It seems that after the Birkie the season always seems to start to wind down really fast. This year after the Birkie the weather seemed to immediately change from Winter into Spring. For the past two weeks I have not skied without it being over 40 degrees and sunny. It really has been amazing, but at the same time it makes me want to hop on the bike more than train for the upcoming 50km skate National Championship in Fort Kent, ME. However, I am really excited by the chance to become a National Champion so I am hammering out my training (minus getting a head cold this past weekend.)
The trails here in Marquette are still really good despite the fact that they will not groom very often for some reason. I do not understand why people think that if it gets warm they should no longer groom because they think they will lose more snow that way; when in fact grooming the snow makes it way more enjoyable to ski along with keeping the snow more compact so it will last longer. I just finished an interval workout at Blueberry Ridge where they decided to groom and the trail was clean and fast.
A really cool thing Maria and I were able to do last Friday was help with the new disabled program we have here in Marquette that is headed by Jodi Tervo and Andrew Rickauer . CXC has sent a bunch of sitskis here for the new Opportunity Center. The goal is to give people with disabilities the opportunity to get hooked on cross-country skiing. Skiers have been meeting on most Friday’s at 5:30 at Suicide Bowl in Ishpeming. Suicide Bowl offers equipment rentals and a nice flat loop to ski on. The program already has youngsters with their eye’s on the next Paralympics. I was able to ski with Dominic and his twin brother for about an hour and it was really fun. Dominic is probably around six or eight years old and really enjoys being able to get out and ski despite having some balance and numbness issues in his lower body. He was also really interested in why we could not just go and jump off the ski jumps? It was really fun to see his excitement about everything outdoors.
As for the rest of the season, Maria, Gus, and I are heading to Gus’ house in Vermont on the 16th where we will be doing some races at Craftsbury before heading to Maine to finish off the season with the 30/50km and the SuperTour finals. It should be a really good time especially if the weather stays like this!
I have been charging since West Yellowstone last November. (Ian Harvey Photo)