June 23, 2011 – Check out this great video of Andy Newell, Garrott Kuzzy, Sam Tarling, Skyler Davis, Bryan Cook, and the rest of the SMS crew as they rollerski on some of the best roads in Vermont this summer.

June 15, 2011 (Middlebury, VT) – Check out details about an upcoming rollerski clinic in Middlebury, VT led by Garrott Kuzzy, Cam Mackugler, Andrew Gardner, and Abby Weissman on July 6.

Join Garrott Kuzzy (CXC), Andrew Gardner (Middlebury), Cam Mackugler (Frost Mountain), and Abby Weissman (NENSA) for this intro level clinic. There will be a Juniors clinic from 4-5 and a Masters clinic from 5:30-7:30. Learn some new techniques or brush up on your form with some of the area’s best coaches.

The clinic will be split into groups based on experience. Lessons will be focused on technique, safety, and fun. NENSA has a limited number of rollerskis so email Abby Weissman (abby@nensa.net) if you need a pair. Please don’t forget to bring a helmet, poles (with road ferrules), boots, and a reflective vest or shirt.

Clinic size will be limited to 20 skiers, so sign up early!

Full event info (including registration link) HERE!

March 29, 2011 (Engadin, Switzerland) – I just returned home to Hayward after a week long adventure in St Moritz, Switzerland for the 2011 Engadin Ski Marathon. The crust cruising is at its finest right now and, after skiing all day, I am finally able to sit down and recap the events from Switzerland.

The 2011 Engadin was the inaugural CXC Masters Team Worldloppet trip. Originally, my plan was to compete in the Elite Wave and go for the win. That plan changed when I came down with appendicitis two days before the Birkie and ten days before leaving for Switzerland. Although it felt agonizingly slow at the time, my recovery was actually very swift and smooth thanks to the help of my friends and teammates (I had a cowbell in my room and, when I rang it, Caitlin (Compton) and Brian (Gregg) would bring me any food I requested-so long as it was liquid). The day before the trip, my doctor took out the stitches and gave me the go-ahead to fly to Switzerland. Instead of fighting for the win, I was fighting to simply make it through the airport with my luggage.

Now I was able to really enjoy the finer aspects of the trip and no worry as much about the racing. We ended up doing lots of easy skiing to check out the course, drank Rivella (the official sports drink of Switzerland) by the gallon–or liter, rather, while sitting out in the sun, and even spent an afternoon sledding in the Swiss Alps.

For the race itself, I followed the Toko wax recommendation and waxed up my best skis, along with the rest of the CXC Masters, with the straight-forward combination of an HF Red/Yellow mix, JetStream Red block, and topped it off with JetStream Red powder for good measure. The one thing I forgot was a riller, but the temps were supposed to stay cold and the snow dry.

On race morning, we toed the line. I had barely done any skiing, let alone intensity, in over two weeks since the surgery, so I decided to line up toward the back of the Elite Wave and start easy. Over 11,000 anxious skiers danced around in the gates while we waited for the gun to go off. Immediately after the start, I realized I was feeling great and decided to get up front with the leaders-passing about 500 people on the wide lake start and tucking into third place in the lead pack with the likes of Cristian Zorzi, Bjorn Lind, and Remo Fischer. The first 15km of the Engadin are totally flat as the trail goes across frozen lakes to the town of St Moritz and we were flying with a swift tailwind.

Before I left for the trip, I ran into Ben Husby at Junior Nationals on my home trails of Wirth Park in Minneapolis. When I told Ben I was going to the Engadin, he gave me some advice about “how to win the Engadin.” Specifically, “when you hit St Moritz, there will be a steep climb, wide enough for three lanes of skiers coming off the lakes. Make sure you are leading one of those lanes.” At the time, I thought, ‘Okay, Ben, I can barely ski right now, there’s no way I’ll be leading the Engadin at 15km next week.’

However, I surprised even myself (pretty hard to do) and found myself in third place going into the St Moritz climb! Sure enough, the skier in first went right, the skier in second went left and I found myself leading the middle train up the steep climb. Remo Fischer punched it over the top and I hopped in close behind him. We skied together down into the Expo Area at St Moritz and Remo kept the throttle wide open-we were flying! Shortly after St Moritz, he backed off the pace a little bit and I looked behind me, expecting to see hundreds of skiers over my shoulder. To my surprise, there was no one; I’d just made the two-man break off the front of the Engadin-thanks Ben!

I was feeling great. Unfortunately, as we got into the woods, the snow changed from dry and wind-blown, to wet and soggy. We soon hit a downhill and Remo pulled away effortlessly. I was in no-man’s-land doing my best to earn time back on the climbs, but on every descent, he’d pull away more. Soon, the pack we’d dropped had caught me and I was losing even more ground on the descents. I’m not sure how much of it was the fact that I hadn’t skied for the two weeks prior to the race (maybe that’s what got me into trouble-feeling so fresh) or how much was the fact that I had forgotten to add structure (my cold skis had a cold grind: faster than ever in the windblown snow, but way too much suction in the wet snow). At any rate, I slogged it out for the final 20km of the race and still finished much better than I’d expected going into the race. I was satisfied with the race and happy that I didn’t bust my gut in the process. Remo ended up capitalizing on our breakaway and winning by over two minutes.

In the Engadin, I learned an important lesson about the value of structure. Now that the weather is getting warm and the snow is getting soft, it is more important than ever to have the right structure. Go out and enjoy the spring crust cruising, but don’t forget to rill. And have fun!

Muffy Ritz Commentary from Masters WC
I had a very successful Master’s up in Silver Star. Despite being very sick with bronchitis for the 2 weeks prior and even into the racing week, I somehow managed to ski myself into a Gold in the 10 km FS, a Gold in the Relay, and a silver in the 15 KM CL race. I have to make a very interesting remark about the TOKO wax. We ended up using Blue all the way- for every race ( LF Moly, HF Blue, Jet Stream Blue, blue structurite tool) It didn’t matter the temperature, blue always ran the fastest. The temps were very consistent throughout the week- with only about 5 degrees of warm-up during the days. Lows would be around 21 and highs around 26 degrees F. Every night or during the day, a little bit of new snow would fall. What would appear as a red/blue mix – according to the thermometer- blue was always faster. In the rockies, with new snow, blue seems to be the best choice despite the temps. However, if snow temps went upwards of 32- blue would probably not be the fastest choice. I think all winter long in Sun Valley and other nearby races, I never strayed from Moly, HF Blue, JS Blue all season!

Thanks to the Toko Tech Team of their efforts and wax tips at the Masters.

Muffy:)

www.tokous.com.

February 03, 2011 (Park City, UT) – The USSA SuperTour Standings have been updated. APU Nordic Ski Center’s Lars Flora and Holly Brooks have continued to hold onto their USSA SuperTour overall leads, so as per FIS Word Cup rules they will be granted World Cup starting rights and travel reimbursement in periods III (Drammen) & IV (Lahti). The USSA SuperTour gets a weekend off, then kicks back into gear in Aspen Feb 12-13 for a 5/10K classic and the 21K Owl Creek Chase.

Women
1. Holly Brooks (APU Nordic Ski Center) 340 points
2. Kate Fitzgerald (APU Nordic Ski Center) 235
3. Maria Stuber (CXC Team) 227
4. Morgan Smyth (APU Nordic Ski Center) 208

Men
1. Lars Flora (APU Nordic Ski Center) 297 points
2. Michael Sinnott (Sun Valley Ski Ed Foundation) 274
3. Garrott Kuzzy (CXC Team) 244
4. Brian Gregg (CXC Team) 188

Full Women’s standings HERE.
Full Men’s standings HERE.

January 30, 2011 (Houghton, Michigan) – Despite a challenge by Canadian Adam Kates (Thunder Bay), who coaches at Big Thunder, the USA’s Michael Sinnott (SVSEF) prevailed to take the win in a tight men’s 10km classic individual start on Day 2 of the Michigan SuperTour, by just over one second. CXC’s Garrott Kuzzy was third only one second behind Kates. Sinnot is closing in on Lars Flora’s (APU) lead in the SuperTour series and is now trailing by 37 points.

In the women’s 5km classic individual start Maria Stuber (CXC) won by a comfortable 5s-gap over Carolyn Freeman (UWGB) in second followed by yesterday’s sprint winner, Christina Turman (NMU), in third.

The final Day 3 continues on Sunday with the 10/15km mass start skate races.

Full results HERE.

January 29, 2011 (Houghton, Michigan) – Michael Sinnott (SVSEF) edged out CXC’s Garrott Kuzzy in the men’s 1.5km Classic Sprint in a tight finish in Houghton, Michigan on Friday winning by only 0.3s. In third another 8s back was Petter Sjulstad of Michigan Tech rounding out the podium.

Bryan Cook (CXC) was 4th and Canada’s Scott Sullivan (NDC Thunder Bay) finished in 5th. Conditions were excellent featuring fast tracks under blue skies with temperatures around 20 degrees.

Christina Turman (Northern Michigan University) took the win in the women’s sprint race with a time of 4:05.20 besting OJ racer Deedra Irwin in second place just over 5s behind with Go! Training’s Audrey Weber claiming third. The women’s field was 16-strong while 41 men were on the start line.

Full results HERE.

January 07, 2011 (Rumford, ME) – The waxing for yesterday’s skate races was predictable and straightforward. The organizers did add a bunch of freshly shot new snow overnight which made it necessary to add XCold to the HF Blue. So the wax was LF Blue, HF Blue/XCold mix, followed by a top coat of JetStream Blue. The Blue structure was excellent. Most people do not understand Nordlite XCold even still. XCold is an additive that increases durability and hardens the base, but that is not the most important thing that it does practically. What it really does is make the skis faster at slower speeds (ie breakaway speed). For this reason, it is superb in freshly shot man-made. If conditions are simply fast and cold, it is not needed. If it is slow and cold, it is the ticket (either mixed with Blue or as its own layer in extreme cases).

This was one of the most exciting and stimulating race days that I can remember. In the men’s race, there were 3 skiers who battled it out: Lars Flora, Noah Hoffman, and Tad Elliot. These three were very close throughout the entire race, despite the individual start format. On the last lap of the 30k skate, with about 1.5k left, Tad was 2 seconds up on Noah and even with Lars. I was happy for Tad that he finished .10 ahead to take the win. The impressive thing was that Noah and Tad had excellent information and simply kept doing what they had to do in order to win. Unfortunately for them though, Lars is skiing fast! They kept on having to suffer more and more in order to match Lars. It was an extreme game of “up the ante”. I am sure that had Lars followed the other two in the start order, he would have won. Congratulations to all 3 of these warriors on a great day and thank you for inspiring those who witnessed the battle.

The women’s race was another story. Evidently Liz Stephen skis really well when she is pissed. She took the race out with intensity and simply took the race. Her effort level, tempo, and will to win was simply unmatched today. She earned the big win, that’s for sure.