By Bruce Karnick

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Hastings senior, Linnea Urban was doing her best to stay distracted between races at Friday’s conference championship for Nordic Skiing last week. The emotion of a school year that is clearly taking its toll on our kids, the emotion of it being her last conference race, and a mind that is going through thousands of scenarios, had her stressed. Even the presence of her beau, the ever calm, Simon Hedin, could not help with settling her nerves.

“I hate the waiting part; I’d rather just start skiing and get it over with. But yeah, once, once we were getting close to race time, I felt better, but the whole, ‘are we going in like 10 minutes?’ thing because no one else is lining up. Like, what are we doing? So, once we got going it got easier but, yeah, definitely, the nerves were there, but, you know, you’ve got to learn how to control them and, yeah, it ended up being okay,” a relieved Urban said.

Speaking with her father, Scott Urban, he described his advice to his daughter, “She was worried about Mahtomedi’s Makayla Fischer, ‘Dad, she’s getting better every year!’, so are you kiddo, just go out there and do your thing.”

Urban did her thing and had a five second lead over Fischer after the morning’s classic race. An added stressor to the day was the way the races were started. One racer every five seconds could go, and they alternated between three schools. Each racer had a transponder on their ankle, which started and stopped automatically as they crossed the start and finish line. Fischer started about 30 seconds ahead of Urban, a distance that does not seem all that far, but it was far enough that neither racer knew where the other was on the course. An issue that could go either way in the minds of the athletes. Before the race, it seemed a stressor, but once on the course, Urban knew what she had to do.

“I definitely wanted to get that last one before I graduate and it was just, you know, it’s hard to enjoy your last races when you’re a bit stressed about the outcome but [Head Coach John] Dewall and a couple people reminded me that the outcome will take care of itself. You’ve done the homework, as we say,” Urban explained. “You have skied all the days you need to, done all the workouts to the T, so you just got to go out and ski it. So yeah, I think, definitely senior year, being a very weird year, gave me some extra motivation to put it out there, I guess.”

The race day was split up for competitors to limit the amount of people in the area. The course was also shorter than normal too by roughly one kilometer. The boys started with three heats at 9:00 then again at 10:20. After the boys cleared out, the girls came in for two heats starting at 11:30 and 1:00. Hastings was in the last heat of each race.

The first race is called Classic. It is the standard Nordic ski race you expect. Knees together, two side by side paths of the ski and the racer moving up and down like a piston. The second race is called Skate. Skate is exactly what it sounds like, the racers use a skating motion to generate their forward movement. The entire day is setup as what is called a “Pursuit” event. Normally, the fastest racer from the first race would start and the second-place racer would then start at the same gap between them and the first-place racer, on down the line. The true pursuit race then gives each competitor a real race because you know where your competitor is on the course.

The conference championship was a modified pursuit race. The two events times were added together for an overall winner, but the racers still left the start line at set intervals to try to keep a good COVID related distance between them.

Urban had a five second cushion and for Friday, Skate was her strong race.

“Yeah, it was hard, but you know, Dewall was on the course, he was screaming quite loudly at me so I had some good motivation. But, yeah, it was, it was good. I had a great time out there it was fun.”

For clarification. Coach Dewall’s “screaming” is him saying things like, ‘Keep it up!’, ‘Push!’ quick technical guidance, and positive things, an update on the people behind or in front of his athletes, or maybe an update of how much the racer has left, often their current pace. All positive things a coach should do to support them.

Urban’s Classic time was 13:57.9 and her Skate time was 12:24.9 for a total pursuit race of 26:22.8 giving her four years back-to-back as the Metro East Conference Champion. She finished a total of 30 seconds ahead of Fischer.

Other notable times for Hastings: Elise Atkins finished seventh overall with a time of 30:57.5. Annika Tix finished 15th with 34:03.4. Molly Caturia in 18th with 34:12.1. Carlee Kordosky in 29th with 38:46.5. Jordyn Doughty finished 34th with 41:42.0 The girls as a team were second with a score of 435, behind Mahtomedi and their 485.

What is next for Urban? Long term, she is headed north to St. Scholastica to run Cross Country and do Nordic Ski for the Saints.

“I will not be doing track there because the seasons don’t quite line up with Nordic because you could be skiing when track starts so with cross country and Nordic being such a similar sport in the aspect of distance-based training and intervals and stuff like that even though it’s running and skiing, they’re very comparable so they work together.”

That means for Urban, track this year is her last hurrah. Her last sport to do simply for the fun of it and being with her teammates.

“[Dewall] doesn’t want to make me feel like I need to perform at my top level this spring so I think that, you know, I’ll use track as kind of a fun way to end senior year with a bunch of my friends, hopefully, and just, you know, the team aspect of everything.”

One thing is for sure, The Raiders will miss Linnea Urban both on and off the field of play.

On the boy’s side, Senior, Sam Rabaey had a strong outing as well. After the classic race, Rabaey was sitting in third behind first-place Max Nelson of Mahtomedi and second- place Nick Holton of Tartan.

After the first race, Coach Dewall had a few athletes and assistants around him discussing the course and techniques with the racers. They were trying to figure out the course and if it was faster to stay in the tracks or venture on your own and go straighter through the corners. After, Rabaey stepped away to give us a quick interview.

“This time, I did pretty good. Not quite as good as I want it to do but I’m sitting up there, I raced well,” Rabaey said.

Rabaey went on to explain the obstacles he had during the race, “just trying to figure out how to play the course, you know if you just stay in the tracks going around the corners because you usually go on the outside or if you should try to like cut through a little bit because tracks are typically faster but cutting through is less distance. Also just kind of trying to overcome like the mental block of you’re tired you want to stop you just gotta keep going.”

The common theme among all the athletes is clear, and Rabaey said it for everyone, “I’m just happy to be out here. Glad, it wasn’t last Friday when it was like, negative forty something, It’s cold but it’s better than the alternative.”

Max Nelson of Mahtomedi won the boys side with a combined time of 24:50.8. Rabaey finished fourth overall with a time of 25:55.9. Josiah Trost was right behind him with 26:42.8. Kyle Stoltz finished eighth with 27:12.2. Aidan Stoltz was 31st with 33:19.6. Micah Trost finished 40th with 36:26.7 The boys as a team finished with 417 points which put them in third overall behind Mahtomedi with 457 and Tartan with 462.

Linnea Urban begins her quest for her fourth straight Nordic Skiing Conference Championship.

Photo by Bruce Karnick

Sam Rabaey at the start of a solid race day for the Raider boys Nordic Ski team. The Raider boys finished second overall on the day. Photo by Bruce Karnick