Emily Watson-Cook skated her virtual 10 km Denali State Bank Sonot Kkaazoot in an official time of 50:33.
Emily writes:
“I skied the 10 km Sonot course this afternoon and finished up around 3:38 pm. It was partly sunny t-shirt weather and the grooming was great – a perfect day for it!
My time was 50:33:38. I’m a 26 year old female and I was skating.”
Thanks Emily for your report and great selfie.
Max Kaufman sked his classical virtual 30 km Denali State Bank Sonot Kkaazoot on Sunday in a time of 1:49:12. Like most skiers to date, he reports that his actual course distance was a little shy of 30 km.
Max writes:
“Golden sunlight filtering through the trees, with birch shadows across the trail. I finished the course at sunset with the red chalet ablaze. The snow out White Bear is still cold and fine. This is the first imaginary race I’ve done where the groomers start ripping out the tracks while you’re still on the final kilometer. All in good fun: nice job groomers!”
Dermot Cole, a writer and journalist, skis without hinderance of electronic devices to record his workout data. However, unlike Frank Soos and me, Dermot does own a smart phone that he carries when he skis to keep tabs on the pulse of the news.
He reported Saturday that he skated the 10 km virtual Denali State Bank Sonot Kkaazoot on Friday. He writes:
“Did the 10K course Friday, skating. Took an hour. More or less. Probably more. This is an estimate because I did have a timing device.”
This explains why Dermot misses most of the SCUM workouts as he arrives “more or less” at the appointed time. However, he thoroughly enjoys his workouts without the SCUM nagging him to look up.
Frank Soos, who normally handles the Sonot Kkaazoot bib distribution during normal years, skied his virtual 50 km classical Denali State Bank Sonot Kkaazoot on Saturday with a time of 5:07.10. Frank is an award-winning writer and professor emeritus of English and Creative Writing at UAF so he doesn’t rely on electronic gadgets. He wears a watch that stores laps. He doesn’t need anything else than his skis and poles. Saturday he also had a cooler of food and beverages that he situated in the stadium area.
Frank writes:
“I did the first 30 km in 3:04.48. And did the whole thing in 5:07.10. What surprised me was that I did the last 20 at about the same pace as the first 30, and that I was pretty consistent over that distance. I did think I was going pretty slow as I went. At one point on the last White Bear I thought about looking at my watch, but thought, “What’s the point?” I could not go any faster. And in that mix was the 20 minute or so break for food and ski swap.
The trails did seem faster, at least White Bear did until the bottom—0 when I went by the thermometer. But judging from the pole marks not many people are doing this event. Or maybe they’re just waiting for warmer weather. The weather yesterday was perfect for me. The blacks were slow going down, and I had to herring bone very little getting out of there. I like the downs to be slow, the ups to offer good kick.
I did use tar green wax on both pairs of skis, Start binder, and I did still have wax after 30 km on the first pair, whether it would have gotten me another 20 or not I can’t guess. But if you think about the traditional Sonot, I probably could have made it on one pair of skis since the river doesn’t ask much of the wax.”
Congratulations, Frank. You’re the first skier to finish the virtual 50 km Sonot Kkaazoot all in one day. That’s an awesome accomplishment for a 70 year old skier.
To make sure that he was going to ski his virtual 90 km of Sonot Kkaazoot courses over the widest possible trail conditions, Bill Husby skied his virtual 50 km classical Denali State Bank Sonot Kkaazoot in three installments for a final official time of 4:37:08 (corrected at 2322 on 3/21/21). Total distance was 49.44 km.
On Thursday, Bill skied the start of the 30 km course: Relay, South Tower, RC bypss, Warm-up, and Black Loops
On Friday, he skied the bottom of ramp, Blue, Outhouse, Relay, Tower, Medivac
Today, Sunday, Bill skied hut to Blue, Outhouse, Relay, Tower, Medivac, WB, MM, Warmup twice.
Congratulations to Bill Husby, who becomes the first skier to classical ski all three virtual Sonot Kkaazoot courses. This week he skied the 10 km course twice, the 30 km course yesterday, and today he finished the 50 km. Bill skied the Sonot loops so many times that he mistakenly added the wrong 30 km loop to his earlier calculations for his virtual 50 km. However, his official corrected time and documentation are now shown above.
Now that he has classical skied the 90 km of virtual Sonot Kkaazoot courses, he should skate ski all three courses this week.
Don Pendergrast skied his 10 km classical virtual Denali State Bank Sonot Kkaazoot today in an official time of 52:52.
Don writes:
“After being away for a week I skied the 10K classic style today, Sunday, March 21.
I report a slightly different time to account for taking poles, gloves off, starting GPS on phone, fumbling around to put the phone in the pocket, reversing all and finally starting, repeating all at the finish.
I carefully counted One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi . . . For a total of 52 Mississippi seconds. I subtracted the fumbling time from my skiing time.”
We appreciate Don’s scientiic approach to calculating his official time.
Donovan Granger became the first skier to skate the virtual 30 km Denali State Bank Sonot Kkaazoot today in 2 hours and 30 minutes.
Donovan writes:
“It was another beautiful day in paradise, and a stellar day for a Tour deBirch under the post equinox mid day sun! Finished the 30 k course and the tracking device indicated I was a little shy of the mark,so I did another stadium lap with a sidewinder groomer ramp addition. Big fun under the Equinox sun!”
Donovan was an overachiever on his virtual 30 km Sonot so I’m expecting a virtual 50 km report from him later. All skiers are reporting the 30 km course to be somewhat short.
Congratulations, right now Donovan is the fastest virtual 30 km Sonot Kkaazoot skier by over 10 minutes.
Joanna Fox had a long “to do” list before a week long regional swim meet trip with her son to Phoenix during the traditional Sonot week. Thus, she told the remedial SCUM that she wouldn’t be doing the virtual Sonot Kkaazoot. However, when this weekend turned out to be lovely weather, it didn’t take much arm twisting to get her to leisurely ski with the SCUM mom on Saturday and then pace the SCUM on Sunday.
Joanna’s official 30 km classical virtual Denali State Bank Sonot Kkaazoot time was 3:11.
She wrote:
“Today I actually PR’d on a total of 8 sections of the route, including Outhouse, which I’m finding hard to believe given I stopped twice, including one long stop to take off my mittens and move my handwarmers to the thumbs. I did stay in the tracks on the downhills (which often I don’t), so that must have helped. I was also feeling really good during that section. I also got a PR yesterday on the North Forty A-Climb, which I think is the last one coming out of the Blacks.”
Here is the documentation for Joanna’s virtual 30 km classical ski installment from Saturday:
And from Sunday:
Congratulations, Joanna. You were definitely faster on Sunday when you weren’t trying to keep me company.
This morning, SCUMs Dan Johnson and Robert Hannon paced their mom (and coach) as she completed her 50 km virtual Denali State Bank Sonot Kkaazoot on classical skis in two installments. In doing so, Susan Sugai keeps her streak of completing all “50 km” Sonot Kkaazoot intact.
On Saturday, she skied the 30 km course, where Joanna Fox kept her company for the first 11 km as they chatted and noticed that the black loops were enjoyable at their leisurely pace. After the blue loop, Joanna called it a day and took the requisite selfie of us at that point.
Then SCUM mom had to get to work and push through on the remaining trails of the 30 km course. Thanks to the beautiful tracks on the White Bear and Moilanen Meadows (yes, she made an additional donation to the trails fund, NSCF trails fund), her kickwax held up even though the temperature increased from 1 at the start to 15 deg F at the finish. Temperatures in the black loops were well below zero.
Here is the documentation for the 30 km course (click on figure to enlarge map):
On Sunday, Dan Johnson and Robert Hannon skied the 20 km loop with Joanna and Susan. Susan wrote: “After we got onto the White Bear, the guys started chasing Joanna who had left us after the Outhouse and Relay loops. However, catching a glimpse of Dan or Robert at times motivated me to keep moving faster than I would on my own. My pace for the 20 km was much faster than for the 30 km and at a lower heart rate. Tracks were much faster so I doublepoled or tucked a lot more than Saturday.”
While skiing up the penultimate major climb in Moilanen Meadows, a gray and white bird larger than a kestral dove right over my head. I’ve since learned from Mark Ross, ADF&G bird biologist, that it was likely a goshawk. I viewed the sighting as a good omen.
Here’s the data for the second installment:
Thus, 71 year old Susan Sugai skied her classical 50 km virtual Sonot Kkaazoot in an official time of 5:57:41. This leaves only the 30 km Sonot to do over Sonot weekend when she hopes snow temperatures will increase enough to make skate skiing (her preferred technique) feasible for her aging carcass and bionic knees.
The SCUM mother and Sonot blogger is looking forward to the 35th annual Denali State Bank Sonot Kkaazoot in 2022, when she hopes there will be timers, 50 km of perfectly groomed trails, feed stations with music and enthusiastic supporters of springtime skiing, and handmade woodels for age class winners.
Jerome Jackson completed his 30 km classical virtual Denali State Bank Sonot Kkaazoot today in 3:05:26.
Jerome writes:
“Pine cone almost killed me.”
Congratulations, JJ. I understand the trail hazard today as the tracks were much faster than yesterday but the winds have brought down ample spruce cones and snow from the trailside trees.
Sonot Kkaazoot 