Skiers battle cold in Pursuit

Cross-country skiers from 11 schools made their way to Colony High School to compete against each other in both classic and freestyle skiing events Friday and Saturday in the Mat-Su Pursuit.

In addition to the competition amongst themselves, the skiers found a much more difficult opponent in both day's events -- freezing temperatures well below zero.

Despite temperatures hovering around the zero mark on Friday, both the boys' and girls' classic style races went off without a hitch.

Saturday's start time of 10 a.m. was delayed for one hour to wait for the minus-15 temperature to warm up.

Peninsula skiers are not allowed to race when temperatures exceed minus 10. By 11 a.m., the temperature had risen to minus nine and the girls' race was started.

The start of Saturday's race used a differential start with skiers starting based off Friday's result time. This enabled the races to be combined into one time to determine an overall winner of the pursuit for girls and boys.

Donned with extra long underwear, throat protection, and petroleum jelly and/or tape covering their faces, the girls made the trek through the crusty snow.

"The cold didn't really affect me very much," said Su Valley's Tazlina Mannix. "I just tried to stay focused on the race."

Mannix won the girls' pursuit race, passing the leader shortly into the course and running away from the field Saturday.

"I basically ran up the hills," said Mannix. "It was hard to ski in this cold because the skis don't want to slide."

Skyview won the girls' team pursuit with Soldotna placing second. Su Valley finished third in the event, followed by Palmer in fourth place. Colony finished sixth and Wasilla finished seventh.

Colony coach and event coordinator Ed Strabel said it was like skiing on sandpaper because the cold affected not only the conditions, but any type of wax that was used on the skis.

Strabel commented that trail preparations were not too difficult between Friday's and Saturday's events.

"We were fortunate to get fresh snow last week," said Strabel. "We had to make several passes to work out the classic ski tracks from Friday, but the course was ready."

The cold temperatures not only affected conditions and skiers, but also stopped time. The battery powering the race timers succumbed to the cold even though Strabel had put it into a cooler lined with heating packs.

Strabel worked around that problem by powering the timers with juice from a running snowmachine.

After the girls' race, temperatures again dropped to minus 15, causing Strabel and the other coaches to call off the boys' event.

"It was a no-brainer," said Strabel. "We didn't want kids getting hurt out there."

Friday's single boys' event was used to determine overall rankings for individual and team finishes. Soldotna's Brenton Knight won the individual boys' pursuit with Colony's Ross Wise finishing third.

Soldotna won the boys' team pursuit with Colony placing second. Palmer finished fourth while Wasilla finished in sixth place.

Although the boys' were dressed and ready to compete, not many were disappointed as they scurried to get back inside the warm school.

"I would have liked to race but I'm not disappointed," said Wasilla skier Russell Wirkus. "It was the right decision. I didn't want to get frostbite."