Skating the North Half of the Birkie Trail

Left the house around 4:20 this morning, picked up Dayton in Shoreview and after a short pit stop in Hayward arrived at the County Highway OO trail head at 7:40. 

Pristine corduroy on the Birkie Trail and I'm the first to ski it!

We were the third car in the parking lot and since the others were skiing south, we skied on pristine corduroy for the first 15 km. I took a wrong turn and ended up having a little escapade on the classic trail. I took my first rest at the highest point of the trail at 527 m (1730 ft) where I had a good drink and a Hammer gel. 


Warming up my Hammer gel under my hat, next to my skin. Easier to suck it
out of the tube that way ...

On the way to the northern trail end, I skied across a few trails that were in today's North End Classic race. Dayton saw our sometime coach Andrew Tilman in the crowd, he won his age group. Skiers were warming up when I passed the start area and I finished the two km to the end of the skiable trail. Another Hammer gel pack and a good drink, a chat with a North End Classic volunteer who finished the end of his shift witha ski back to OO and off I went again. 

Had to wait for just a moment as a siren signaled the start to the race. On the way back, I had to hesitate a few times to let the racers pass. Stopped again on the apex of the Birkie trail, only for water this time. The hills felt harder as I got closer to the starting point but I made it. 


Finally skiing on real snow! The temps climbed from -15C to -5C during my ski and the total climb was 490 m per Garmin Connect, and 910 m per SportTracks, both with elevation correction enabled. In spite of the discrepancy between the two products doing a ski from OO to the start of the Birkie and back has 100 m more of climb than the Sisu Ski Fest in Ironwood.

City of Lakes Freestyle Loppet

Like Chuck & Don's skijoring event yesterday, today's freestyle loppet was a shortened substitute for the full event. I parked at Mortenson's Construction (quite the campus for a builder) right next door to Breck School. I had been in that parking lot for Colin's high school hockey games a few times but it had been at night in the dark and I would have never guessed that it was adjacent to Wirth Park.

After taking the school bus (did you know that school buses have "Body Fluids Cleanup Kits?") shuttle to the main parking lot, I hiked back to the lower stadium area. On the way there, the classic skiers who had just finished were coming towards me, including Vinu from work, whose wife and in-laws had participated. Fun to see him! I now recall that he had told me that his wife and entire family were big time into the sport.

I switched from shoes to ski boots and parked my stuff in the coral. In order to kill some time I went to the vendors tent and checked out the wares. Chatted a bit with the owner of RollerSkiShop.com. I do own a pair of theirs and am quite happy. My only regret is that they do not have any classic models or even wheels. To my question on that subject he said that it was too big of an investment for poor chances of return. I guess I will have to bite the bullet and acquire a more expensive model. 

Start of wave 5/6. I'm in center, bib 5029.

By now it was about 15 minutes to the start and I headed back. The 5xxx wave was allowed to line up ahead of the 6xxx skiers and I found myself next to MNOC club-mate Jim Mullins in the very front row. On the other side was a kid sporting St. Paul Central HS Arctic Commando suit and I chatted him up. Turned out he was a 2003 grad. Looked like a strong and competent skier and he ended up being the only one to round me, during the fifth lap. 

After we got going it became very quickly apparent that this would be a hard five laps. The entire loop, especially the uphills were solid ice, covered with very lose sugar. On stretches with deeper snow, it felt like the skis sank and it required some effort to pull them out again. On the steeper downhills, the sharp turns quickly lost this cover and became bare ice. The trail-side volunteers heroically jumped into gaps between skiers and raked snow back on. After the early frenzy of passing stronger skiers, I settled into a routine, staying with a lose group for quite for quite some time. I seemed to be doing better on the uphills while the others had an easier time on the downhills and the few level stretches. Towards the end of lap 2, I began rounding the first of  my cohort. During the following laps, the slower skiers became thicker and it took some effort during the uphills and some daring during the downhills to keep passing. There wer not too many falls, I was glad for that especially on top of the hill adjacent to the tubing area, as the choices were deep snow that could stop you cold in your tracks or bare ice. 

The official City of Lakes Foundation clip for my race. Afraid I look the best at start and finish ...

I think I managed my stamina well, as I was able to accelerate during the last lap. A kid from NDSU stopped for water at the upper stadium, I passed him and didn't see him again till we finished. I felt it was a good race, finishing a little ahead of the middle of the pack overall, in men's and in my age group.

My results--Overall Results

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.

Sisu Ski Fest Marathon

I had signed up early to participate again in the Heikki Lunta Half Marathon in Ironwood, MI and planned to do the Birkie this year when I realized in September that the Birkie has 9000 participants. Since I am not one for big crowds, I switched from the half to the full distance when I got a re-confirmation email from the race organizer. As the date approached I became a little worried of having committed to the longer distance. On on side, the lack of snow and consequent missed opportunity to have long distance training sessions worried me, but on the other I had participated in one of Sisu Skier's Year-Round groups and also trained some on the Twin Cities' various man-made snow trails (Theodore Wirth, Green Acres and Elm Creek Park Reserve). On the last weekend prior to the race I had a couple of fast and long (25+ km) sessions at Elm Creek, and the only reason this did not cemented my confidence was the fact that there were no hills.

I had come across the Sisu Ski Fest because it coincides with our traditional ski weekend together with four families of the Lexau clan, which has been going on for more than 20 years at one location or another, the past half dozen years or so, when we escaped the multi-year snow drought in the Cable, WI area. When I arrived in Ironwood, I heard that the trail conditions were soft again, due to the 18" of snow the area received in the past couple of days. However, it was still much better than the previous year.

Joel kindly gave me a ride to ABR and took the "before" picture. I did a few warm-up lengths and immediately noticed that the base felt soft and the skis felt slow. I wondered whether the Rex LF Black plus  RCF White had been the right combination. I spent some time in the warming house, waiting for the departure of the freestyle 42K. It came quickly enough, as I walked out, the Elites were sent on their way with the blast of a shotgun. Ten minutes later it was my turn. I started farther back in the pack, not wanting to get into some sort of a pile up. But no worries, there weren't that many in the second wave and the field stretched out quickly.

Fairly early in the game, no ice in the whiskers yet. (Photo: Linda Slining)

I did not have very good glide but I was hanging in there. Soon, we were doing the Peltonen Pass Out outside loop for the first time and the steep uphills were testing my cardiovascular system. The soft snow was rather helpful during the equally steep downhills, providing good control in the sharp turns. I heeded coach Ben's warning "Snowplows will be shot on sight" and quick-stepped on the outside of the turns. Overall it seemed that I was doing generally better during the downhills, open field and gradual climbs while I was really struggling during the steep climbs. I am generally a strong climber and wonder whether everyone else had better hill training or better glide wax.

I took one small tumble on the Coyote Canyon loop, near km 13 or so, a moment of inattention. I was back up quickly enough and unscathed, but the incident left me winded. I took a moment at he km 14 aid station to suck my first gel pack and drink a couple of cups of water.

Beginning to pass the classic skiers who started 30 minutes before us in Coyote
Canyon. Told #115 that he must be my Doppelgänger because of the orange top.
(Photos: Linda Slining)

The climbs were moderate, until we returned for a second round of Peltonen Pass Out. Boy, those were hard and I was glad when we moved onto the easier portions at the north end of ABR and then into Norrie Park and the long stretch connecting to the east side of Ironwood. I started also to notice a soreness on the outside portion of my right deltoid muscle, which stayed with me for the remainder of the race.

I was mostly skiing by myself now, only occasionally catching up to another skier or being caught by a pursuer. A couple of the elite classic skiers from the 21K event caught up with me, and as I reached the outskirts of town, some of the skaters passed. I did quite alright and I passed one of the skiers with whom I had been playing tag when he took a breather at the bottom of a hill. Feeling rather cocky and knowing that I only had about 3 km left, I kicked it up a notch. Maybe I shouldn't have, as all of a sudden I felt the start of a cramp on my right inner thigh. I immediately slowed down and a group of four skiers including the guy I had just passed zipped by. This was the last serious uphill of the race and I was cautious not to aggravate the cramp. By the time I made it to the top, the cramp had subsided but the group was too far away for me to catch them. So I did my best to make an effort on the last 1000 m through the city of Ironwood.

Passing the "Finnish" line. Must have left my form behind where I started to
cramp up. (Photo: Joel Alter)

 I was glad to pass the "Finnish" line, glad for the helpful volunteers undoing my skis and for Joel's friendly face and camera work. I was tired and sore but had no trouble walking to the place were our gear packs awaited our arrival. I quickly changed into a dry top, impressed with the good organization which included ministrations to an exhausted skier who looked who was shaking and looked rather grey in the face.

As evidenced by the frost I kept my cool throughout the race. Thank you for
operating my camera, Joel!

I was rather behind on my expectations for myself and I am not sure where I was lacking. The snow was a lot better than during the previous year, even doubling the distance, I improved my pace by 15 seconds from 4:56 min/km to 4:41 min/km (4:34 min/km for the first half, which was much hillier than the actual half marathon distance).  Of course, the snow conditions were quite a bit better than last year but I do hope that part of the improvement is due to my Sisu Year-Round group's relentless work on technique and specific strength and endurance training.

Another disappointment was that I finished farther down in the field as I expected. (see the results, here, Individual and Full) My expectations must have been way too high, all I had for comparison was my one other race, last year's Heikki Lunta Half Marathon, an altogether different distance and a much smaller group of competitors. Based on the first half of my race I would have finished in the middle of the pack of my age group and closer to the top tier in the men's division. So this is a learning experience and I do have to work on improving my long distance performance.

Sadly, I am not sure whether I will make the Sisu Ski Fest next year, as it is held on January 12, on the weekend before Martin Luther King Holiday, which falls on the 21st in 2013.

This was a success, after all, I am not doing this to do better than others but to improve myself. I finished the race, was able to walk away from it and put in a nice 11 km loop with quite a few good climbs in the Wolverine Nordic Ski Area the very next morning. I do have to say that the glide was much better ...

2011 Year-End Summary

2011 presented a shift in my physical activities. By joining the Sisu Foundation's Master's Year-Round Ski Program, I was part of a focused training effort for the first time since I was a member of LAC Eupen during the 1980s. Being part of Sisu also affected my other activities, especially running. As a consequence, I  felt in better shape than I had been in years.

On the downside, I was plagued with a slew of minor but annoying injuries, especially in my knees. Turning 50 this year, I guess my age is making itself noticed and reminds me that high-intensity training must be consumed with care. With the help of Dr. Abraham, my sports physician at HealthPartners, I was eventually able to overcome all of these small ailments and by the end of the year, I was able to rid myself of most small aches and pains that had been plaguing me for years.

I'll start with my cross country skiing regime since this involves the Sisu program I joined. The '10-'11 winter was probably the best I have experienced since I moved to Minnesota in 1989. Snow, and lots of it, enough to weather any of the thaws that ran interference. That meant cross-country skiing and skijoring, a total of about 400 km. I entered two skijoring races (King Boreas at Phalen Park & the Chuck & Don Skijor Loppet at Lake of the Isles) and the Sisu Ski Fest half marathon in Ironwood, MI. I was happy with my results as improvements over the previous year indicated that I must be doing something right. As the ski season fizzled in March, I had one last adventure when I accompanied James, my younger son and his buddy Joe to Breckenridge. While they covered the on and off piste areas of Breckenridge, Mellie and I took care of the cross country ski trails. It was fun, but for such a short time it was hard to get used to the altitude. I was yapping like a puppy, especially during the first two days. Oddly, the real puppy Mellie did not have any issues, she seemed even to look at me in a funny way like as if to say "what's wrong with you, usually you set the pace."

As mentioned above, I joined the Sisu Year-Round group, meeting every Tuesday at Battle Creek for dryland ski technique, specific strength and endurance training. Our main coaches Ben Popp and Mike Nightingale did a great job leading us, correcting us and motivating us and it was good to be exposed to a variety of skiers at different skill levels. The cardio test which we had every two months led Ben to suggest some training that impacted my running as well.

With all that preparation we were all eagerly anticipating winter and a snow pack to match last years. Unfortunately no such luck, one of the warmest and driest Decembers on the books and we are lucky that several places around town make snow for xc-skiing (Theodore Wirth in Minneapolis, Green Acres in Lake Elmo and Elm Creek Park Reserve in Maple Grove). I did not participate in any of the races, I had to forfeit he two (Test the Lungs freestyle and skijor) I had signed up for because of illness (head cold and ear infection, nasty).

As usual, the first run of the season was followed by some sore leg muscles. I am promising that I will keep up a light running schedule even in the middle of winter. After that, I fell quickly into my running routine. After an early season bike ride with Jack and Martin from work, I experienced some knee pain left. I took it easy even though running did not seem to aggravate the aches. I eventually caved and went to see Dr. Abraham at HP Como. She did not think it serious but recommended stretching ("You are pretty stiff") and "listening to the knee." Consequently a big change in my running routine began, something I should have done years ago. During my years with LAC Eupen, no training session began without first a light 10 minute jog followed by a 15 minute stretching and core routine. From now on, I ended every session with 15 minutes of stretches. The results were quickly noticeable, my chronic back pain eased and eventually vanished, and the knee aches began to subside, too.

These troubles made me also take another look at the wear patterns on my running shoes. I had noticed before that my right shoe was slightly worn in two locations, the very tip and the outside of my heel. My current Nike Air Pegasus + 27 had the same wear, here is a picture after about 620 km.

I don't think the wear is excessive for 620 km. However, abrading the tip of my
right toe like this does point to some inefficiencies and a lack of equilibrium in
my running. The sole of my left shoe is worn perfectly uniformly.

Never thought much of it but as I took the Nike Air Pegasus Trail WR into service, I decided to do start an experiment: I would begin alternating direction of my customary routes. Heretofore I had always been running them in a clockwise direction. Switching off like that is probably better for my joints, too. Will see if this makes a difference.

One of the recommendations coach Ben had made was to work in some 2-3 hour long sessions, biking or running, keeping my heart rate below 130 bpm. So I started to add two to three long runs per month to my routine. The biggest challenge for me was to run slowly enough to keep my heart rate low and steady. I did not find the distance overly taxing, my legs were tired but I did not have any issues with sore joints.

I had some fun running in Belgium and France, for the first time with my boys, especially Colin did a great job hanging on. I also reconnected with an old school mate, Reinhard, who met me for a jog around the Eupen Talsperre (reservoir). In France, near Eze, I did some serious hill work between the Corniches overlooking the Cote d'Azure.

I participated in eight orienteering meets and vetted the Veterans Day Night O with setter Pete Wentzel. I wasn't so happy with my results this year, rather than speeding up I need to slow down and take time to read the map and make better routing decisions. I contracted two major heel blisters at Chester Woods, courtesy of My Inov-8s and a toe injury at Interstate Park when I stepped into a hole and hyper-extended my left big toe joint.

I ended up aggravating my sore knees further by trying a boot camp class at the YMCA. I dropped out after two sessions and returned to Dr. Abraham for some further diagnosis. After some additional pulling, twisting and bending of my legs she declared also this newer injury less than serious and she prescribed further stretches and some strengthening for the quadriceps' vastus medialis, which she declared "mushy. "

After my poor start to the cycling season I did not have the stomach to get onto more longer rides. It did not help that I had changed jobs and that my new place of employ added about 30 km to my 45 km (two way) commute. However, there was light at the end of the tunnel as my new company was going to move in, making bicycle commuting an option again. I had put my injury woes behind by the time of the move in early November and I decided to take one ride, on the second day at the new office near Hopkins Cross Road and Wayzata Blvd. Except for some cold toes it went very smoothly and, due to the absence of real winter I repeated the ride in the week before Christmas. In spite of a little additional distance compared to my previous commute to Eagan I find this ride a lot easier due to the fact that the majority of the stretch is covered on trails. I am looking forward to many rides during the next warm season.

Run with a Jolt?

I have added a couple of short jogs to my workout schedule, mostly as a warmup for the stretching core strength exercises which I now do after each run. Another beneficiary of these early morning activities is Mellie, who loves going for a run with the master, especially when it includes some off-leash time.

As the weather has turned colder and the sidewalks slipperier for my faithful canine companion and me, we had a strange adventure on the Snelling Ave bridge S of the Fair Grounds. It started when Mellie yipped in pain and anguish as we were heading north across the bridge, just after crossing the first BNSF tracks. I was jure I hadn't stepped on her toes, which sometimes happens when she inadvertantly runs into my path. She was really disturbed and kept looking over her shoulder. A few days later we were closing in on that spot from the north and as we were approaching she started to be nervous. She yipped again, this time I saw it clearly: she stepped on a large metal plate covering a bridge expansion joint. In my mind there must be an electric current in that plate.

We ran across the bridge on the opposite sidewalk, albeit she was nervous she did not cry out. This morning we came from the north again and while she was a little scared she did not seem to feel anything. I'm guessing that the snow-deicer mix probably grounds the plate and disperses most of the current. I am going to take my volt meter out there to check it out. I am chronicling my training on a website frequented by my orienteering club mates (Attackpoint). One of them, Todd, read my log and replied with a link to a Strib article form 2009 mentioning that some light-post-watering pooches were rudely jolted when doing so in Minneapolis. The city started an effort to check light posts for faulty wiring and eliminated further canine sterilization by electrocution. I will be keeping a close eye on that particular spot and figure out whom to let know about this.

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!