Whistler Olympic Park - trail report

Well, here we are, back in rainy Portland, after having spent some time up north previewing the Nordic venue for the 2010 Olympics in Whistler. We made it up to Vancouver last Saturday, before heading up to Whistler on the 99. They are totally expanding this road, which basically means they are blasting out a bunch of rocks, to make room for a wider highway. It seems pretty amazing that they are going through all of that just for the Olympics, but I guess, that's what they had to do to get the bid. Now thinking back to last summer watching China's Olympics, w/ the 100,000 seat stadium, I think of what Vancouver has that may be similar? hmmm, they have a metrodome like structure! good luck with that. And whistler has no big venue that holds alot of people, but I guess by comparison, nobody watches the nordic races (compared to figure skating) so they are probably fine. BUT, one third of the events are going to be at whistler Olympic park (between xc, biathlon, jumping and nordic combined).

As for the Nordic trails... well, we had perfect conditions. And hardly anyone was there. Actually there were a lot of people on Sunday, but virtually no-one was skiing on the Olympic course, so it seemed empty pretty much where ever you were skiing. There is over 50k of trails. I have no idea why, but most of the rec skiers stayed on the 'recreational' trails (which were spectacular BTW). As for the Olympic courses, it was my first ski on Olympic class trails, and I thought the hills would have been steeper. They didn't seem as hard as I thought they'd be, but i was not ski racing on them either, I'm sure they are hard enough, but especially the Biathlon trails seemed easy? Camp ripley biathlon had way steeper hills.

We had one day when it wasn't as sunny, but it was still quite awesome. here are some looks:

Like skiing at bachelor on it's best day, with better trails and 100 times better scenery.


start grip tape was grippen and gliden!


These guys spent all day getting the jump ready, but nobody was jumping!


The huge jumps. This event would be the ultimate one to snag tickets for next winter.


Here's a wide view of the stadium, that will look much different next feb.


Podium!


I highly recommend a trip up there to ski, it is amazing. We will be back that's for sure. We just need to find time off, and get hook ups on excellent lodging in whistler, Thanks Belinda!

1. Spring? 2. Ski racing 3. Econ

Today, I went for a noon run btwn classes, and I could've swore it felt like spring out there. The clouds were breaking and sun was poking through, and we had melted off the half inch of snow from the night before. Things were looking good, at least for about an hour. It didn't take too long before heavy sleet was falling a couple hours later.

Last weekend we drove up to welches to stay overnight, and get some skiing in. They had a little 10k skate race at meadows nordic so I decided to give it a go. Why not make the first ski of the season a race? These things are not very heavily attended, but there were probably about 25 people all together. The race started out, at a pretty conservative pace, so I tried to dart off the front and get out of sight, to see exactly what I was dealing with here. Well, It was a good idea, because I got a lead, but I didn't get out of sight. I was in good form (technique wise), and not so good form (speed wise). Plan A was to ski hard and ignore my competitors about 30 yards back. Plan B was to fall back and rest, ski behind these guys, and then go for the sprint at the end. I was working hard, so I decided to stay out front. The race ended with one lap around the meadow, which would be the 3rd time through the meadow for the race. I made it to the end of the meadow where we turned around and came back to the finish and my lead was still about the same, or a little less. So I tried to punch it a little more. There was no looking back, I had the race. I was starting to experience the trill of victory, about 100 meters were left in the race. Something happened. I must have planted a pole in between my skis. I fumbled once, bounced on one foot, then bam my knees hit, and I was face first on the trail. My glasses came off my head. Should I pick them up? No you dumb ass, get up and go. But it was too late. I got passed by two old guys, and although I was still on the podium, I got a little agony of defeat. There was my wide world of sports weekend. It was awesome to be back on the snow, and it's definatly something that is worth it to make a little more time for this winter. Here's a pic of the wonderful drive home, and it was wonderful, depending at how you view winter weather.


I'm no economist, but I've read some books, and think I'm pretty reasonably educated. Today on the AM news, there was more bad news about the housing market. You'd have to assume that we would have another couple hundred point drop in the stock market, but in fact it was just the opposite. DOW was up 1.45% and S&P was up 1.76%. The screwballs on wall street think the fed will drop the rates another 1/2 point. I know I'm probably not the only one that's thought of this, but to me, this sounds like a coming mega economic disaster. How did we get into this housing 'crisis'? I might be wrong, but low borrowing rates sure didn't hurt. Why not lower rates even more, and make it even cheaper to borrow, so the whole thing starts back up again. Where do these idiots running things think this will go?

And the damn economic 'stimulous' package? How much less do the retards at the white house want the US dollar to be worth? Why not print up a few trillion dollars and give us even more money to spend. I have no solution to the mess, I guess we'll have to wait and see how things play out.

2007 XC National Masters

This year here's how it went down... Last year it was fairly cold (no klister) and this year it was warm (klister).

Thursday 15km Skiathlon

We got new snow the Tuesday before the races and it was cold at night, so I was hopeful for hardwax conditions, but that was not the case. It was sunny on Wednesday and everything transformed. We used klister, covered by a hard wax, I know this is not really acceptable, but I don't remember which wax was on my skis. There were a few of us getting wax advice/instructions from XC Oregon speedsters Brayton and Zach. We were able to get the skis going good though, with good kick up the hills and decent glide. Races like this, I learn that I need to be better at double polling. That's what I get though, for only half heartedly being committed to off season (and in-season) strength training. The skate was on the flat part of the trail, that is not usually groomed up here. Most if not all of the trails at bachelor are up and down with very little sustained flat, and skiing the flat was hard. I used to be a midwesterner, and the flats are very common. I'd never complain about a flat trail, because it was what we did. It was like doing a big VA loop with a little bigger hill in the middle of it (back when we skied at the VA in high school). I can't give much age group podium strategy talk because my age group was a whole 2 people!!! But I was behind Joe Jensen from Idaho, and he's the same one who beat me last year (this year by a little bit more), but the main difference being that I gave 35 pints of blood (iron overload) from June through February, and he didn't. Try training thought that ordeal!

Saturday 15km classic

It was warm on Friday, and it never froze on Friday night. So it was like skiing in firm slush. The track was not super soft, but some spots were choppy around corners, but it was pretty good considering how warm it was. Kudos to the grooming team at Bachelor. There such a deep snowpack here, that it becomes like ice underneath where they groom, so even the warm days they can work out pretty decent grooming in most conditions. The swix recommendation was 2-1 mix red-universal klister. A pair of fast gliding no wax skis might have worked well on this day. For me, I had an ironed in base of green toko klister, and then I put a little silver and red mixed w/ universal. I skied a bit, (around the stadium and up and down blue jays... and I didn't think the kick was enough so I had brayton put a bit more klister on (panic waxing), for some more red. In retrospect, I'm still split up on whether or not this was a bad idea, because on the downhills during the race, i could feel the kickwax on my skis. I guess it was good for going up the hills, but I think i could've used the original wax. Plus when I was cleaning the klister off after the race it was a total mess. I did a fair amount of classic skiing this winter, but on the klister days, I skated. That probably didn't help me in choosing my skis and/or wax either. As for the race, I felt OK... I was skiing with a 25-29 skier, and on the flats, I would pull away (even w/ the extra wax), and on the uphills he would catch me. His ski's must have been slower than mine, so maybe my wax wasn't so bad. The end of the race there is a kilometer long uphill, and he passed me. I tried to hang on but had nothing left for the sprint. I skied hard and was satisfied w/ the result.

Sunday 30km Skate

This was the biggest race in terms of total people. My only real complaint is that they split up the age groups (and this goes for all of the races really) staring the 34 and under first, and then the 35-39, etc. This spreads things out alot, at least for us, when there are a wide range of speed. It probably works better for the older age groups where you'll have like 15+ in an age group, that are competitive. If you start too many at once, the way the start is setup, it would be complete chaos, so maybe the small groups are justified. On race morning, I was laying in bed, thinking it was going to be hell up there skiing in the snow... Thought about not going, I was a bit tired from the previous 2 out of 3 days of racing... But I still went, and got up there, and sat in the car for a bit, and was thinking, this is going to be hell... It was snowing pretty good... There was new snow today, and I was justifiably worried about the conditions. There was about 5 inches of snow in the parking lot, and it continued to snow. But once again the grooming was good, and firm, with just a bit of new snow on top. Since we were not the first wave, the earlier skiers had packed it enough, so the new snow was really not an issue. It was warm enough so it would pack, and didn't stay powdery. It was pretty fast too. So, the race started and as usual I fought hard to hang on to the lead group of skiers in my wave, and did for a while, the first 5 k is for the most part, almost all down hill... and then when we got to the uphill sections it was a bit more difficult. There are some super hard climbs in the middle part of this loop, and then the flat section (same flat section as skiathlon). I was a bit bummed, that on the first lap I couldn't have skied up the big hill a bit faster, because I was nearing the top, and Pat Weaver passed me (I had 3 minute head start) and put in a small gap, and then I skied behind him not losing much time at all, over most of the flat section. It would have been nice to draft off of him during that part, at least for a while. The second lap, I managed hang on, and ski hard the whole way, but it was hard. The last uphill before getting to the stadium was a 'gut buster' to say the least.

Well that will pretty much put a wrap on my ski season, until the PPP (commonly referred to locally as 'the Bend olympics') in May. I'll still get up for some skiing, but I'm converting to riding my bike and running more right now.

Par II. Eric Freaking Martin.

Raced in the mbsef par for the course II today, and it went all right. Last year, former XC oregon skier and world cup skier Dave Stewart had the fastest time in 26 and change. This year Eric Martin went 25 flat!! on the same course as far as I could tell. He started before me, so he did not pass me on the course, otherwise I might have been able to tackle or trip him up, but he still probably would have skied under 26. He rides bike fast too. He could be pro skier or biker I think. He is a very nice guy to top it all off. As for my results, I went less than a minute slower than last year (but just under 5 minutes slower than Mr. Martin), so I guess that's not too bad after 35 phlebotomies in the last 39 weeks. I felt better than expected and, based on what I learned last week, I don't have to give blood this week, so I'll find out 4 sure on Tuesday at 4:00pm pst.

We went on a road ride this afternoon, it's like 55 or so degrees. Pretty sweet when you can get up in the morning go skiing where there's 11+ feet of snow, and come back down and road ride in the warm sun. Bend is a pretty excellent place to be outside during this time of year. But. There still a high percentage of idiot pickup truck and SUV drivers here. Today they were out in force, along w/ loud motorcycle riders. In fact, some of the pickup encounters today, reminded of a time in college when we went south for spring break for the purpose of riding our bikes, to get out of the wintery North Dakota flat lands to none other than Arkansas. We were actually yelled at by some hillbillies in a pickup. They saw us riding our bikes on the road, and didn't like it, and yelled: "That's illegal as shit", in reference to our riding on the road. To this day I still can't believe it; it was pretty scary, because down there, they have shotguns. We didn't get yelled at today but were honked at, and they didn't give us too much extra room.

Update.

Tomorrow I will have another pint of blood removed making it an even 35 units (pints) since June 5, 2006. That's 4 3/8 gallons. That's getting close to a full 5 gallon bucket full of blood, taken out of me. On Feb 6th, my ferritin was only 82, down from 1080 last spring. A ferritin of 82 is well within the normal range, but it's not quite considered 'de-ironed' by the doctor until it gets to 30. I really hope to be at 30 or below after tomorrow's appointment, and I will know for sure next week. Fingers (and toes) crossed.

Also, you might have noticed (if you read my blog), that I changed the name at the top. I don't know why it was what it was, but I think .:madNESS is a much better choice.

Here's my planned nordic ski racing schedule for March:
March 3: Par for the course II 10km individual freestyle
March 22: Nat'l Masters 15km skiathlon
March 24: Nat'l Masters 15km classic
March 25: Nat'l Masters 30km freestyle
March 31: John Craig race (classic)

Downtown Bend, winterfest sprints.

calm b4 storm?

I lifted this photo from the bachelor webcam this morning. It's supposed to snow a few feet this weekend in the cascades.

New Years Relay

I had originally not planned on ski racing this weekend. Then I was invited to join a team called the nordic superheros. The New Year's Relay, at Mt Bachelor, is not like regular ski races. It's more like Halloween, on snow. Our team was the Incredible Hulk (me), Spiderman (Larry) and Batman (Jason). I skied the opening leg, which was classical technique, and the other 2 skate skied. We were first place in the 19+ open category. The defending champion (Beckie Scott) wasn't there. Last year Beckie skied all three legs by herself and won outright, and there were some pretty good teams too, one consisting of 2 former olympians. She retired from ski racing after last season with a number of olympic medals (including gold) and 2nd overall in the world cup last season.


spiderman, batman and the incredible hulk. 2006 relay champions!

Happy new year!

Boot cam

snow

Oregon update / weather.

Some of my friends and family back home have been wondering about what the hell is going on in Oregon this year. Californians getting stranded in snowstorms (1 out of 4 dead) , Snowmobilers getting lost (1 of 2 dead), climbers stranded on Mt Hood (status unknown), and huge storms coming in almost every week making the national news. Well for the most part we have been high and dry in central Oregon, since we're on the other side (east side) of the cascade volcanic range. We have had storms, but by the time they get here, they are a bit weaker.

And since there's no snow in MN right now I thought I'd just rub it in a little bit more. I just pulled up the el nino forcast for Central Oregon (see below). If this forcast comes true, we'll be skiing in town. But right now, it's full on sunny. On the horizon where we usually see white capped volcanoes, it's a huge blanket of cloudy snowy wonder. That's the high desert for ya, in 10 mintues we might be in a blizzard. Get the kick wax ready!

NOAA weather forcast, Bend, OR as of 2:07 pacific time:
HEAVY SNOW WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 3 PM PST THIS AFTERNOON
Rest Of Today...Snow showers west of highway 97 with total accumulations of 6 to 12 inches. Mostly cloudy with scattered snow showers and rain showers elsewhere with local accumulations of 1 to 3 inches. Breezy...Colder. Snow level 3000 feet. Highs 34 to 42. Southwest wind 15 to 25 mph. Gusts around 35 mph. Chance of precipitation 80 percent.

Tonight...Mostly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of snow showers. Much colder. Lows 7 to 16. Southwest wind 5 to 15 mph.

Saturday...Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of snow showers. Highs 28 to 34. South wind 5 to 15 mph.

Saturday Night...Mostly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of snow showers. Lows 8 to 16. Southeast wind 5 to 10 mph.

Sunday...Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of snow showers. Highs 27 to 37. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph.

Sunday Night...Partly cloudy. Lows 7 to 13.

Monday...Partly cloudy. Highs 32 to 37.

Monday Night...Mostly cloudy. A slight chance of snow showers. Lows 16 to 21.

Tuesday...Mostly cloudy. A chance of snow showers and rain showers. Highs 33 to 38.

Tuesday Night...Mostly cloudy. A slight chance of rain showers and snow showers. Lows 15 to 23. Highs 33 to 38.

Wednesday...Mostly cloudy. A slight chance of rain showers and snow showers. Lows 15 to 23. Highs 33 to 38.

Wednesday Night...Mostly cloudy. A slight chance of snow showers. Lows 19 to 25.

Thursday...Mostly cloudy. A slight chance of rain showers and snow showers. Highs 33 to 39.

Running lately

Not much new. I ran the Sisters Scramble 10k last weekend, and was pretty satisfied with how it went, considering. This weekend it's Mac Forest 15k trail run in Corvallis, and on Nov. 4th it's the Lords Acre 10k in Powell Butte. After that hopefully we have some snow? I heard it's snowing in the rockies, and there have even been reports of skiing in the midwest. We should be skiing soon. Speaking of skiing, there's some new technology in ski poles. I know, you're thinking it's that new swix pole that looks more like a blade and is really strong and really light. Nope, it's called a coldpole, and you can read about it by clicking here. It might come in handy toward the end of the birkie if you can manage to keep it thawed.

We're going to Portland for the weekend. Planning to stop at Silver Falls state park on the way out to see if the falls are really silver. I need some new photos.

Hasta Luego

Ski Report: Birke 2006

This year, since I live 1700 miles away, I figured I'd come to the birkie early. It would be great! More days to soak in the energy, right? Well sort of. You can't really beat Birkie weekend at telemark lodge. People are bouncing off the walls with Birkie fever. I did get a healthy case of Birkie fever, Coming to the Birkie on the Thursday before the race you have to keep yourself busy as you can only think about the race so much. The friends that I traveled to the Birkie with are old timers. Of the three, two of them are in the Bircheleggings club (20+ Birkies) and two of them have won their age class in the freestyle race. They are serious about the Birkie. Talking wax, weather, food, clothing, breath right strips, bitch hill, and so on. I like ski racing and the birkie, but boy it was a little much.

We did get a really nice ski in on Thursday at the double o crossing. For those that havn't been there, this is the half way point of the birkie. I had forgotten just how wide and smooth the birkie trail was. I'm used to skiing on pretty darn nice trails at the nordic center at Mt. Bachelor, and these were right up there. The birkie trail is SWEET!

Race morning finally arrived, and it was about 9 degrees according to Bob's wireless thermometer, but reports from the start were that it was zero. Not used to skiing in below zero temps anymore, so I put on 2 layers of wind breifs. We also had gotten a few inches of very dry powder the day before, and it continued to snow during the night. This caused some worries, but the classic skiing was most likely going to be better because of it. I had planned my wax according to the recommendations for the classic race (my second classic birkie, 7th birkie overall). I had an ironed in layer of toko green base wax, and then a layer of Blue Extra, followed by 3 thin layers of toko carbon white. I put this wax on in the room at the lodge. Chip and Marty came by the room, and I jogged over to the start with Chip. I set out on the trail to test my wax, and let's just say my kick was pretty crappy, in fact, I had terrible kick. I put 2 additional layers of blue extra on my skis, and skied a little bit, and thought it would be good. I'd carry the wax with me in case I needed more. In hindsight, I wish I'd have left off the carbon white all together, I think it was a blue extra day.

I lined up next to 3 other classic skiers and then bang the gun went off. They lit off a bunch of fireworks for the start, I think they used to have a cannon or something, but the fireworks were good. The start went well, I actually took out the classic skiers in the lead, for the first half kilometer, then the group of three passed me, and I was able to hang on until we exited the power lines. If you've never been there, the 'power lines' section is this insanely wide ski trail that has HUGE power line towers going through it. After that point I was pretty much alone until the lead women came by, and then groups from wave 1 would slowly pass me. It was about 8k into the race where I took a drink of my water bottle that I mixed some heed, and red bull. It tasted so awesome. Little did I know that was the last time the bottle would be thawed until about 4pm that day!!! I was able to get other feeds from many of the people out on the course, so it wasn't a huge problem. But the red bull would have been helpful on the last 10k.

Small groups of skiers continued to pass me by, and each time, I could ski with them for a bit, especially on the uphills. I was skiing good flirting with catching the 3rd place elite wave classic skier (he was in sight). In an effort to be under 3 hours, I broke the race into 3 17 kilometer sections, where I would attempt to ski each in under one hour. I made it to 17k in about 59 minutes. We had gone over the hardest section of the course, passed the high point, so I was feeling pretty good about my race, but I didn't have a lot of cushion if I was going to break 3 hours, and there are still a lot of ups and downs in this race. Chip came by in one of the groups from wave one, so I asked him if he missed his start, but later he told me they wouldn't let him into the elite wave because he had bib 225. I think he got screwed, and should have lined up in the elite wave.

Double O came and went. I was feeling pretty good, my skis were gliding awesome, and my kick was decent. The kickwax worked much better for me in the skating lane, because there was a dusting to 2 inches of snow still in the classic tracks. I'd say I skied about 90% of this race out in the skating tracks. I made it to 34k still on schedule to break 3 hours, but by only a couple of minutes. I had to keep the pressure up if I was going to make it. I have to say the last 12 k was pretty brutal. My back was getting sore from all the double poling, but the thought of the finish line kept me going. There was a wind on the lake that was a little annoying, but it really wasn't as bad as others talked about after the race, but that's maybe because they were flying across the lake and I was struggling a little. Some years the lake seems like 10 miles, but today it was not too bad. I could see the beginning of main street, and a glance at my watch told me I was on schedule to break 3 hours! The very loose snow on the first part of main street was hard, and skiers were wavering back and forth fighting to stay up. I faintly heard Jeff's wife Rebbecca yell my name along with all of the cow-bells and cheering. In my past years doing the birkie I would often room with Jeff, who lives in Moorhead, MN, near where I went to college in Fargo.

I went across the finish line and it was at that point that I decided I had a good/great race, with a time of 2 hours 57 minutes. I would later learn that I won my age group in the classic race, and finished 8th overall. I was also over 15 minutes faster than my last attempt at skiing the birkie classic style (in 2004), so that felt pretty good. Birkie number 7, in the books. Hopefully see you next year, Hayward and Cable!