Men's Race Winner, Garrott Kuzzy (Photo Credit: Swix Sport)

The Yellowstone Ski Festival classic sprint happened this morning.  Unofficial results can be found HERE.  Everyone on the CXC Team Vertical Limit is very proud of our teammate, Garrott Kuzzy, for finishing first place today!  Read Kuzzy’s race report HERE.

The course was rock solid and had several sketchy corners throwing lots of us, including myself, off the trail and into the woods.  Good work to those athletes that were able to stay on their feet.  Today was a success in that race #1 and crash #1 are now out of the way.  I am more fired up than ever for the 10K skate race on Friday.

Bryan Cook starting the sprint race

I got on snow for the first time today and it was absolutely perfect.  The Rendezvous ski trails have just enough snow so that you can not tell if you are skiing on 4 inches packed snow or 4 feet (except for a couple spots).  Today’s temperatures were in the 20’s, it was super sunny, and the pine trees all had a 2-3 inches of snow on them creating that winter wonderland look.  Toko violet kick wax and sunglasses, what more could you ask for?  All the trails are groomed except for Windy Ridge.  Hopefully we get a few more inches of snow so that I can feel better about these sunny warm days.

I wish I had brought my camera.

Bryan and I just left Marquette for a trip of unknown length. We will be in Rhinelander for a couple days and then we will make our way around the Midwest (Milwaukee area, Twin Cities area, Winona, and Hayward) to do clinics and ski fittings. Afterward, we will fly from Madison, WI to West Yellowstone, MT, to hopefully ski on snow and race. We will then proceed to Bozeman, MT and Silverstar, BC for more racing and then head back to the Midwest for the holidays. Depending on where the snow is, we may (or may not) go back to Marquette at the end of December before heading out to Anchorage, Alaska for the National Championships.
We stopped by the Sports Rack in Marquette to pick up our Salomon Skis on our way out of town. Our friend Rick Bagley (who also happens to be the store owner) was kind enough to grind them, hot box them, and give them his secret 5-step cleaning in the two days notice we gave him before we left town. I have been getting my skis ground at the Sports Rack for the past 4 or 5 years and they are always super fast. The RC (Race Cold) grind is my favorite, because we see a lot of cold weather and old snow in the Midwest, but they have great warm weather grinds as well. Thank you so much to Rick and the Sports Rack for your efforts and the fast skis.  Click HERE to get the RC on your skis.

Bryan with some of the new Salomon Skis

Early this morning, I met Bryan and Lindsey Dehlin at “the rock cut” which is a popular location for interval training in the Marquette area on county road 480. We all had a slightly different hard workouts to do, but we still managed to join forces. I did a 10K time trail, Bryan did a 12.5K time trial, and Lindsey did 2×20 min L-3 intervals. We used a 2.5K stretch or road with 2 big hills on it. Here are the results:

12.5K Race: 1st place, Bryan Cook
10K Race: 1st place, Maria Stuber
L-3 Race: 1st place, Lindsey Dehlin