No Olympics. Eh, whatever...

I'm bummed, but it's time to pick the next adventure.

This past Tuesday was probably the longest day of my life. I was trying not to build the day up in my mind, but it was literally impossible. I was stressed in the morning and didn't sleep much the night before. All I was doing was thinking about it. I was thinking about the call I was going to get. It literally felt like I was waiting for Christmas morning having to wait until everyone was up to open presents.

That morning I told Sarah how I was feeling and it was something she said that really made me take a step back and put things into perspective. I can just refer you to my post on my athlete page that begins: "Right now I'm going to go for a nordic ski..." (www.facebook.com/sylvanellefsonathlete)

The news came Tuesday night while I was sitting at Sarah's work on her patient table reading Outside Magazine. I read the email, laid back on the table. Looked at Sarah. I think she immediately knew. Shook my head at her with a forced smile.

It was really hard for me to take. Immediate emotion always takes over. Anger, disappointment, sadness... but this was something that I had never felt before. But again, just like that morning, Sarah helped me put everything back into perspective. She reminded me of all the amazing relationships I had developed in skiing, all the amazing places skiing has taken me and all the things I had already accomplished in my ski career.

I won a National Championship for the first time in my life less than 3 weeks ago. That is so sweet. 

I'm bummed to be honest. How could one so close not be? I wanted one more taste of being able to perform on the world's stage. But now I get to watch some of my best friends do that and I'll be cheering my ass off every single race during these games.

The Vail community and the ski community is unbelievably amazing. Very supportive. 

Everyone has been very supportive and loving. That has helped a lot. 

I have always believed that happiness can be found down many different avenues so when something gets you down, you find something that reminds you of and brings you back to that warm, fuzzy, familiar place. I can't get stressed over missing an Olympic Team nomination. I won't let it get me down. 

So now I'm busy getting back to the drawing board for my next adventure.

I'm equally bummed for my ITA teammate Caitlin Gregg, who has skied the most impressive domestic season I think I have ever seen by a woman. I am equally as excited to see my other ITA nordic skiing teammates, Torin and especially Brian for qualifying for the Olympics. I know how hard and how long Brian has been working at this goal of getting to his first Olympics!

A National Title

Some people have 17. Some people don't ever think they'll get one. For some people like me, they hope that their work over the past ten years will finally boil to down to one of these.  

A National Championship.

For the first time in my life, I was able to call myself a National Champion and I couldn't have been happier. I was humbled by the men I was competing against. Of course it was none other than my ITA teammate, Brian Gregg, chasing me down to the final stretch. It was fun and most important to me, it was an exciting fun race to watch.

I was blessed to have over 30 people come watch me on the courses in Soldier Hollow, Utah. It was so fun to share the experience with everyone who has believed in me for so long.

Now we play the waiting game. We play the game of who get to go to the Olympics. It's crazy to me that we don't know how it works. We kind of do, but not really. I won't even try to explain.

The next time, I'll be writing as an overjoyed Sochi-bound Olympian or Nordic athlete that is continuing to love the dream one day at a time.

One thing I've learned on this journey is that we, as athletes, always have to remember why we participate in our respective sports. For me, it's because I love it and it makes me happy. It's not a means to an end. It's what makes me wake up each morning!

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).

Home

I am home now until the 20th of November and couldn't be happier. We had a great camp in Canmore and to be back here with good weather and snow skiing, I could be more content. 

It has been great being able to spend some more QT with my wife, Sarah. She is now working in Vail at Howard Head for her clinical rotation. It takes some time to get used to living with one another again. I'm always asking myself questions like: Does the fan go on high or low? Should dinner be ready when you came home at 8? How is the toilet paper disappearing so fast? How come my towel is so wet?

It is so nice to see her everyday though and not every weekend for 8 hours.

Training has been great! I have been skiing out my backyard a bit and even did some intervals there the other day. Just skied in a track and then just kept skiing over it. It was amazing how it held up and I could actually get a decent workout in.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of my two weeks! Just pumped to be home again!

Tunnel to where we were skiing in Canmore!

 

A shot my buddy Russell Kennedy got during our sprint in Canmore.

Sarah and I at Rocky Mountain National Park.

Biking in Fruita during my two days off.

Good times!

Snow in our yard!

Skiing at Rabbit Ears Pass near Steamboat.

Back to Canmore

I just returned to the beautiful Canmore, Alberta. I trained here last year for 2 weeks and then competed in the World Cups here last December. It is always such a treat to come back here and ski. The people are so nice, the ski trails are amazing, and the camp itself is going well.

This past week I was in Park City at another ski camp so this camp is pretty much a continuation of that camp. Out schedule here is pretty much the same every day: wake up, train, eat, rest, train, eat, sleep. Repeat.

This will be my last volume block before I start hitting it hard before our first races in Weat Yellowstone in a month. I can't wait for the rest of the training here this week. It looks like we are going to have a classic sprint and a time trial one day after the other, right before we leave. It'll be a good way to end the camp.

When we return home, I get to jump in the classroom again and Ski and Snowboard Club Vail has blown snow at the bottom of the mountain for us to ski on before our first competitions. This is really nice because we can't assume we will receive natural snow before our first races, so to guarantee snow to have so we don't have to spend the first week before those races getting out "ski legs" ready, is amazing.

Below are some pictures from the past week!

Until then,

S

Matt Liebsch riding the kids airplane in Midway, UT

After workout smoothie

Rollerskiing in Utah up Wolf Creek Pass

More rollerskiing with the camp

Running with the crew

Golfing with my buddy Nate on the last day. He out me up for the week which was generous and we got to catch up after not seeing him for awhile. We went to Bates College together.

Canmore this morning. So beautiful!

The trails we are skiing on. Frozen Thunder the Canadians call it.

Camp Time

The past two weeks have been great. My teammate, Tad Elliott, came up to Vail for two weeks of training before we headed towards Park City for a US Ski Team camp. We had a very productive two weeks. We got in some great intervals and some long good sessions as well. 

Last weekend, Sarah ran her very first 50k trail run! Super cool and to top it all off she ended up getting 3rd place among all the women and even got 9th overall. I was so proud of her. She worked so hard for that race and I'm so happy to see her so proud of her effort as well. Super well deserved.

I sniped a picture of Sarah as she was hiking up a steeper part of the trail.

Sarah racing across the back bowls of Vail.

Sarah crossing the finish line in 5:48. About 1.5 hours ahead of the time she had hoped to finish in.

My buddy Josh and I ran with her for part of the way to give her some encouragement. We had some fun along the beautiful route.

I finally got a picture with my new 4th grade class at Red Sandstone Elementary School! Such a great class and I look forward to more great times later in the season when the skiing schedule settles down. 

Lastly, I reunited with a friend of mine this past weekend, Taylor Shelden, to race a race in Pagosa Springs, CO called the Epic Mountain Challenge. It was an amazing innagural year for the event with over $60,000 in cash purse which naturally attracted the likes of the nations top runner and mountain runners. 

I honestly think I had one of my best half marathon mountain races and I was almost 8 minutes behind the winning time. Amazing talent here which was really cool. 

Taylor during the 3km uphill mountain bike TT today in which he placed 2nd. 

Me (in the white) at the beginning of the 10km mountain running criterium.

I had so much fun racing with Taylor. We hope to go back next year and battle it out again!

Onto Park City!

Best,

S