I’m back from Austria, enjoying a jet-lag-induced burst of predawn productivity. It’s 6 a.m. and I’ve already been awake and mainlining coffee for three hours. Now that I’ve alphabetized my pantry, written two articles and read War and Peace, I really have no excuse but to post my first ski blog on the World Wide Interweb.

My subject this morning is the Dolomitenlauf – a 60km skate race in the World Loppet series – and, more importantly, my travels leading up to it. The Dolomitenlauf was a good opportunity to squeeze in an early ski marathon, but it was also a great excuse for the family Von Max to explore Tyrolean Austria.

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Started the day mostly in the dark, trying to put my clothes on quietly so that Zach could sleep a bit longer.  After a while I gave up trying to tiptoe around and didn’t feel too bad since we had gotten something like nine hours of sleep.  Knowing that it was going to be pretty brisk out and seeing the flag outside our window whipping around, I opted for long underwear under my suit—rare for someone that sweats like I do. (more…)

(left to right: Mike Sinnot, Lars Flora–Bendite, Zach Simons–reigning Birkie Champ, leaders after a couple of laps, and the stadium here in Canmore

Evelyn and Zach raced their first World Cup today with a 15km and 30km skiathlon on what may be the toughest courses I have ever skied.  The first kilometer gains 70m of elevation, most of it in one straight shot climb that holds steady at that tough grade where you can’t really ski easy without getting out of the tracks.  Hermod’s steep grade (at Soldier) only longer.  Both had pretty good classic legs (good work Evelyn!) and suffered a bit thru the skate.  While they didn’t win, they weren’t DFL either so good work.

The atmosphere here is great–lots of spectators and plenty of American fans.  Also we have enough coaches to really accomodate the 16 (I think) U.S. athletes here, which is no small feat.  Nathan Schultz of Boulder Nordic Sport has taken us under his wing and is making sure that ALL the work on our skis is taken care of.  He didn’t even let me clean the kick wax off my skis today after training. And of course we have the very experienced regular US Ski Team wax techs sharing their info with us.  Thanks to all of you guys.

And tomorrow, I race the classic sprint.

If you haven’t yet heard, Bachelor will be host to the US Winter Triathlon National Championships in just a couple of weeks.  Should be a pretty fun event depening on the conditions, could also be a slog in really soft snow.  But check out the info here.  And despite never having done a mountain bike race, it was decided that I should participate in the photoshoot about it.

Also Team Today has started a new social networking site for skiers and supporters of skiing.  While I generally try to limit my involvement to such things, anything that helps the state of skiing and grows the number of people interested in racing is a great idea.  Already there is plenty of good discussion going on there.

That’s all from Canmore.  More news when there’s something worth noting.

 This time of winter can be tough for a skier.  The races are almost non-stop with lots of travel and only short periods at home.  Trying to balance the amount of training load during this time is difficult. 

About a week and a half ago, I returned home from US Nationals beat up.  My back was sore and my legs fatigued.  Time for some recovery.  Done.  Now, however I’m feeling better but I’m leaving on Saturday for the World Cups in Canada.  And let’s not forget how little actual training volume you can do on a long road trip.  Sure, there is plenty of intensity that makes the total load still pretty high, but at the same time there is very little distance skiing to help maintain overall fitness.

So as soon as I started to feel recovered after Nationals, it was tempting to go put in some real hours of training.  But like I said, I’m leaving again for the next races almost immediately.  I don’t really want to fatigue myslef right before going to the most competitive race I’ve ever done.

And, hence, the balancing act.  After 4 days of solid training and 8 days of skiing in a row, I’m taking it easy today, letting the legs absorb some of the training and hopefully finding the right combination of trained and fresh to have great races in Canmore. 

Back from nationals for a short break! It is nice to have a week for training and resting before it’s time to go on the road again. Also nice to come home to Bend and see that there is snow everywhere. I haven’t shoveled a driveway in over eight years, so I almost enjoyed it!

I have had some time to think about nationals and the results and over all I’m very happy! After a shaky start (was I 21^st in the 5 km skate race?) I came back with a 2^nd place in the classic race. I had started to question my shape, but there’s nothing wrong with it. I just needed to get started.

Almost more enjoyable though were my sprint races. Everybody who knows me knows I’m not a sprinter, especially not a skate sprinter. My 9^th place in the individual sprint was therefore a big surprise to me, I didn’t even think I would qualify for the heats! I now have a firm lead in mine and Zach’s private sprint competition.

The sprint relay got messy since they made mistakes in the seeding process and put all the best teams in the first semi final. Not a good thing. They delayed the race two hours to fix it which meant I lost my race partner. I was supposed to ski with Caitlin Compton (winner of the 5 km skate) but she had an early flight to Europe on Monday so she had to take off. Too bad since I think we could have been in the mix for the win. Luckily I found out that Becka  Rorabaugh of APU needed a partner too, so we teamed up and skied to a good 4^th place finish. We were both very happy with the day!

So, now I’m trying to get ready for the next set of races. That means resting, training and washing all the clothes in my duffle bag. Me, Brayton and Felice leave for the Midwest and more SuperTour races on Wednesday. Zach, Marshall and Evelyn won’t come on this trip since they will be racing the WC in Canada instead. Congratulations on making the team, well done!!

Next thing on the agenda however is the Great Nordeen. Hope I’ll see you all on the race course!

Going big in the sprint relay. Picture from Eileen Carey, thanks.

Congrats to Kristina for a great 2nd place yesterday in the 10k Classic race. And of course Lars, her long term boyfriend (but not quite XC Oregon member), was 2nd too.

I finished a barely respectable 20th to claim the last Super Tour point-garnering spot. Sadly it wasn’t enough to earn me a World Cup start in the distance races so now, I’ll have to do it in the sprints.

Also, Evelyn had a decent classic race, putting her in 4th for qualifying for U23 World Championships, which would be a great trip and some tough international racing. Now it comes down a little to luck to see who skis well in the sprint for her.

For those who haven’t heard, The Great Nordeen is coming up next weekend and many XC Oregon racers will be there. It is likely that some of us who have raced all of Nationals may choose not to race. Sometimes between all the travel and national-level racing, having some time to train takes priority. But at the same time, expect at least some of us to be on the podium.

No, we’re not in Kansas … but here’s what happens when you give Zach a little sugar and tell him he can’t do something. As for Evelyn, we need to work a little on the ups.
 

Decent day for the XC Oregon crew here in Houghton.  Brayton skied well to 7th place matching his skate result here last year.  After having horrid results at Nationals last year, I skied ok –nothing great, nothing to complain about– to 16th.  The frustrating part was being only 4 seconds out of 11th, but that’s how it goes at Nationals.  Lots of racers, really tight finishes.  Evelyn had a good 5k and ended 12th. 

Tomorrow is the 15k Classic for us and it’s pretty important for Zach, Brayton, and I: the last distance race used in the qualifying for the Candian World Cups at the end of this month.  Brayton and I are both on the bubble right now but because Nationals is worth double the points of any regular Super Tour, pretty much anyone could still make it in (or knock us out for that matter).  After an afternoon start for the men yesterday, we start first for the classic race, which suits me much better.  Having to eat lunch before racing always throws off my clock.  Sorry for the haphazard post, I’ve only a little internet time left.  As cozy and homey as our rental house is, we don’t have an onramp to the information superhighway so i’m struggling.