Crazy couple of weeks

The past couple of weeks have gone by far too quickly. Mora Vasaloppet, the Birkie, work, and other random stuff have kept me busy and away from the blog. I hope to keep on top of this a little better from now on. I will devote my next post entirely to the Birkie because it will take up a lot of space. It was crazy and fun up in Hayward.

I am attempting to figure out my race schedule for this summer. So far I only have the Almonzo scheduled. There will also be some trail races that I will do. Trail mix, Afton, Birkie trail marathon, and maybe a couple others. Then I will do a few tri's here and there. If I can procure a mountain bike I will do some racing. I am thinking a 12 hour race and maybe a 24 hour race. I have looked at Wasau 24 and 24 hours of Seven Oaks. Then there is the mountain bike series. Blah. So much to do and so little time. I need to get a moment to figure all that out. If anyone knows where I can find some free time that would be awesome!

I still am unable to decide what I want to do this summer. I also need to decide if I want to teach summer school again. I had a great time teaching in the summer, but between that and having to go out to Gear West  I was always working. I would get to school around 7 a.m. and then head out to the bike shop and work till 8 p.m. It made for some really long days. If I only teach and don't go out to GW then I won't make enough money to pay my bills. I could just work at the bike shop and I would make enough money, but then I miss out on the experience and fun of teaching. I will most likely end up doing both like I did last summer. It just isn't a great deal of fun feeling as though I am running myself into the ground.

I have also decided that if I am unable to obtain a full-time teaching position this fall that I will start to explore other options. This summer marks the 4th year I will be searing for a teaching position. I have made some headway with my long-term position, summer school and years of substitute teaching, but I can only have my life on hold for so long. I would say I am getting demoralized more than anything. Sending in application after application with little or no response gets old after a while. Possible options I have been tossing around in my mind: Working at a nature or history center, full time at the bike shop, QBP, working for outdoor industry in one form or another, work for the Minneapolis Parks, work for a company that works with green technology, and who knows what other possibilities I could find. Lots to think about in the coming months. I will keep sending in applications to schools. September is when I will decide if I am to take another road in the game of life.

Finally, City of Lakes

I was pretty nervous leading up to the start of the race. I had no idea what to expect, nor did I know what I was doing. The race didn't start until 10:30 am. I am so used to running races or triathlons that start at 7 am that I didn't know what to do with myself. I went for a run the night before and that helped calm my nerves down.  I was starting out of wave 5 and I knew that I was going to have to do a fair bit of weaving in and out of other people. It also meant coming to a standstill at times on the uphills or nearly getting stabbed by someone on the downhills.

 The cannon went off for my wave at 10:50. I started next to Kip and he told me to stick with him. Alas I lost him after the first kilometer haha! The race started at the Par 3 at Wirth. I know the course out there pretty well and there are some good hills. Sven waxed my skis and they were pretty fast. I felt fast going uphill, screamed past people on the downhills and on the flats I was able to really cruise. It was great. The course goes from hills, to flat, to hills, to a flat finish. The first part of Wirth is hilly. Ok, Wirth is all hilly. It is a ton of fun though. The back 9 has a couple steep buggers. I do like going up the hill by the tubing area. Its long, gradual, and early on into the race. Then you come around the stadium, go down another hill, and up a smaller hill. Then you make a left turn that leads to a nice downhill that I almost crashed on. Everybody in front of me started to fall, but somehow I made it out! Then you cross over the parkway via the bridge and ski around the other side of the course. Eventually you head into the bog area where there is a lot of good hills. If you have never gone skiing back her I suggest you do. It's very nice. This is where things got congested again. Blah. I just took my time and made sure to get around people as quickly as I was able. Once you get through this area we headed out toward the lakes. This is where the course gets flat and fast. Going over the lakes was a blast. It wasn't as scenic as in the woods, but it was fun to be out in the open and see everything. You ski on all the lakes until Calhoun. You're on the Calhoun for less than a kilometer before you cut up the boat launch onto Lake Street. Then its 1,000m to the finish! It was great seeing the crowd of people cheering. I crossed the finish like in 1:55.41. I was very happy with that time. In my mind I had the idea that if I did it in 2 hours I would have been happy. I beat my goal and ended in 209th place. I will take it!

I am already looking forward to next year. I would love to place top 50! That's my goal and I plan on obtaining it. It will take lots of training and some good coaching.

Over and out... For now.

Fail

I was just typing up an awesome race report for the loppet when I accidentally closed out the window! Stupid superfail. I will type that up again later. I am not going to redo that tonight. Ah! It was really good too.   Hopefully I can remember all the cool stuff that was in it.
Here are future blog post lists: City of Lakes Loppet (redo), Mora Vasaloppet, section ski meet, and other random stuff.

Later.