Sara Hewitt: Great Start

Hi guys,

So far, 4 Noram (basically Canada Cup) races down and they all went great. Continuing from my previous post, I completed a 15km mass start skate race on Thursday. It was a little bit of a difficult start as I was placed in the forth row back from the start line There were roughly 30 girls ahead of me and I had to try and push my way up to stick with the lead pack. I managed to do quite well dodging my way around some fallen racers with no broken equipment on my part. I felt strong that day and attacked on every hill. I crossed the line in 15th spot, 7th Canadian and 2nd U23 once again.

Friday was the classic sprints. I decided not to do them in order to make sure I didn’t over do it at the start of the season; saving myself for the races in January.

On Saturday was a 10km individual classic night race, which started at 5pm. I completed three loops of a 3.3km course that was lit with lights. It was one of very few races I have done in the dark. It is actually quite fun, except they were missing a light on the steepest downhill of the course. You literally could see nothing and felt like you went temporarily blind for about 200m. Luckily I didn’t fall. The race was OK for me. I had a little trouble with skis and waxing. Having decided to try a brand new pair of classic skis, they were too stiff for the conditions and I did not have very good grip for climbing the hills. So I ended up in 25th spot, 10th Canadian and 4th U23. Not bad… I still feel very strong and it was a good learning experience.

As psychologist Terry Orlick says, “Every race is an opportunity to learn, practice and perfect.”

Now I am home for Christmas. Time to regroup; focus and fine-tune myself for trial races starting on January 2nd. Weeks are just flying by, but things are going great and from the last couple weekends I have gained a lot of confidence and am ready to take on anything that comes my way.

Me, during the skate sprints Saturday Dec 6th