Vasaloppet. You betcha.

What was to be the culmination of my winter training took place yesterday out in the frigid plains north of Mora, Minnesota... It was to be the final test of how far back into this sport of cross-country skiing I could come in one season of moderate training, with a renewed attention to form and also a growing desire to once again broaden my enthusiasm for athletics.

I signed up for the 35k division of the Mora Vasaloppet, an annual ski event of international proportion, last November. For the past 8+ years, entering these big races (with their big, non-refundable entrance fees) has been a pretty risky proposition considering the strangely-snow-shy part of the world we've been living in. This season seemed a cinch though, and as my dad convinced me, registering for this race would give me the motivation I would need early in the season when I was starting to train. Thankfully the snow has stuck around, for the most part, and I've gotten in a lot of quality skiing: at Como (many times around that 5k loop this season), the excellently maintained Theodore Wirth (lengthening and broadening my training later in the season), a long weekend trip to ski the exquisite trail system at Giant's Ridge in Biwabik, MN, and a warm-up competition in the 25k Marine Obrien Race in late January. Pretty good, all and all.

Unfortunately, little can prepare a person for skiing in fifteen-below-zero weather (w/forty below wind chills) -- and more than that, this person does not WANT to be prepared to ski in that kind of weather! On any other day like with weather like that, you'd have to pay to get me outside. But as it was, I'd already spent enough in money - and mostly time, not to go out and give it whatever I had.

And I'm glad that I did.

It was cold. (Duh.) But I did it. And so did hundreds of other people. So I think that I would have totally felt like a tool if I'd stayed at home. I am, however, considering some of the other late-season races now, not because I did poorly at the Vasa, but I still never got to ski that out-of-my-mind-fast kind of race that I'd been hoping for. Maybe I won't even be able to do that this season, but I'm tempted to try again.

Anyway, here is acool series of shots of the lead pack somewhere in the middle of the race. (It's an animated GIF, so hopefully that works in all y'all's browsers. If not right away, click to view it by itself.)

And here's a shot of me, some odd 125 people behind them.

Just kidding. Here is a picture of me though... trying not to fall over from what it looks like.