Hey Everyone,
I just arrived home from West Yellowstone a couple days ago. We raced three races at over 7000 feet elevation. It was great conditions with cool weather over night and highs around -2 degrees Celsius.
The first day was a 1.4km classic sprint along a fairly flat course. For myself, this acted as sort of a warm up race. It felt like my body was trying to get in the grove of racing and going as hard as it could. I placed near the middle of the field, so not too bad for a double pole sprint.
After a delicious US Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday night, Friday brought the 10km skate. This went quite a bit better for me. I felt like I had a lot of power climbing the hills, but had a little bit of trouble skiing big and powerful on the gradual downhills. I finished the race in 19th spot, and 4th U23.
By Saturday the fatigue of racing at altitude for a week was starting to set in. My body felt exhausted during the warm up for the 5km classic. I gave it all I had and just barely missed top 40, coming in 41st. Despite the fact, I was only 1 1/2 minute off of first, which isn't too bad.
All in all it was a great weekend with over 400 racers competing! The rest of the team did quite well with a couple top 5's and a Gold Medal form Madeleine Williams on Saturday! Way to go guys!
My body is still getting itself back into race shape. I'm sure the next few weeks will only get better for me. It feels great to be back on the race trails giving it everything I got.
Until next time.
