div style=”text-align: center;”br //diva onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3vyMxQCK8I/AAAAAAAAAP4/j3fXOc5em1U/s1600-h/DSCN2510.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3vyMxQCK8I/AAAAAAAAAP4/j3fXOc5em1U/s320/DSCN2510.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439207276172946370″ //adiv style=”text-align: center;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: bold;”skate racing/span/divp class=”MsoNormal”We just finished our first series of OPA cup racing this last weekend in Forni di Sopra, Italy. I felt pretty good with the weekend and had my best distance race ever, points-wise.span style=”mso-spacerun:yes” /spanThe first day was a classic sprint. Unfortunately we found this out the day before the race when we were skiing around on skate skis and noticed the course had three classic tracks across it. The Europeans thought it would be funny to not tell the states what was going on. Apparently it was announced in Italian the weekend before in the team meeting that we were not present at because of our flu sickness. Luckily we found out the day before and rallied our testing and new selection of skis together and got everything under control. The race day was a bit of a different story. Tough waxing conditions and a one man wax technician/coachingspan style=”mso-spacerun: yes” /spancrew made for some difficult and stressful waxing conditions. The qualifier round went well as conditions were just beginning to warm up which made for fast, slick tracks.span style=”mso-spacerun: yes” /spanThe course was 1.4km with a steep hill out of the start and a long gradual downhill that required hard double poling and then a gradual climb up into the finish. I qualified in 11supth/sup position, but knew I had a lot more to give. The heats felt a lot better, I felt like I was really starting to ski into it. I hadn’t done any hard training since having the flu, so the more racing I did, the better I felt. My quarterfinal had the 1supst/sup place and 9supth/sup place skier along with some others that qualified behind me. I knew that I was going to have to be aggressive off the gun- so I went out of the start behind the number one French girl and rode behind her for the first hill before I was overtaken by a Swiss girl on the downhill. I sat behind relaxed and ready to strike when I got the chance on the last hill into the finish. When we got there, seems the other girls had the same plan. So I fought hard to keep the gap between the second place skier and me close so I had a good chance to advance as lucky loser into the semi’s. Luckily my heat skied about 5 seconds faster than the other heats so I advanced onto semi’s. I was pumped that I was going to get to do more racing- I was beginning to feel really good. Semi’s went well. I fought hard to stay in the front of the pack and faded a bit double poling into the finish, crossing the line in 5supth/sup. B-Finals are not raced anymore so I was done racing for the day, but the three hard efforts put me in 10supth/sup. One of my goals for every sprint race is to finish better than I qualified initially, so I made that! I was happy with the race with all things considered. I headed home and put my feet up to try to recover for my day of racing the next day. /pp class=”MsoNormal”br //pa onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3vxgx65dcI/AAAAAAAAAPo/ZhWuvHF-eBI/s1600-h/DSCN2495.JPG”img src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3vxgx65dcI/AAAAAAAAAPo/ZhWuvHF-eBI/s320/DSCN2495.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439206520438486466″ style=”display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; ” //ap class=”MsoNormal” style=”text-align: center;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: bold;”start of my sprint heat/spanbr //pp class=”MsoNormal”br //pa onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3vxHfGilvI/AAAAAAAAAPg/krvUEthr01A/s1600-h/DSCN2487.JPG”img src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3vxHfGilvI/AAAAAAAAAPg/krvUEthr01A/s320/DSCN2487.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439206085890316018″ style=”display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; ” //ap class=”MsoNormal” style=”text-align: center;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: bold;”Waxing crew + Sam/spanbr //p p class=”MsoNormal”Saturday I woke up feeling kind of tired and feeling the fact I had raced the day before. During my warm-up I wasn’t feeling it, but I decided to keep my head positive and give it a hard run anyway. 5k Classic is my favorite race of all time so I was confident I could still do well.span style=”mso-spacerun: yes” /spanOver the past month I have met a lot of athletes and coaches from the various European countries so while I was racing I got tons of cheering from all the athletes and coaches of other teams, which really helped! I started hard and tried to hold the pace the entire way. The last kilometer was rough but on the last huge hill the Italian coach saved me as he screamed at the top of his lungs “di di di” which means go in Italian. He knew I was hurting but he knew my split and he knew I was in it. I ended up taking the same place as the day before, 10supth/sup place, only 26 seconds back from the leader- a 78 FIS point race. Everyone was tightly packed within these 10 places, which made for an exciting starting list for the pursuit start the next day/p p class=”MsoNormal”Sunday was a pursuit start 10km skate race, which basically means you start based off of your total time from the previous two races. This put me starting 9supth/sup, 52 seconds back from the leader. I had two girls starting 8 seconds in front of me and a French girl starting 1 second behind me. Once again I felt really tired during my warm-up but tried to stay positive. Two days of hard racing had taken its toll on me. I started the race aggressive, determined to catch the group of girls skiing in front of me. Soon I realized that was just not going to happen this day. I was going to need to hold on for the next 10 kilometers and put out a hard fight, which is what I ended up doing. I was passed by about 12 girls throughout the next 9km. About 7 of them passed me in a large group that went on to ski the rest of the race together. I rode with the pack for a while trying hard not to get pushed off the back. The last kilometer I decided to just put every last bit of energy I had on the table. I ended up passing two girls on the last hill into the finish and was within inches of catching a third. I crossed the line and collapsed immediately. I had given every last bit of energy. I ended up only losing 6 places coming in 16supth/sup for the overall tour score.span style=”mso-spacerun: yes” /spanI didn’t even have the energy to do a warm-down so I headed straight home and took a nice long nap. /pp class=”MsoNormal” style=”text-align: left;”br //pa onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3vykmz0OQI/AAAAAAAAAQA/NpcUVmaAkwo/s1600-h/DSCN2513.JPG”img src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3vykmz0OQI/AAAAAAAAAQA/NpcUVmaAkwo/s320/DSCN2513.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439207685687097602″ style=”display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; ” //ap class=”MsoNormal” style=”text-align: center;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: bold;”about to pass the german on the last hill/span/pp class=”MsoNormal”br //pa onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3vxzRMKcFI/AAAAAAAAAPw/v0c2xyVWriw/s1600-h/DSCN2506.JPG”img src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3vxzRMKcFI/AAAAAAAAAPw/v0c2xyVWriw/s320/DSCN2506.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439206838070046802″ style=”display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 261px; height: 320px; ” //ap class=”MsoNormal” style=”text-align: center;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: bold;”start of skate race with the french girl starting 1 second behind/spanbr //p p class=”MsoNormal”The most exciting part of the weekend was rooming with a German girl. She arrived by surprise at about 10:30 the night before the race when I was sleeping, so I woke up to a new friend in the morning. She had never spoke English other than during class but she did pretty damn well. It was really fun to get to know her. She knows all my German college buddies from back home which made it fun. I am sure I will meet up with her again in all these next races. The Germans were staying in the same hotel as us so we got to mix up our socializing a bit- YEAH!/p span style=”mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-USfont-family:Cambria;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-size:medium;”After a good first weekend of racing we are spending the week here in Monguelfo, Italy recovering and training, getting ready for the night city sprint on friday. There are posters everywhere advertising the races and the many parties that will go on afterwards. Sounds like it’s a pretty big celebration here, should be tons of fun!/span/span!–EndFragment–divspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-family:Cambria;”br //span/divdivspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-family:Cambria;”Some training photos-/span/divdivbr //divdivspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-family:Cambria;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=” ;font-family:Georgia;”a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3v45VIdu0I/AAAAAAAAAQI/2YjAIYy-pUM/s1600-h/IMG_2178.JPG”img src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3v45VIdu0I/AAAAAAAAAQI/2YjAIYy-pUM/s320/IMG_2178.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439214638788885314″ style=”display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; ” //a/span/span/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-family:Cambria;”Skiing in Elm, Switzerland/span/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-family: Cambria;”br //span/diva onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3v5bcOTPhI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/tt-unaUCVbo/s1600-h/IMG_2220.JPG”img src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/S3v5bcOTPhI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/tt-unaUCVbo/s320/IMG_2220.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439215224807964178″ style=”display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; ” //adiv style=”text-align: center;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-family: Cambria; “Training at one of the 2010 Tour de Ski venues Dobiacco/spanbr //divdivspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-family:Cambria;”br //span/divdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2910103639238326543-7501994866363695883?l=methowolympicdevelopment.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div
