the cut-off (I did not have the taste for the full Elk Dance loop with, what the MN woman called the "nasty (down)hill." Some more climbing and I reached the intersection between the return legs of Elk Dance and Heaven's Gate loops.

Up, up, up, to the Heavens' Gate

Only now I fully appreciated the extent of my climb, the downhill seemed to go on for ever. I again carried my skis on the short Gluteus minimus stretch and did the final downhill towards the parking lot. In hindsight it might have been a better option for me to park at the Otter Slide parking lot I could have skated the entire way and avoided the parking competition from the (illegally) parking downhill skiers and boarders.

I returned Mellie, who by now seemed to feel quite at home at the Dog House and also knows the routine. I took a quick dip in pool and hot tub and received a picture message from James, who with Joe and Matt had hiked up half an hour to the very top of Peak 8 to do some more off trail skiing. Looks like that boy is taking after his dad!

James and Joe on top of Peak 8--and the world!

Skiing Breckenridge and Gold Run Nordic Ski Centers

I wish I could build in a few runs on the slopes to get James out of bed before school: so easy to get him up, here. We had about 2-3 inches of fresh powder at the condo and it was still snowing. There were some glimpses of blue sky. Routine as had on the previous day, except more efficient: getting dressed and geared up, cereal for breakfast, sandwiches, courtesy of paps and off they went with great plans for the day.
I was not far behind, having Breckenridge Nordic Ski Center on my mind. I arrived and noticed the freshly groomed trail, pristine, undisturbed cordouroy and no other cars in the lot. I bought my three-day punch card, had one of the friendly staff give me the lay of the land and was off.

I skied Troll Woods, a green trail as a warm-up and Beaver Meadows, a blue as a follow up. Indeed, neither trail held any technical challenge, all inclines were rather gradual but the difference in altitude was a bit more than this flatlander is used to. That, combined with the effect of the thin air made me stop to catch my breath a few times. All in all an excellent outing. It would be great to come out here early in the season to get some high altitude training.

After being done, I went to the grocery to shop for a steak dinner. Then I broke for lunch and waited until 13:30, the end of the rest time at the Dog House, where I wanted to check out Mellie for some skijoring. They got her and she was happy to see me and the harness in my hand.

Once back in the car, we headed for Breckenridge's Gold Run Nordic Ski Area. Like the area in Breckenridge proper, they had set aside their most remote trails for skiers and their dogs. This area was not groomed but at least the lower reaches of the Peabody Placer trail had seen enough use to be somewhat packed. it was a two-way ski-in and ski-out, I decided not to do the Preston Loop which had portions marked as black and because of the distance. It turned out that the entire "in" portion of the Peabody Placer trail is uphill, gaining about 130 m (450 ft) in little more than 2 km (1.5 mi)  and the consequently, the return trip down. Hard work for my oxygen-deprived circulatory system. The higher I climbed the deeper the snow became, adding to the workout in spite of Mellies efforts helping me.

But the Jumbo Overlook at the end of the trail was a nice reward, the clouds had broken and everything was bathed in bright sunlight. Turning back I appreciated how steep the climb had been. To avoid any tangles, I untied Mellie, who was happy to roam and greet some of the dogs that came towards us. When I checked Mellie back in, she was happy to leave me and followed the staff unconcerned. She is such a good and easy-going pup. One thing that amazed me was the area around Gold Run. It looked to me like there were scores of million-dollar homes, all in a log-cabin style, and more going up. Makes you wonder what kind of a recession we were in. Certainly not one affecting people in a certain income category ...

The boys returned after 16:00. It sounded like they had had an outstanding day skiing all over the mountain, a lot off-trail, befriending Matt, a young man from Cleveland of similar disposition who introduced them to some areas that they might have had a more difficult time to find on their own. We concluded this fantastic day with some excellent steak.

Winter's Back

It was inevitable that we would have some more snow and I am glad to report that the Twin Cities Metro area got a good foot of the fluffy white stuff. As expected, grooming at my two preferred venues, Como and Highland Parks were a little slow on the uptake due to the extra work the snow emergency had brought but a nice track was laid at Como and then at Highland. Sad to say that at the latter location, the meandering course was changed to a simple oval, not even half as long as the normal loop. But I am glad there is a groomed track at all and Mellie and I took advantage of it three times, logging quite a few of the short laps and running into our friends Tom and Mary on Sunday. Not a lot of traffic, doubtlessly due to the Birkebiner events in the Hayward, WI area.

The regular loop:

The shortened oval loop, post thaw and storm, set on February 25:

It's still evolving: as of March 3, adding a short loop. Creative grooming!

Spring Seems in the Air

Last week, I had been keeping a worried eye on the weather forecast. True, morning temps from Monday through Friday had been -18 C to -24 C, but for the weekend and the coming week, a major change had been announced. Temperatures up to 10 C and with that a major thaw, ending the near perfect skiing conditions.

I did my best to get some more skiing in. Mellie and I braved the cold on Tuesday afternoon. The week until Friday was too busy to squeeze in another session but we were out at Highland Golf course on Friday at around 16:30. The temperature had climbed from -19 C at 7:00 to +1 C when we started. The snow was perfect and we had a good two laps.

We were out there again on Saturday morning at 8:00. The temperature was still above freezing and like the evening before, conditions were near perfect for our three laps and we clocked close to our fastest pace for a practice run in spite of a couple of tangles and a fall due to a dog with spring fever.

I was glad to have been out that early for the remainder of Saturday saw a strong thaw. I cannot say that I did not enjoy the warm temps but I regretted the melt.

When James requested a ride to Afton Alps ski area I embraced the opportunity to get another ski in, certainly the last one before another shift in the weather, at the state park next door.

All uphill from here, NE corner of Afton State Park 

Afton State Park is classic only and has an extensive trail system. One of the challenges is that the park consists of a plateau delimited by the deep St. Croix Valley on its eastern flank and divided into a northern and a southern section by Trout Creek valley. The descents into these valleys are quite steep, fortunately the trails are wide and allow for breaking. From the trail head near the visitor center I descended into the valley of Trout Creek and skied north as far as I could along the St. Croix. Before the steep climb at the northern edge of the park, I applied some Swix Violet Extra, which provided the necessary kick.

I love the landscape at Afton SP, the ravines leading to river and creek valleys and the open prairies on top. I enjoyed the sun out in the open though I noticed that the snow conditions were deteriorating rapidly. Dark litter such as bark, scat and even leaves had started to sink into the snow. The difference in glide between shade and sun started to be very noticeable, there was hardly any glide left in sunny spots. At one point I fell head first into trail-side powder when I emerged from shade to sun on a downhill stretch and my skis stopped dead.

I returned to the St. Croix Valley via a long forestry road that challenged my snowplowing muscles. Here, I was glad for the slower snow. The steep climb back to the parking lot rounded out this challenging 14 km outing, likely the last one for a while. I will have to look for my running shoes if I plan outdoor exercise in the near future.

City of the Lakes Loppet Skijoring Race

A week after the King Boreas Race (results here), it is time for the City of the Lakes Loppet. Mellie and I had participated in the Skijoring Loppet last year, and after a promising result (38th out of 124 entrants, see here) we decided to definitely be part of the event again this year. After last week's encouraging result at the King Boreas Race in St. Paul, I was looking forward to an improvement over last year, even considering the longer distance.

Lynn decided to accompany me, to cheer me on, experience skijoring and to take pictures. We arrived at Lake of the Isles, parking near the skating rink with just enough time to make it to registration to pick up our package and bib. The volunteer signing me in gave me a puzzled look as he glanced from his check list to me and back to the list. It turned out there was me, Christian Franken and a Chris Franken. I could help clarifying, assuring him that Christian was my name and that the other Franken was a woman. How odd is this? He checked and double-checked my bib number to make sure there was no mix-up between Chris and Christian.

Patient pup!

I headed back to meet Lynn and to begin the long wait (about an hour) before start. Mellie and I had to take evasive action in order to avoid being in the way of the sprinters. We dropped our stuff, posed for pictures and said hi to some of the many dogs. After the sprint race was done, the skijorers' meeting got under way. After that was done, Mellie and I went for a little jaunt, mostly to drop her excitement to a bearable level.

Mellie was very good waiting those last 15 minutes, mostly. There were a lot of excited dogs and some of the handlers had their hands full. Some of the scenes were quite hilarious, with handlers ending up on their rear ends and at least one dog making a short-lived escape attempt. Lynn, Sharon and Peggy told me later that there was all kinds of mayhem during the start proper.

The "oomph" as the line snaps tout

On our way!

Thanks to our decent finish last year we got a higher wave placement, just behind the elites in row one, thus fortunately we were spared any tangles. We were not able to match the speed of many of our opponents and concentrated on keeping an even pace. Mellie did very well, staying out of the way of other dogs and skiers and pulling hard, especially when pursuing other competitors. We came by  a wipe-out of one of the elites, a woman with a team of German shorthaired pointers. She was picking up hat and GoPro camera as we were skiing past. Within a few minutes they passed us as if nothing had happened and managed to finish 5th.

Starting the second lap.

In the meantime we finished the first lap, Mellie continuing undeterred by the crowds and were catching up to a group of four teams, two male (including Dallas and Comet) and two female. We continued with them from about half-way through the second lap to the bridge.

End of second lap.

One of the dogs, another labrador-type seemed very friendly to his comrades on the other teams. His owner, a very strong skier was rather handicapped by his teammate, I think he might have been able to get away from us without him. Once under the bridge, the women fell behind. Not sure what happened, they lost 20-30 seconds on us over the home stretch. It turned out that one of them was the mysterious Chris Franken.

Chris Franken on my heels.

We finished behind Comet and Dallas and the other guy, in 17:37 minutes, 13th out of 37 teams in our category. Awesome time thanks to Mellie! For full results, see here.

Did I do a good job??? Yes, you did!

Full picture set can be found at my Shutterfly.com share site.

Upgrade to Skijoring Quick-Release

After last week's King Boreas race I must have dropped the quick release bail in the snow. I had changed my setup to comply with new racing rules which requires the quick release to stay on the skier's belt rather than on the tug line. Makes sense, would not be fun to be hit by a 200g piece of metal at the end of a rope tied to a fast-moving dog ...

Anyway, I needed a replacement before the City of the Lakes Loppet, none of the local hardware stare carried something like it and I could not wait for mailorder to arrive. I thought of sailing and after a little research I found listings of a piece of hardware called a snap shackle. I called my friend David, xc-skier and sailor, who directed me to West Marine in Bloomington. I made the trek before the race on Saturday morning and was glad I found one, much lighter than my old one and quite a bit cheaper than similar versions sold by skijoring supply vendors.

I decided that a swivel, which more than doubles the price, did not add enough usefulness and stuck with the fixed bail snap shackle for $15 or so.

I added the para cord for ease of operation.

King Boreas Skijoring Race

Mellie and I had been working towards this date for quite some time and here it was: the 7.5 km St. Paul Winter Carnival skijoring race. We had been putting in at least 15 km, more often 20 km per week at Highland 9-Hole, our training grounds. The last couple of times, Mellie had started to focus and keep the line tout, or at least out of my way, I took this as a good sign.

The week had been mild and the snow felt sluggish, I had just not gotten around to get some fluoride glider for the conditions but I did as good of a job waxing and prepping the skis as I possibly could. My heart sank when I checked with one of the participants in the 15 km race and he said "fluoride, lots of fluoride." However, when I stepped into the skis, it did not feel bad at all, the glide was much better than what I had expected and what I had experience during the days leading up to the event. 

Mellie was excited to rub noses with lots of her brethren, most were very friendly, a few were a bit antisocial and another few just scared. We warmed up on the trail before the kids came back from their race and scrambled out of the way when they got in sight. During the skijorer's meeting the rules were explained. The main one being to be nice to the dogs and another one not to pass back right after being passed by another team. Easy in practice, at least as the passing was concerned. 

Another few laps on the start/finish area, waiting for the stragglers from the kid's race to come in and it was time to line up. A lot of very excited racing dogs and their owners! At that time I wish I had had a handler, like some of the teams. I later heard that my friend Joel had tried in vain to find out where race was going to be held. I have to agree that the St. Paul Winter Carnival documentation did not make it easy to find out more about the events at Lake Phalen.

Here we were, without a handler, listening to the countdown and off we were. 

We were able to avoid getting tangled with our neighbor's lines and made the sharp left onto the trail with quite some speed. We were quickly passed by some of the faster teams, some dogs like to pull better than others and some owners ski better than me, But wow, was Mellie going. Like last year, we had the issue with the rope going under her midriff, but it did not seem to bother her. this may be a inherent flaw in using the guide harness in a rig: easy to fix during training but not during a race. Maybe also the remedy to Mellie liking to grab the tow in her mouth. 

No worries about her wanting to do this today, though. She--we that is, were moving. Passing the slower ones and being passed by the faster ones. Passing the ones who stop to do their business, on the side of the trail or more frequently on the trail. And passing the ones who simply stopped trailside to investigate some lovely scent. 

The latter was actually quite amazing and funny. Someone passes us, leaving us pale with envy over their athleticism, technique, style and sense of ski fashion only to pass them again a few minutes later when the dogs in the team decided to sniff the roses. 

I was amazed by the speed sustained by Mellie. She obviously did not want to be left behind by the faster dogs. I was worried that she might just tire after a while; we are a fit team and 7.5 km is close to our regular distance but this speed was quite a bit faster than usual. 

After about a third of the race, the field had stretched out enough for us to recognize our true opponents. First, there was #359, with a two-dog team, Weimaraners as far as I could tell. The other team, #357, consisted of a guy my age and a fast-looking hound (Dallas and dog Comet).  Anyway, we seemed to be trading off the lead in our small group, testing the passing rule. At one point, the two-dog team almost took a wrong turn and lost some time and at another moment the hound needed to use the trail-side facilities. but somehow they always managed to catch up with us again. 

Neck and neck with Dallas and Comet. Dallas is calling 

to his dog to keep going and NOT to say hi to his family

(thanks Dallas & Comet, for sharing this clip!)

The decision was made two turns before the finish, when the Weimaraners called trail to my left and hound called trail to the right. in the middle of passing, the two dog team slowed down sharply and Mellie got almost tangled up in their line. we hardly slowed down and kept up slightly behind #357. On the home stretched I pushed ahead and we pulled even while passing the finish line. It seemed to me that I was a step ahead, this was confirmed when the official results were released.

Mellie and I finished 9th of 18 overall, 1st in our age group. Our official time was just over 21:01. The fastest either one of us has ever gone! I think we are ready for next week's City of the Lakes Loppet event. 

The results can be viewed on this page, courtesy of Endurance Promotions

Pre-Storm Skijor

The augurs of the elements had been unanimous on this one: around midnight on Friday we were to get a good dumping of snow, lasting through at least the entire Saturday. This made me think that Saturday skiing might be challenging, if not impossible, certainly no fun. I was excited about the prospect of solidifying the until now fairly skimpy snow foundation with something more substantial but I did not want to miss out on a day of skiing. So I decided to to take advantage of a beautiful late Friday afternoon and do a couple of laps at Highland.

Mellie, pulling hard!

After work, I changed into more appropriate clothing, grabbed Mellie and the GoPro Hero HD and headed for Highland. Mellie was giddy with excitement and I have to admit, so was I. Much busier during daylight hours than very early mornings or late nights. Highland HS XC Ski team was out and various other skiers, too. After the arduous task of strapping on my skis with an hyper-excited dog tethered to me, I got moving. Some skiers were really hogging the skating lane, two and three abreast; fortunately they scrammed when they saw the Black-Lab-Express bear down on them. One group had another black lab, this one on the lose. He ran over to be friendly with the Mellster, it barely slowed us down. This first lap was likely our fastest at Highland, and the combined two laps was too.

The video was not ideal, because of the sea-sickness inducing motion of my head, and even more so because of a slight mis-orientation of the camera, showing rather more sky than necessary, and not enough dog action. I take it more as a proof-of-concept and will try experimenting.

First Skijoring this Winter :)

I damaged my good Atomic Race Skate skis last Sunday at Como in a relatively minor stumble. I did not even hit the ground, but Finn Sisu declared them unsalvageable and said I should stop by to make sure the new ones would fit my weight.

I thought I'd be out a significant wad of cash and I was somewhat taken aback when I saw my old bindings already dangling from a brand new pair of skis. What if I would opt for a less expensive pair I thought to myself. Anyway, I stepped on the skis and they were declared a good fit. I asked what the damage would be and was told in no uncertain terms that there was none, as my old skis were already on the way back to the factory. I was stunned. Another five minutes, time it took to have my bindings professionally mounted, I walked out of Finn Sisu with a brand new pair of Atomic skis in hand. They got themselves a loyal customer yesterday!

I had to try those skis and went out with the Mellster in tow (or more precisely I being in tow of Mellie). So I donned ear muffs, a headlight, my lobster claw mitts and at 5:30 AM with a starry sky overhead and a brisk 3F and crunchy snow on the ground, we were the only ones at the Highland 9-Hole course. Of course that is not counting the three deer that Mellie thought would be a fine breakfast for a physically active dog. Fortunately, I knew from experience how to divert a dog with deer on his mind: I reeled her in on the pull rope and lifted her a bit, something she very much dislikes. The second lap was one of our best, Mellie being very focused, not pulling to hard but leaving no slack in the rope either! A great way to inaugurate those new skis!

City of the Lakes Skijoring Loppet

Today was the big day, The City of the Lakes Skijoring Loppet! We drove to Lake of the Isles around 11:30, quickly found a parking spot near the warming house by the skating area and skied over. I tried a new technique to prevent Mellie from chewing up the rope: I gave her a tennis ball to carry. It worked!

The staging area was a veritable zoo, dogs and people and bicyclists from the bikes on ice race taking place while we picked up our bib. We met many nice dogs and people. Unfortunately, Mellie got a bit too friendly with a little boy and pushed him over in her exuberance. His parents were very kind about it but I felt so bad.

We met up with our friend Sher Stoneman, who had been wanting to take some pictures of Mellie and me skijoring, thanks to modern technology we met near the parkway bridge, on the Lake of the Isles side. I am grateful that she came and she certainly took some great pictures. We chatted a bit and then moved to the start. Being in the second wave we could see how the pros were doing it. Most of them had handlers along that held their excited dogs back.

You can see the tug line going under Mellie's stomach. From Skinnyski.com

My concern during the start was to avoid getting tangled up with other skiers' tug-ropes, a valid worry, if you care to look at the photos at Skinnyski.com. Mellie ran nice and straight, as I suspected, the presence of other dogs was a huge incentive, getting her competitive juices flowing. Somehow she got the tug-rope caught under her belly and I couldn't free it until about the middle of the race. That probably cost us three or for places in the rankings, if not more. After we had the rope freed, she pulled way better.

Photo by Sher Stoneman, from Christian's Running Blog

And then the stumble (red marker on map): the snow on and after the ramp from the lake to the mall was very deep and mushy, kind of heavy, too. This is where the race organizers had needed to cart in snow from the outside and it was not premium quality. We made it up the ramp but when it leveled off one of my skis dug into the soft snow and I fell flat on my face. Fortunately I could get up without having to roll around but it probably cost us another two or three places!


View City of the Lakes Skijor Loppet in a larger map

For Mellie and me it was still a success! We placed 38th out of 124 total and 17th in our (Recreational) category, finishing in 10 minutes 41 seconds! (See here for the results). I have to say that per my Garmin Forerunner 305, the course is significantly shorter than the advertised 4.5 km (3 miles): I clocked only about 3.25 km. Now we know what to expect.

On the home stretch, seconds after kissing the snow.
No time to re-cap my head.

Mellie seemed a bit shell-shocked, so many dogs in one place! She was trooper, though. I wish I could have gotten that tug-rope out from under her belly faster. The only place where she got a little confused was between the phalanxes of spectators, especially on the mall. she wanted to stop to say "hi" to people but did continue. Mellie slept hard after we came home.

While walking back to the start to retrieve our bag, we heard all of a sudden "Nice shirt."
It was Jerritt Johnston from the Minnesota Orienteering Club (MNOC), volunteering for the Junior Loppet. Besides Sher, he was the only person I knew.

From Christian's Running Blog

Night Time Skijoring at Highland

Great night skijoring at Highland 9-hole golf course. The surface was soft and fluffy from the 5 cm of fresh snow. It did not look like it had been groomed but many skiers had used the trail before us. Oh well, made for a better workout.

Saw a very bright shooting star in the west, when going up the first hill, along Edgecumbe Pkwy during our second lap. So bright in fact that I first thought it was firworks.

Mellie was getting tired during the third lap but she hung in there. Picked up her pace considerably when we had a chance to pass a fellow skier. I hope her competitiveness bodes well for the City of the Lakes Loppet Skijoring event this Saturday! We really fly when she gets going. Maybe she'll feel animated by the dogs who will be ahead of us.

Planning to be out there again on Tuesday night!

Skijoring Review 2008 to Now

Have been at this for a little more than a year now and it has been a lot of fun. Last year I mostly used the classic technique. I switched to skating at the beginning of this season. What a difference, not only the switch in techniques, but also the work into improving my skating.

The quality of snow and track plays a role, too and there is the ever fickle mind of a labrador retriever. I chatted with a skier at Snowflake Nordic Ski Center,  who had just completed a lap with a sled dog type breed. Mentioned that I skijor with a lab and she said "oh yeah, labs are either on or they are off."

All my skijoring outings were at the St.Paul Highland Park "Executive" (i.e. 9 hole) golf course. A good way to get metrics. The variables were daylight or darkness, snow conditions, temperature and the canine factor (potty breaks, deer pursuits and other forms of criminal mischief) I measured my progress using a Garmin Forerunner 305 and uploaded the results to Garmin Connect (GC) and Garmin Training Center (GTC). I manually extricated the data from GC (after almost two years of development, GC is still very much a work in progress. still no way to easily export to something as basic as  .csv). I used Google docs (don't you just love cloud computing?) to create the charts below.

Snow quality is definitely a factor. The ups and downs on last year's chart (classic striding) illustrate this. Note how much faster I became once I began skating. My two initial outings were on a pair of 20-year old beat-up heavy-as-hell back-country skis. Still, much faster than last year's diagonal stride. The real improvement kicked in when I began my skate skiing lessons in early January. Of course, dog and man are becoming a better team, too.


View Skijoring Highland in a larger map

Unless Mellie (the dog) becomes more cooperative, I have reached the maximum speed skijoring, at 27 minutes for two laps totaling 7 km, in the dark. I have not done the course without canine, but I venture to guess that now, I would be faster without her.

From Christian's Running Blog

From Christian's Running Blog

More skijoring in Highland Park

James' first hockey practice after holidays provided a good excuse for a quick jaunt on the Highland trail. Mellie in tow, we started at around 4:00 PM. The sun was setting and the temps had started to drop again from its high of -18C (0F). There were a few other skiers out, judging from the cars. I thought we'd do our usual two laps but in the end, we were in such fine shape, we added a third lap. Finishing the 3 times 3.5 km in just over 42 minutes, we had another personal best for this track, in spite of or maybe because of the grim cold. Another reason for our high speed may have been the presence of another skijorer. Unlike Mellie and I, that man and dog were a pro team. The guy was a top notch skier, and the dog, something that looked like a black lab mix, ran fast, without being distracted by flying clumps of snow. In passing, he snapped at Mellie, as if to say "what are you bloody amateur doing in my way?" Mellie felt motivated to pick up her pace after they passed, but we were no match to them.

Today's data at Garmin Connect.

First activity in 2010: Skijoring at Highland 9-hole and Gear Review

Trying to beat the arctic cold forecast for the next few days, I got out at 3:30 PM on New Year's Day 2010 to celebrate with a quick skijor. Mellie is always a willing partner, when she sees the harness, she gets very excited, as this video will illustrate:

I was also looking forward to trying out the new pull rope I had just assembled from 1" tubular mountaineering webbing and 3/8" shock cord (both bought at REI). Mellie had destroyed the polypropylene rope that I bought from Nordkyn, a skijoring outfitter, within a few outings. She gets kind of wild and wants to help pulling by taking the rope into her own hands or rather fangs. Polyprop may be light and strong, but it seems to be more susceptible to a dog's biting action.

Tape and double shock cord loop with
carbine hook

   

Quick release hook (the cheapo version)
tied to the other end of tape and cord

In the interim, I had replaced the frayed polyprop rope with a sheathed steel cable. Rather less bite-friendly heavy. Not that Mellie or I couldn't bear the weight, but as soon as the line went slack, the cable was under our feet and skis (see the video).

I pulled two strands of 7' shock cord through a 9' lenght of mountaineering tape, sewed on a loop on each end, and voila, I had a nice, self-contracting pull line, not as lightweight as the polyprop line but certainly sturdier.

The guard harness (I selected the neoprene option) and SKJ5 hip belt I bought at Nordkyn. I see now that they have an option for a water bottle and a little pouch, too. I always take a fanny pack for poop baggies.

Mellie taking things in her own fangs. Note the guard harness from Nordkyn.

When we started, there were quite a few people on the trail. I wonder why some decide to go against the one-way. Well, as long as they stay out of my way, I don't care. Mellie did find the new rope chewier than the steel cable, but the self-contracting feature made up for this, and I can take the rope into my hand and haul in the dog, which she does not appreciate.

After a short while, we were off and had a good run. At under 30 minutes for two 3.5 km laps, our fastest one yet!