Marathon Season

While Zoe's been racing up a storm on the OPA and Scando circuit (7 races in 10 days), Morgan and myself have been hitting up the domestic marathon circuit. Morgan skied to second in the Noquemanon, a 50km classic race held in Marquette, MI.
 Next up for me was the Boulder Mountain Tour. The competition this year was going to be pretty stiff with the Sun Valley gold team girls (Chelsea, Nicole, Mo and Alexa), Rebecca Dussault once again kicking ass, and other top notch skiers looking for a race to fill in the gap this time of year. Right off the line it was pretty hard for me to hang on and I did the best I could to ski efficiently and draft off the other girls. The pace let up after the first couple kms but it was still the most focused I've ever had to be during this race. I was not a contender in the sprint finish in which Rebecca took the win, Mo 2nd and Chels 3rd. I bobbled behind them after getting towed to the line by my Bend buddy, Jason Adams...probably wouldn't have made it there without ya.
Next up was a few days of recuperation, Sun Valley style, before heading down to Colorado. We had two gorgeous days of sunshine and skiing at Galena and Sun Valley Nordic Center.

Found a fellow ski bum in Sun Valley, yes those are gold

Friday brought another day of racing, the Teva Mtn Games 10 km skate. Morgan showed her sprinting prowess and took the preem by a toe over Rebecca. I got unlucky in the start and ended up on the ground in one of those hilarious nord pile-ups. Came out of it with both poles intact but one dangling bootcuff. Rough day to say the least. Morgan skied to a strong 4th place and set herself up well for the Ultimate Mountain Challenge which encompassed a randonee race the next day and a hill climb the day after that.
Morgan's first rando race included 9500 ft of climbing with hairy descents through steep trees and huge moguls. It was an accomplishment for anyone to finish, not to mention put on spiked running shoes the next morning for the Vail hill climb. 
While Morgan was busy putting the hurt on at 10,000 ft, I went over to Aspen to race the Owl Creek Chase, a point to point 20 km skate race. While I was disappointed with result, I was happy to get a good week of hard efforts. Between the Boulder, the Teva games and the Owl Creek Chase, there was some good training for the race beginning with a capital B in a little place called Hayward...