Mount Marathon here I come!

I just found out that I got into this year's Mount Marathon mountain race! I won one of the thirty open slots for the race. For those of you who do not know Mount Marathon is pretty much the State Championship of mountain running. It is 1.5 miles from sea level to the top of Mt. Marathon (3022 ft) and another 1.5 miles back down. The down is super crazy! For example it took last years winner 35 minutes to get up and 11 to get back down. Here is a picture of the mountain. You can just make out the course on the scree.


If you can't make it out, I went ahead and edited the picture. I think it is pretty crazy that you can see the course from down in town (or out in a boat in this case).



Other than getting into Mt. Marathon I've been pretty busy with school. Last weekend Thomas, Casey, Karl and I planned on camping out in Turnagain and getting a bunch of tele skiing in. It was an interesting adventure to say the least. I'll tell you about it when I can get my pictures loaded.

For more information onMount Marathon check out these links.
Seward.com
Mount Marathon - Wikipedia

OIA!!

WOW!! Life IS good! Only in Alaska, especially Anchorage. Today was one of those days where you are just jazzed on life, and you can't possibly see how anyone could have any more fun.

This evening Karl and I busted out to Peak 3 for some freshies after school. April has been really good this year; we have been getting dumped on. Today we got a good eight inches of snow in town. I just had to get out after my test this afternoon. Karl and I left the car at 7:15 (PM mind you, OIA) and and started skinning up Peak 3. There was at least a foot and a half of new snow up there! Thankfully someone had already busted out a skin track up the mountain. On the down side this guy wasn't the smartest peanut in the turd. His skin track was straight up, not very forgiving for those with bad skins. On top of that he was out by himself on a day with A LOT of fresh snow. I watched him ski a stupid line through some rocks, setting off a small avalanche (or a large sluff, however you want to look at it). After watching that Karl and I decided to stop where we were and ski down the more gentle portion of the slope. After consulting with Lars and Kristina (who we ran into out there) we decided to ski the skier's right side of the bowl, which is less prone to sliding. WOW! It was pretty epic skiing. The snow was waist deep (granted we were tele skiing and we were squatting down a little). Lars was saying it was the most snow he had ever skied on Peak 3. Sadly the batteries ran out on my camera ran out at the top and I couldn't get pictures of Karl skiing down. But I'm planning on heading out tomorrow morning and getting a few runs in before class at 1.

Karl skinning up just as the light was getting sweet.

Wow! Anchorage is awesome!

The view from where we started down. Shortly after I took this picture an eagle flew over head. It was really cool!! Too bad my battery died (those darn dramatic batteries always dieing on us).

Karl

Made it up. Hurry for the white stuff.

And off into the sunset.

Fairbanks

It has been great to be back in Fairbanks. The days are longer and there is some great skiing to be had. The US Distance National Championships are going on right now. Yesterday they had the 15 and 30k Pursuit. Since it was such a nice day, the tracks were so nice, and I was feeling much better than I thought I would, I decided to sign up for the 50k Classic on Sunday. Since I have been sick and the course has so many large climbs, my goal is to take it out easy, focus on good technique and just have fun for the last race of the season. I have a feeling that if I can hold things together I'll be able to pick people off at the end as they are getting really tired. It will be especially nice to race a national championship at my home trails! Once again I filled my flash card taking pictures (my card can hold up to 300). So here are a few of the best.

Taz


Reese

Tyson (and Dylan in the corner, just getting into the depth of field)

Peter

Owen


Zach


Bart


Zach leading Owen


Brian


Zach getting some feed


Brian


The old roomies duking it out around the course. Dylan and Brian.


Bart leading Chambo and Tyson


Zach leading Owen


David out there taking names.


Colin


Tyson finishing hard

Dylan and Brian sprinting to the finish. Brian out lunged Dylan.

The Rest of the Story

Okay......












It's been a while....











to say the least.











So here's the rest of the story.











Regionals went pretty well. Not as well as we wanted but still pretty well. The alpine team kicked some ass! They won the alpine portion of the meet! Which is the first time they have done that since Trond has been on the team coaching (seven years). Sadly the nordic team didn't have a really good day the first day and we finished 4th, rather than 3rd as we had hoped.

I didn't race fast enough at Regionals to make it to NCAAs so the next weekend I raced the Tour of Anchorage, the local 50k race. That race didn't go so well. It wasn't my day. Enough said.

After the tour the plan was to focus and catch up on school. So, no adventures there. Spring break rolled around the corner as well as Junior Nationals at Kincaid. Junior Nationals were really fun to watch. It was a great opportunity to have fun with my camera and take a lot of photos. My folks were down and they sprung for a nice photo printer so I could print off pictures to get to people. I'll get a few of my best shots posted on here at the end.

The last weekend of spring break was the Oosik Classic 50k in Talkeetna. It was long and hard (the race that is). The oosik is always particularly fun because the course is out on narrow snow mobile trails and no one knows where the course goes, or exactly how long it is. The first year they had the Oosik it ended up being 60k or so. The next year they shorted it up to 40 to get people to come back. After the race there is a big banquette/party with a band out at "the hanger" in Talkeetna. The race didn't go so hot (I bonked so hard I couldn't get my eyes to focus, my teeth felt tingly, and I was having trouble staying warm), but I made up for it that evening! One of these years I'll have a good race at the Oosik.

After the Oosik I came down with a really bad cold and haven't been able to do anything for just over a week. I was loosing my voice Monday and Tuesday so I decided I wouldn't be able to race 100% this weekend in Fairbanks for US Distance National at Birch Hill. So my plan is to head up Friday morning and watch the race, and catch up with old team mates that are coming up for the races.

Next week should be a blast! A bunch of old team mates are coming down from Fairbanks, and one is flying over from Norway, to rally around in the mountains for a week or so.

I won't go as far as say, "Stay tuned". But there are most likely going to be updates coming shortly, as I am finally caught up on my school work, and the conditions are right for an adventure (the sun is high in the sky late in the evening, and there is still snow in the mountains).

Here are a few pictures from Junior Nationals.

Classic Sprint

Karl on his way to winning his quarter final heat and a 9th place overall!


Tyler

Erick having a great opening day of JO's. Erick finished 6th in the sprint.


David leading the AK J1 boys!


Erick and Karl charging up the last hill. Go UAA!


Hanna, grinding up the hill


Kalista


Becca


Becca and Laura


Amy


Becca


Individual Start Skate Race

Kye


Amy and Brian





Logan





Eric


Reese


Ryan


Jordan

Way to go Team Alaska for finally bringing back the Alaska Cup!