End of season whirlwind
The last few weeks of the race season have flown by. A great week of racing Canadian Nationals at home in Canmore was followed by the Super Tour Spring series finale in Sun Valley, Idaho.
This year is the first race season I have managed to not get sick or injured and I was excited to go into Nationals feeling 100%. I was able to have a good training block after the mini-tour madness and have 2 solid weeks of tapering going into nationals. I opted to sit out both the team sprint and the 10km Classic in hopes of going into the sprint fresh. And it paid off! I qualified 4th (with one American girl in the mix) and maintained my position in the heats. Finishing the day as the 3rd Canadian, my first national medal as senior:) It was a tricky day for wax and I am thankful to my super waxers who had no less than 3 pairs of skis ready for me at any given time during the day: klister mix, hard wax and skates ski to double pole the course if necessary. The hardest part for me was deciding between skis that were a bit slippy, a bit draggy or super fast skis with no grip and testing my double pole strength endurance. In the end I chose the klister skis that were a bit draggy but climbed really well. I was super happy with my day, accomplishing one of my goals for the year of medaling at nationals and only being beaten by 2 girls who are Olympians and who have had great seasons on the world cup level.
Next we headed down to the Super tour spring series in Sun Valley, Idaho. This little resort town lived up to it`s name, giving us beautiful sunny days. Although it was nice to catch some sunshine, super warm temperatures make waxing extra challenging. On sprint day the course had only one hill that was not very big so I opted to double the qualifier in the icy morning tracks. I was somewhat surprised that none of the other girls and only a handful of the boys double poled the qualifier. I qualified 5th. The heats were a different story, with the sun turning the track into slush, skis became a huge factor. I made a poor choice in ski selection, choosing skis with great kick but sacrificing, what I thought was only slightly, on glide. On the race course it was quickly apparent that I should have chosen glide over grip. I lost a lot of time on the first half of the course that was flat and gradual down hill. I was able to make up some time climbing as I had bomb proof kick but I finished my heat in 4th. Since my goal for spring series was to get decent points I was happy with a solid qualifier. Here’s a photo of me double poling the hill in the qualifier.
The rest of the races went well. It was a new experience for me racing at altitude and ending the week with a hill climb.
Now it is time to sit back and let the body recover from race season, to be ready to train starting May 1st. April is the month I work as much as possible so May 1st can’t come quick enough:)
