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This weekend, Feb 11/12, is the North American Vasa and the National Masters Championships — held on the Vasa trails up in Traverse City, MI.
They were expecting 1200 skiers but what with the low snow conditions who knows what’ll go down. They only decided yesterday that the races were still a *GO*.
They’ve been taking good care of their shady trails. Volunteers have been shoveling snow onto the trails. They seem to be in dandy shape, actually — but apparently darn hard and fast. No one is saying it’s crazy icy, though, so maybe we’ll luck out! …And I notice a pretty good chance of snow coming up Fri, Sat, Sun, so who knows!
I’ll be skiing both days, probably the main events. We’ll see how a few backcountry outings work for skate conditioning. Ha! If I survive the 50k without undue distress I’ll be oh so happy. Pacing, pacing! –That’s the key. “Never use the pedal!” — A good motto for those who aren’t dialed-in. I should do a little better for the classic event on Sunday, but one never knows, do one. Actually, it’s a bad sign when you don’t know. Real skiers know. No, it’s an old-fashioned sign. Totally amateur. Fine by me!
Then I’ll be manning an OYB table at the awards ceremony displaying Andy Liebner’s new ski book “Wild Shot,” plus a wide variety of other ski books/media along with other goodies such as C.A.T. Skis and PT-Fit roller-massagers. (See catskier.com and ptfitusa.com.) I’m donating books and massagers as prizes. Fun!
The CAT skis will be on demo for both NNN and SNS boots. They’re really good training tools, I think. A great change-of-pace from rollerskiing since you can use them anywhere, especially on trails. They’re very intense and so give a good workout in a short period of time — big bang for buck. In short they’re like doing full-on trail-bounding only they’re low-impact. You glide a little with every leap — similar glide to going up a hill.
Vasa!
Current trail condition: pretty good!
