Jay Richards

Yeah, nothing like a 50 degree temp swing in 14 hours....if you look at Sunday of MLK to yesterday.....70 degrees of change!! Through it all....still skiing. Crazy to think about actually. Knowing today was coming, grinded out 2.5 hour on the skate boards. Usually skate outings aren't more than 1.5 because I prefer to long ski on the classic but conditions were too nice yesterday not too skate.



Jack has owned Lucky's Loype the past week, five trips in the past seven days. We went out earlier in the week a few times then he went out on his own and last two times he has pulled Jens along. There are couple of hills that are a bit dicey but they have been fine. Got sidetracked at Suicide Hill I guess having some fun.


Jake and I did skate sprints on Saturday and then Sunday, classic sprints. Our kicker was bad, Rex Power grip blue didn't cut it for 32 degree snow but still a good workout. Jake wanted to stop and wax but said it is good training if you blow your wax in a race, you have to learn how to ski fast with bad kick.
Dave Christopherson stopped by on Sunday after skiing in Govenors on Saturday. The guy is amazing, 57 years old and putting the screws to the youngans. Mini-skinnys series overall champ last year. He was going for a short ski he said, a little skate, little classic...he was having so much on the classic only trails he ended up just classic skiing almost 5 hours!! He was passing by on the other trail when Jake and I were coming in and couldn't get a better shot than the one above. I think he said he did all the trails except Bullhead. Super nice guy, smiling when he came in, smiling when he left.
Zigs waving the flag nicely at US Nationals. After Nats tough go in some collegiate races but he will come around and be kicking some butt come to the point when it really matters. More later.

Speaking of kicking butt, how about Garrott Kuzzy at the recent World Cup at Canmore? I dropped him a note after the weekend to congratulate him on his fine results. I like his reply I pasted below:

"Hey Jay,

Thanks for the note.  Racing up and down every alpine
mountain in Minnesota certainly helped prepare me for
that race.  Just made it back to Hayward yesterday and
got out for a sweet mountain bike ride on the
snowmobile trails.  Heading to Europe in a week to get
more World Cup experience!

Hope all's well up at Maplelag.... Best of
luck to all your skiers going into the final weeks of
the high school season!

All the best,

Garrott"

Man the wind is howling today. Will be a good day to wax those carbonlites about 20 times. They are sucking the wax like a horse.

Park Rapids and DL tonight in hockey. Should be a good game. Jonell's home town versus my home town. Jon has practice right before so will try to catch it. Warroad and Roseau #2 tonight. I think it will be closer this time, being it is in Warroad and if Roseau loses any regular season games this year, this would be it but I think Roseau will take it by one with Aaron Ness stepping up tonight.