Silver in Silver Star

I'm a bit late with my blog from the NorAms in Silver Star, but it's been a bit of a crazy ride since I finished the 10k skate last Sunday! More on that later, but here are a few photos from the wonderful place that is Silver Star, British Columbia. In a nutshell: frosty trees, kilometers on kilometers of perfectly groomed trails, story book houses, and a hot tub in every rental house. In other words, every skier's dream.

Checking out the race trails with Heather on a cold 
day. The 5k course in Silver Star is HARD!
Steep with sustained climbs, this one took us 10
min to ski easy (Photo Kaitlynn Miller)

The whole team bundled up for an interval day on the classic
sprint course.

Getting instructions from coach Pepa (photo Jaqui Mourao)

Our "bubble-gum pink" rental house, straight
 from the pages of a kid's Xmas story book

Sunset rip with the GRP crew

The stadium on a clear day- the organizers did a great job
with these races, they were really professional and it
was so awesome to race against all the Canadians!

Look what Mary and I found on our afternoon jog!

So, more about the races. Saturday we did a classic sprint, one of my all-time favorite events. The GRP had an awesome morning in qualification, with all 4 women finishing in the top 9, and Ben getting 14th in the men's qualifier. I qualified 6th, but knew it would be a battle to the A final. I felt better and better as the heats went on, and my teammates were all having really good days as well. Heather, Kait and I all ended up in the A Final, so it was sweet to have half of the heat in green! Plus Mary was 3rd in the B Final as she discovered some new-found sprinting speed. There was a lot of jostling in the final, but I stayed patient and put in a really hard double pole sprint at the end to take 2nd. Kait was right behind me in 3rd, and Heather took 6th. The wax techs gave us such amazing skis, so it was fun to be able to put them to good use.

The final corkscrew turn in the A Final, following Canadian
Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt and Julia Kern, who went on to win
the A Final (Photo Fasterskier)

Women's podium from the classic sprint. Congrats to Julia
on her first SuperTour win, she is a speedy young one to watch!

On Sunday we raced a 10k skate interval start. Going into the race, I had quite a bit of pressure on me because I knew I was the SuperTour leader and I needed to do well enough in the race to hold onto that position. 10k skate isn't my favorite discipline, and I knew the hills were going to be punishing. However, I also knew that my fitness wasn't going anywhere, and as long as I paced it well it was going to be ok. On the very first climb my legs started to protest and I settled in for a 10k of lots and lots of pain. Overall, not my best race, but I managed to place 8th and found out that it was good enough to hold onto the SuperTour lead.

Going into this season, I didn't really set any specific goals for placing in certain races or trying to qualify for anything in particular. I find I do better when I go with the flow and approach each race as an individual opportunity to do my best on that day. It helps me deal with race nerves and pressure to keep things more low key. So I guess it's been a really pleasant surprise to find that my fitness and racing is coming around this year. Because I held onto my SuperTour lead for period one, I'll be heading over to Europe in mid January for my first every World Cups. If everything goes according to plan, I'll race two weekends in Sweden and then fly over to South Korea for the pre-Olympic World Cups in Pyeongchang. I'm both excited and nervous to be racing World Cups! I hope to just keep taking the races one at a time, but I have no expectations beyond getting my feet wet.

Of course, I wouldn't be getting to any start lines at all without the awesome support of my team, my coaches and wax techs, and my sponsors. And big thanks to all of my friends and family for the cheers and messages from back home!

A perfect snowy distance ski after the races in Silver Star

Finishing up by riding the chairlift up to our rental house

Always an interesting time with the GRP squad- selfie stick
fun in Seattle on our layover. Thanks guys for keeping it fun!

I've now been back in Craftsbury for around a week, and it's been so nice to catch up with everyone here and to get in some skiing on the Center's trails. We raced in the Eastern Cup opener this weekend, which was a total blast because we get to race with college skiers and juniors, and most of the volunteers are either Center employees or people we know from around Craftsbury. The team at the COC did a great job with the races again (not surprising). I'll be training in Craftsbury for a few more days and then head home for the holidays and US Nationals in Soldier Hollow. Happy Holidays everyone, and hope you have snow to ski on wherever you are!