It was an exciting weekend for Methow Valley skiing – we hosted our first national-level event at the McCabe Trails and saw racing action featuring some of America AND Canada’s top athletes. After a nerve-wracking week of above-freezing temperatures and rain, Friday night gave way to cold and clear skies which set the course up nice and firm. Having gotten my soft-snow racing skis prepped in anticipation of slush for the sprint, I showed up to the venue and saw the hardpack. I made sure to give Scott my stiffer skis to get them ready for the heats and prepared for the qualifier. Our 1.3K course was running super fast, with top times for men in the two and a half minute range. Coming off of very little training in the past few months after overtraining, I was happy to post a qualifier result that put me in the mix, 8th place.br /br /div style=”text-align: center;”a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Mg2hQbkHkNs/S1VJvzjzOGI/AAAAAAAAAVI/BvVLVISZjx4/s1600-h/Methow+SuperTour2.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 229px; height: 320px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Mg2hQbkHkNs/S1VJvzjzOGI/AAAAAAAAAVI/BvVLVISZjx4/s320/Methow+SuperTour2.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428326011508045922″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-style: italic;”Getting off the line first – thanks to/spanspan style=”font-style: italic;” friend /spanspan style=”font-style: italic;”and /spanspan style=”font-style: italic;”pro photographer EA Weymuller for the excellent photo!br //span/divbr /It was a real treat for those of us local athletes to be racing on our home turf. With Sadie and Erik gone to the airport for their flight to Europe, Brian Gregg and I got to absorb the wild energy of our home crowd and got huge cheers and support through the heats. I had people tell me afterward that they could barely catch their breath after the semi-final heat with both Brian and I racing together!br /br /After feeling super strong in the qualifer, quite strong in the quarterfinal, and pretty strong in the semi-final, I dropped plow in the B Final. My tank had run dry; I led the heat out and into the first hill and realized my only way to survive was the control the pace at something I could maintain. Well, that ended about halfway into the hill when that pace dropped to pedestrian and everyone behind me realized they should get the heck around me. In the shuffle I got tangled and spun around and was off the back. And stayed that way. After crossing the finish line I stumbled a few feet and, amidst abundant support from friends, threw up everything in my stomach. A hard-fought day.br /br /div style=”text-align: center;”a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Mg2hQbkHkNs/S1VI3VpMgXI/AAAAAAAAAVA/iCmhQOLTio8/s1600-h/MethowSuperTour1.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Mg2hQbkHkNs/S1VI3VpMgXI/AAAAAAAAAVA/iCmhQOLTio8/s320/MethowSuperTour1.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428325041404936562″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-style: italic;”Scott and I talking strategy under the watchful eye of MOD sponsor David Bonnbr //span/divbr /After Saturday’s effort Scott strongly advised, and I agreed on not racing Sunday’s 15K. With only two weeks until I fly to Europe my focus right now is on rebuilding a training base on which I can race for five weeks in OPA Cup action. For now, it’s all about putting in the hours on the hometown turf. Thanks to everyone who put in countless hours to make a spectacular SuperTour, and to everyone who showed up to cheer – what a community!div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2910103639238326543-634483391278021545?l=methowolympicdevelopment.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div
