Moving Right Along

Brrrrrrrrrr...

Last weekend was too cold for me to race. So cold that they cancelled the sprint and went with the distance race last second (which at that current time was a calculated -21C, which was under legal race temp). I was worried with important races coming up that I wouldn't chance burning my lungs up and so I started our race at Bohart Ranch knowing that if I felt my lungs were working too hard in the cold I was going to pull it. This is never an easy decision for me, but for me, at this point, it just made sense.

After Bozeman we headed up to Rossland, BC for some NorAm races. I love doing these because it is always a good American contingent along with some amazing Canadian skiers. My goals for these races were lofty and after missing two important races in Bozeman, I didn't really want to give up opportunities to score good points and build confidence going into US Nationals.

My goal the first day of racing was to win qualifying. I missed it by .3 seconds over a good friend of mine, Dakota Blackhorse - Von Jess. I was wasn't too upset though because I know how amazing of a skier Dakota is. I skied through the rounds well, got lucky in my semi-final and worked all the way to the finish of the A-Final where I ended up in 4th place, .01 seconds in front of Dakota. Dakota is one of the best sprinters in the nation so I am always humbled when I can grab a hundredth of a second from him.

The second day of racing was a 15k Classic. I have been working on my classic skiing quite a bit this year and especially my herring boning. I am glad I did because our course was on elf the hardest I have ever skied. It skied well but the hill were reminiscent of all the World Cup courses I have skied, where I get to the bottom of it and go, "You're kidding me." I wanted to start off the race conservative and ski into it which is what I did. I had the 4th fastest 1st lap, the fastest 2nd lap, and the fastest 3rd lap. Unfortunately I got beat out by the guy who had the fastest first lap by almost 20 seconds, and he only beat my by 3 seconds but I was happy with it. 

I love Canada and look forward to coming back soon! 

Onto US Nationals!!! And Christmas!!!

In the netting after the sprint!

Here We Go

The season has begun and is going full steam! Last Thursday I came to West Yellowstone to get in some good skiing before our races this past weekend. The skiing was amazing all week, cold but good. We had some successful intervals on Tuesday and then tested before the races.

Friday was an exciting day for our team. We had our teammate, Ryan Scott, win the sprint qualifier and I came in 2nd, just .6 seconds behind Ryan. The next qualifier was 2 seconds back, Skylar Davis. 

I was in the 4th quarterfinal and it was an exciting one to say the least. It was a fast heat and I led 90% of it which may have been my downfall. I know I needed to have a good position going into the last little bit, but I led too much which caused me to big down a bit in the final stretch. It was so close at the finish between me and two others but I missed it by just a small amount. I ended up 12th on the day. Happy but not completely satisfied.

Saturday we had our 15km skate and woke up feeling pretty good. I had a difficult starting position so I had to play my race a little differently than I usually do. I had the first bib in the A seed so I was not able to get any splits off of any of the other higher ranked skiers, so essentially, I wasn't sure where I was in comparison to the field until the whol field came through. My goal was to set a good first lap time to scare the rest of the field without going too deep and not being able to come back. I went out hard and set a good first lap time but struggled to finish the race with a good poppy feeling. I would describe it more as "hanging in there."

I ended up 3rd behind my ITA teammate, Brian Gregg who skied a great race. He paced his race quite well. He started off slower and moved up each lap. Pretty impressive.

Pretty happy with how my ITA teammates are doing! That's it for now.

We are heading to Bozeman and then Roasland in the next two weeks. We'll have some updates in the works!

Below are some photos from last couple of weeks!

My family at a fundraiser for my season.

Our "hamster wheel" at the bottom of Gold Peak.

Our new team suits

Our juniors really socially engaging eachother...not

My grandparents came to watch my races. I also got to spend Thanksgivng with them, which was very nice!

Men's Sprint Podium

Men's Distance podium (me in orange) and Brian Gregg (orange shoelaces).