After having missed the last three editions for various reasons (Michigan Tech was hosting the US Cross Country Ski National Championships in 2023, and not enough snow in 2024 and 2025), I signed up not long after the registration opened up. For a vast majority of my cross country skiing Winters, SISU has served as the first of many mini family reunions. It has provided the first real race atmosphere to put to test newly acquired skills and take stock of things that need to be worked on. While the rationale remained the same, the 2026 edition had a bit more value in light of many missed / canceled events in recent times that had limited the opportunities to see my family – on and/or off the trails.

da Preparation

I was sufficiently disciplined throughout the week – staying true to the script in use to systematically regain much of the faded fitness over the 2025 calendar year. Though Toko’s recommendation – released on Thursday – called for klister (and layers of it) and topping of hard wax, unlike previous such occasions and thanks in great part to the sage (and repeated) advice from MikeY and Bjorn, there was very little panic. With all but hard wax application completed – focusing on just one layer at a time – by Friday noon, a good portion of the evening was spent carefully packing requisite stuff (it had been a while since I was a part of an organized event – on or off the snow).

Skiing at a steady effort while focusing on good form (e.g., lean from the ankle, engaging the core, arm follow through and recovery, etc.) and the terrain appropriate technique (e.g., double pole, kick double pole, pole plant, knee drive, etc.) was the plan. My Klister Cover inexperience and lack of harder efforts and ongoing / almost complete recovery from 2025’s nutrient shortages and not wanting to overdo things in the first week of a 12-week plan and expected weather (50% chance of snow) … played a role in opting for a steady effort and foregoing the race suite in favor of training outfit as insurance … should the outing take longer than I planned. With 10 kilometers in 60 minutes as the hardest effort on classic skis so far this Winter (about a month ago), I believed I could achieve such a pace with a steady effort and sustain it for about 90 minutes. And thus, 1:29:59 became the time goal for this event.

da Event

Less than a full night of sleep led to a pretty relaxed Saturday morning. Ironwood, MI, being only 2-ish hour drive (and more importantly, being in the Central Time Zone) helped a great deal too. With plans of continuing my journey across the Cheese Curtain after the event, I started the solo drive around 8 am (Eastern Time). Roads were very good in spite of gently falling snow, and an uneventful drive brought me to Ironwood around 9:15 am (Central Time). Finding a parking spot, picking up the packet and riding the communal bus to the ABR were all equally uneventful. Catching up with friends – Allison, Angela, Blair, Kim, Liam (fellow NORDJORK Ambassadork), Nancy, Shawn, Will (and making new ones) – accounted for bulk of the next hour and few significant minutes were spent prime-factorizing of our bib numbers – 1119 and 1678 – with Liam and expecting their semi-prime nature to be an indicator of a good performance.

I had rarely ever tested my skis prior to the start – partly because I am a commoner and travel with one pair of skis and there usually is no place to leave a second (or third) pair of skis at the start and have them brought to me at the finish line; partly because I have learned to trust the official recommendation and my preparation and if they don’t work as expected during testing, there is usually very little I can do to fix them before the race begins. But I have been told (and repeatedly so) that it’s a good idea to test the skis even if I am a commoner and figure out a way to fix them if they aren’t behaving as well as expected. Though I had made up my mind to make them work and get to the Finnish Line without DNFing, I did test my skis, entered the start corral and lined up next to Will.

As Mr. Diggins (yes, that Jessie‘s dad) counted down the time to start our wave on time, I started my Garmin a few seconds earlier to avoid a false/delayed start (or a start line entanglement). We were off when the gun fired and I started well within myself. There were still some jitters through the first kilometer but mass skiing felt quite normal. Steady effort with a focus on good form and terrain appropriate technique was yielding faster than expected kilometer splits. Chalking the first 2-3 such splits to excitement (and potentially effort being higher than steady), I kept up what felt like steady effort.

By the 4th km with similarly faster than expected splits, I had come to realize that … the Sun had come out, temperature had remained blessedly pleasant, the wind was very negligible, the classic tracks had been holding their shape really well, and the skis were kicking and gliding just fine. So, not wanting to waste what was undoubtedly the best overall conditions of my personal SISU Ski Fest history, I upgraded a portion of my plan – to ski at a sustainably hard effort – while preserving form and technique goals. Unlike previous couple editions, I almost always had someone ahead of me in the tracks in the second half – someone with more experience, better form and technique. Though I couldn’t replicate their motion 100%, what I was able to do what I could have done on my own. Though I slipped numerous times, as far as I could recall (later), fatigue from overheating (remember: I hadn’t worn my race suite) OR trying a bit too hard and in turn, not transferring my weight correctly / completely were the likely causes.

Volunteers at aid stations and road crossings were kind and friendly as usual. And so were many fellow skiers as they glided (or kicked) past me at various points along the course. Like a little child, I almost always forget about the a couple of big climbs with powdered sugar towards the end. But like the face hiding behind the palm in a game of peekaboo, they have always reminded me of their permanence and they did so once again this year. Crossing the Finnish Line – still feeling sufficiently strong about 9 minutes ahead of the 1:29:59 goal I thought was possible felt really good! The official finish time was 1:21:05 – good for 20th overall, 17th amongst males and 1st in my age group. It’s valuable (and inspiring) to note that 11 of the 19 folks ahead of me belonged to what my buddy, Stephen, calls the Murderers’ Row of Cross Country Skiing.

Between the said Finnish Line and yummy (and hearty) pasties a few blocks away in the historic Ironwood Memorial Building, I got to catch up with handful of familiar faces (Adam, Andre, Clay, Greg, Jackie, Jenna, Joy, Kim, Kristen, Laci, Liam and his family, Melanie, Sam, Scott, Shawn, Will, Zach and more) and a couple new faces belonging to the said Murderers’ Row. As the festivities wound down, I left Ironwood after a brief chat with Sammy (of Superior Timing fame) and headed towards Hayward, WI, in what felt like a mini blizzard. After a quick check-in and a much needed shower, I got to have a hearty meal with Chris at Angler’s on Main Street. The day’s proceedings caught up to me not long after and I ended the night around 9 pm (Central Time).

da Day After

A mostly meh night of sleep (facility was a bit too warm and I hadn’t hydrated as well as I could/should have), I woke up around 4:30 am. After fueling at Velo Cafe, I enjoyed quite a peaceful outing along several new-to-me segments of the immaculately groomed American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation trail system. Catching up with more friendly faces (Dave, Jay, Kai, Max, Piotr, Tom, Tryg and more) – many/most of whom had done the Seeley Hills Classic the day before – was fun. So was the safe drive on non-snowy roads all the way back to Houghton thinking about things I need to work on to get better.

Carpe Skiem!

Thanks be to

the rejections and opportunities life has brought my way, event folks (organizers, sponsors, volunteers, timers, law enforcement officials, photographers, fellow participants and spectators) and my family of good friends, mentors and coaches in and outside of my community for all the unexpected, undeserved and unrewarded acts of kindness and constant encouragement as well as offerings of constructive criticism to improve myself as a human and an athlete. I am eternally grateful to all those who let me train with them, who shared their meals and experiences with me, who helped keep me in good health, who helped me stay the course, and who cheered me on from home or along the course.