Friday, January 11, 2008

Utah Invite

The first college races are done and over with. UAA finished 4th overall. I had a good weekend of racing, with a 14th in the 15k classic individual start and a 9th place in the 10k skate mass start. I feel like I had a really solid classic race; I felt in control the entire race, and was able to hold my technique together for the entire 20k. I finished 15th overall, 14th among the collegiate skiers. The rest of the men's team placed as follows: Raph was 4th, Max was 10th, Andy was 19th, and Karl finished 38th. There was one independent skier mixed in there in 9th place, the results above are collegiate.

The skate race was really fun. I thought it was going to be a total mess with 40 some odd guys fighting to be in the front all the time. It wasn’t too bad though. I was lucky enough to have really fast skis and to be in the right place at the right time on the first lap. I made a really nice move on the whale’s tale, a large down hill on the course and one of the fastest I have skied. I was in about 20th at the top of the course at the back of the lead pack. I pushed really hard over the top and got over on the outside of the pack. Luckily I had really fast skis and everyone lined up to my right and I was able to fly by a lot of guys. Near the bottom of the hill there is a slight up hill with a hard left turn into the final stretch of the downhill. We had practiced skiing this hill in a group a few days ago so I felt really confident skiing here with a lot of people. When we got to the turn I was sill on the left of the group and was about to be pinched off at the turn. When every body swept out to the right to make the turn I went strait for the inside and jumped in right behind the leaders, skidding the first part of the turn, but safely in third or fourth. I couldn’t quite hang with the top guys going up the last large climb on the lap, today, I ended up dropping back a few spots and hanging out in the chase group, which was places 8-11th over all. I hung out in the group on the second lap, but made my move too early was wasn’t able to hang with John and Kit going up Heremon’s Hill on the last lap. I finished 10th over all, 9th in the collegiate race. Thanks to Summit Timing you can check out complete nordic results at their website.

The alpine team did really well this weekend, they posted 6 top ten results! It was really cool to have the opportunity to go and watch their second run.

Right now the plan is to recover a bit, get some more training in and head out to winter park on Wednesday. It will be fun to get to check out the area a little more and to ski at some different areas. I was able to take some pictures of the women's classic race and the men’s second slalom run AND get them loaded on Karl's computer BUT the internet connection is incredibly unreliable here and I will be lucky if this is posted. As soon as I can get Karl's computer and a reliable, fast internet connection together I'll get the pictures posted.

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