Aaaaand just like that, Period 1 of the race season is over! And I really just can’t wrap my head around it. Crazy how time flies. Personally, I’ve taken a bit of a different perspective on racing this year and as such the post race evaluations are pretty brief. Do your best leading up to the race and during the race, learn what you can from the race and move on to the next one and Praise God whether or not you hit or miss your goal. Theres a lot worse things in life to go through than having a “bad” race. Nonetheless, here’s a play-by play of the week of racing for your entertainment. ;)
12/12 Skate Sprint:
This was quite the rollercoaster of a day. Originally the racing was supposed to start at 11am but given that it was still -15 degrees F, it was much below the legal limit to race. So the start got bumped back to noon and then again to 1pm at which time it did end up taking place at -4 degrees. The qualifier kept things on the interesting side for the day. I ski on Madshus boots and skis and they recently came out with a new binding/ boot combo to help improve performance called Skate X. This meant I had to do some binding swapping mid warm up which took longer than expected and when it was time to start, it took me longer than expected to put my boot in the binding. Usually you line up to start with a minute or two to go before you start but in this instance I made it to the start line at precisely 1 second to go. So I did my best in the qualifier, and actually linked the course together reasonably but was just lacking some power on the day. In the ¼ final I actually felt a lot better, like I’d woken up a bit and had some more power to give but the tactics/ course/ start were such that I got boxed out and couldn't make any moves when I needed too and ended up 4th in the heat and didn’t move on. I qualified in 19th and ended in 17th.
12/14 Classic Sprint:
This was a bit better day. On the 13th, the day after the skate sprint, I could feel things were “more alive” like I needed the effort from the skate sprint to kick things into gear. We do what we call “pre race” which are intervals the day before races in order to have that same effect and wake the body up and tell it that it's go time, but it seems like my body needed a bit more. The qualifier today was reasonable and I ended up in 11th. I managed to play my tactics right, and had fast skis and took the finishing stretch well in the quarter and semi finals to move onto the final. In the finals I made one too many small mistakes in transitions and let too big of a gap open and wasn’t able to close it. But I had a strong finishing kick throughout the day which was nice to see and ended in 5th which is my best Super Tour classic sprint results to date.
12/15 10k skate individual start
Today was an earrrrrrly morning for a ski race. With racing at 8:30, I was up at 5, ready to go and sore from the classic sprint. Today was a reasonable race, I was quite sore from the classic sprint, and could feel the residual fatigue from the long sprint day yesterday. I had a decent first lap and was up there fighting for the podium and on the second lap my back started to get really tight and stiff and was really effecting the power I could put out. I still gave what I could and ended the day in 9th overall which I thought was decent given the way I felt. It was 33ish degrees today which is crazy given it was -22 on Thursday!
12/17 20k classic mass start
This was a fun one, and after a hardy weekend of racing, my muscles had been pretty battered but fortunately they came good for today. Praise God. I needed them. It was a fun race, where the front 15ish stayed together for the first 4/6 laps and then Luke, one of my teammates, decided it was time to go. This acceleration immediately strung things out and left the rest of us chasing. I actually felt quite good and was ready to hunt them down. Unfortunately I didn’t have quite enough kick after 15km of racing and wasn’t able to make any ground on the climbs, on the contrary actually. On the bright side though, it most certainly made my upper body stronger. :) I ended the day in 8th which again was reasonable given the variables on the day. My body started to come around with some good feelings which bodes well for the rest of the season.
All in all, it was a successful week of racing and I’m just grateful to be able to do this.
Huge thanks to the coaches and staff for all the work, and running the gauntlet of every kind of weather condition! Also huge thanks to the volunteers and staff for making it a successful event!
Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas, a happy new year and we’ll be back with more here shortly coming from US National Champs.
God Bless,
Garrett
If you would like to support me this season, please consider contributing here: https://gofund.me/f2f49632
Thank you in advance!
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