Per Johnsen Memorial Ozbaldy Race Report

 

KSC's traditional Ozbaldy 50k and 10k race has been renamed the Per Johnsen Memorial Ozbaldy 50k and 10k to honor KSC legend Per Johnsen, who founded the race some 20 years ago and passed away last year at the age of 80. Per started the race because he thought there might be interest in a local 50k, and he was right. In the early days, he and Sandy stood at the finish line with paper notepads and pencils and stopwatches at the ready, writing down racers' lap times and finish times. The race has been held every year since then, except during Covid, with increasingly sophisticated timing technology, and continues to grow as a bucket-list event.

Per was born in Norway and came to America with his family as a young teenager. The family landed in Ballard, and Per went to Ballard High School, where he met his future wife Sandy. From there he headed to the University of Washington, then to Green Bay, Wisconsin, for graduate school. There he fell in with a group of like-minded skiers who developed a local trail system and started a little race you may have heard of: the American Birkie. He raced in the very first one and in almost every one since then, more than 30 in total. The family moved back to Seattle (although they returned to the Birkie every winter until his illness conquered his body a couple of years ago and he wasn't able to continue) and joined Kongsbergers, where he continued to be a force in cross country skiing and training. 

These are the cold hard facts, but as always, there is more to the story. Per was a true renaissance man, an intellectual as well as an athlete, always even-tempered, fun to talk to and hang out with, an inspiration to go on adventures with, and generous about sharing his knowledge of skiing and enthusiasm for training. There are a number of us who still remember meeting on Wednesday evenings after work for the hard interval workouts he led up Tiger Mountain, often followed by a little Mexican food for recovery! His absence leaves a large hole in the club. He is greatly missed, and it was an honor to be his friend for many years.

And what about this year's Ozbaldy? Chris Fast sends us this report on what the conditions were like on this spring-like day:

Conditions were faster than they appeared!  It was well above freezing all day, but it had firmed up sufficiently to create a firm and fast skating surface that lasted for about half the race.  Then things softened up, and the steep climbs got really mushy.  This was not surprising given nearly 90 10-k'ers stampeding over it and 60 50-k'ers running over it 5 times; the snow didn't stand a chance in 40F+ temps.  Doing the math, that's 390 skaters.  Plus two amazing paraskiers churning up the snow with their 400hp pole strokes.  And one lonely 50k classic skier, who chose to classic in the hopes of sparing his trashed-out knee. His plan would have worked brilliantly were it not for the fact that the Ozbaldy course is in fact quite hilly (who knew?) and requires A LOT of herringboning and uphill stomp-jogging. 

That's our Ozbaldy -- always a challenge!

The top three women in the 10k were Linda Maxson, Miranda Miner, and Savannah Schumaier, and the top three men were Calvin Forsberg, James Stadler, and Bret Sparling. The para-skiers were Erin Martin and Nate Higgins. The 50k winners, shown below, were Ashley Nichols, Amelia Keyser-Gibson, and Helen Jack for the women, and Tyler Quinn-Smith, Chris Pappathopoulos, and Dmitry Chernov for the men. Well done, everyone!

Chris Fast photo