Personally, I was really happy with my races in Ishpeming at the SuperTour. After traveling halfway across the world from Korea I wasn't really sure how my body would react, so it was nice to have good race feelings. With a small SuperTour field, the sprint ended up being a throwback to old school format, with 16 skiers qualifying to race 4 person heats, and the top two from each heat advancing. My qualifier was ok, perhaps a bit sluggish, but I felt good in my quarterfinal, made the semis, and then just missed making the 4 person final when I finished 3rd in my heat. Overall, a decent skate sprint day (6th place) for me!
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| Womens' sprint podium (Bryan Fish photo) |
The race two days later was the one I was really targeting, a 5k classic. I love short classic races, and luckily we've gotten to race a bunch this year. Right off the start I could tell my skis were really fast and then was happy to find that they had great kick as well. I started second, so I didn't have a lot of people around me to judge how the race was going, but I was happy to cross the line in first, and then wait around to find out that it was my two teammates, Kait and Caitlin, who bumped me into third. It was our first podium sweep at a SuperTour, and a fun day for the team overall. A good day is never just about the individual skiers, but instead a result of all the factors (skis, fitness, coaching, attitude, race execution) coming together at once, and this result had a lot to do with Nick, Ollie, and Pepa working like crazy to make awesome skis for us, and then Pepa running like crazy to cheer for us.
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| Our new Stormy Kromer hats! Sweet prizes for the podium |
After such a fun weekend in Ishpeming it was a bummer to travel to Hayward and have the Birkie get cancelled, but now we're back in Craftsbury and moving forward with training and race prep. I'll be flying over to Europe in less than a week to race OPA Cup Finals, and I'm excited to experience some sunshine and spring skiing!
Here are a few random photos from the Midwest and Craftsbury. A true grab bag. Enjoy!
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| Start of the UP 200 dogsled race in downtown Marquette |
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| The amazing cake that Emily made for mine and Caitlin's birthday- still in awe |
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| Singletrack exploration with the Catamounts |
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| Sometimes you just gotta stick your head in the snow |
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| Finally got to set the giant burn pile on fire once we got a good layer of snow on the ground |
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| Snowmen for scale. We may have a sadistic streak |
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