Noquemenon Ski Marathon

This past weekend, one of the largest point-to-point races in the Midwest took place in the always snowy Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan. The Noquemenon Ski Marathon begins in Ishpeming, MI and finishes on the doorstep of Marquette’s Superior Dome. It attracted over 1000 participants in the 53km / 23km Classic and Skate races. The marathon utilizes a wide variety of different trail systems ranging from the steep ups and downs of the Al Quaal trails, to the wide open rolling terrain at the Forestville trails. From the 25km mark to the finish, you loose in the neighborhood of 1000 vertical feet, so this is most certainly a ‘bonk friendly’ course!

The U.P., as usual, has had a very good snow year, but a mid January thaw brought a fair amount of ice and rain to the region. This made for some tricky conditions leading into the race, but thankfully the race course received 2-3 inches of fresh powder just days before the race to help freshen up the trail. As was the case the prior 2 years I participated in the Noquemonon, we woke to below 0F temperatures yet again on race morning. Point-to-point races such as this bring in a different aspect that other races don’t. The temperatures are usually about 10F different from Ishpeming to Marquette on a regular basis, and then figure in about 3 hours to make the 53km trek, temperatures can be upwards of 20F warmer by the finish.

Glide Wax:

With a relatively cold snow pack and firm conditions, I had the glide wax fairly nailed down going into testing the morning before the race. I had been skiing in the U.P. for a few days before the race, and had observed that the snow was very dry and windblown. As mentioned above, waxing for a 20F temperature change during the race is very difficult, but the most challenging aspects of the race course are fairly early on in the race. Because of this, I felt it was more important to have the glide wax dialed in for the temperatures the racers would see in the first half of the race. I tested 4 different wax combinations the morning before. The waxes what were in on this test were LF4/LF3 in a 1:1 ratio, LF4, HF4BW, and FC7. The results were not surprising to me judging by the dryness of the snow, with LF4/LF3 testing by far the quickest. I felt confident going with this, and recommending it as the wax of the day. I did however feel that FC7 would get better as the race went along, and I’m sure those who went with that had great skis for the second half of the race.

Kick Wax:

Durability of the kick wax was for sure going to be the limiting factor on whether or not a person had good skis for the entire 53km race. I did extensive kick testing the morning before the race knowing that having quality kick was going to be of utmost importance the next day. I tested 3 different options. Option 1: Hard wax binder (VG30) ironed in, covered with V30 flex wax layer ironed in, covered with 4 layers of VR30. Option 2: Klister binder (KR20) ironed in covered with 4 layers of VR30. Option 3: Klister binder (KR20) ironed in covered with KR30 also ironed in. Of the three options, option 1 and option 2 kicked equally well, but somewhat surprisingly the klister binder covered pair were more free and had much better glide qualities. Because of this, it was an easy choice as to what kick wax combo to go ahead with. Not only would the ironed in klister binder covered with hard wax be more durable, but it also had substantially better glide.

The durability of the kick wax ended up being quite a challenge, with many racers (including many of the racers finishing in the top 10) loosing a lot of kick relatively early on in the race. With very firm conditions, and a fair amount of sliding on corners necessary in the first 10k of the race, having quality kick was a struggle toward the end of the race. In race conditions such as this, I believe those that had very good ‘klister’ flexed skis were the ones who still had kick toward the end of the race. Knowing your skis was certainly important on a day like this.

The 2010 Noquemenon Ski Marathon went off without a hitch even with the sub par weather leading up to it. A big shout out to the race director Jon Mommaerts for all the trail updates, and making due with the cards he was dealt in regards the snow conditions, and grooming equipment breaking down just days before the event. The Noquemenon is truly one the great races in the Midwest, and I’m looking forward to being back in 2011. See you all at the City of Lakes Loppet next weekend.

Joshua Korn

Swix Sport U.S.

kornski@hotmail.com