City of Lakes Loppet 2011

One of my fav events of winter has come and gone again. I love love love the City of Lakes Loppet events! Whether I get 5th in my age group or 21st out of 40 I have so much fun. It is so exciting to see so many other nordic skiers out there enjoying this wonderful winter! The temps were perfect and we had pretty good snow...very soft and instant mashed potato like in some places but overrall we could not have asked for a better day for it. One older man at the start said, "you could put a board on your feet and still enjoy your ski today!"

The fun begins Saturday night at the Luminary Loppet which is a beautiful very leisurely 5k ski around Lake of the Isles which is lit up by luminaries. Next year I am getting Linnea out there and Chris too! We just didn't feel like we had the best equipment for it this year.

Chris and L may not have been there but my friends Missy and Ross were and so were my parents and Ross' parents.

We had a great time and even saw some more snow sculptures which line the finish line.

My parents came over after to carbo load for our (my dad and I's) 33K race/ski the next morning.

Here is a picture of the walk up to start. Yes we have to walk up quite a few flights of steps to get there but I prefer that over the previous start of the race going up a monster hill.

Dad and daughter at the start! We both started in Wave 5 out of 7 waves which is right where we should be. Before children I think I may have been in Wave 3 but like I said, I'm out there to have fun now rather than racing and am happy I can still do it and be at the avg or just above avg pace. I am so lucky to have Chris who can be with Linnea while I am off doing crazy skiing and running events!

And lucky to have a dad who does them with me.

Go Dad!

Go Amy!

We finished!

And since it was my 7th one, as I got my pin I was told I was a veteran but to take it as a compliment. Thank you. I will :)

Speedy dad beat me this year but we were close...just a few minutes apart. We also always run into our family friends the Reckingers at the event. Mr. Reck was my sball coach throughout high school, I skied with/coached 3 of his kids and played softball with his daughter and we have just remained friends ever since! It's amazing that among literally thousands of skiers we still find each other without really planning it. It happens at the Birkie too where there are even more thousands of people! So we chatted with them and had our soup, pretzels, popcorn and cookie together before heading home and going watching the Superbowl.