Yesterday was a rough day for me. I woke up at 1:30am with another stomach bug. I had a very sore stomach and was able to get back to sleep after a couple of hours but woke up in the morning still feeling like I could hurl at any moment.
I made it to the race site telling myself that I would allow myself to race as long as I didn't throw up and was able to stay on my feet during warm-up. Warm-up proved to be slow but possible, so I burped my way to the start line, did a few running sprints, and went for it.
Racing with the flu was a weird feeling... almost an out of body experience. My brain was so focused on keeping everything in equilibrium that I hardly even noticed the chorus of cheers coming from the crowd lining the course or the advise that our coaches were shouting. I just knew that I had to race 3 laps of the course, keep up a pretty solid pace, keep from red lining early in the race, and not let anything else get under my skin because I was just barely holding on. So I blocked everything else out and just raced. Me, my skis, and the snow.
Classic skiing comes pretty naturally to me (I know, I know, cocky, but it's kinda true) so it was pretty easy for me to just put my body into auto pilot and ski. I finished the race in 22nd, walked back to the wax room and lay on the floor until someone could drive us home. I made it home, climbed the stairs to my room, walked right into the bathroom and puked.
This wasn't exactly how I had planned to race yesterday, but it just goes to show you that if you want something bad enough you can do it under any circumstances. Hopefully my body will be feeling a lot better in tomorrow's 15km pursuit!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
World U23 Championships so far...
Both the Juniors and the U23 athletes have each had a day of competition now at their respective world championships. The juniors raced their sprint competition 2 days ago and the U23s raced yesterday.
Team Canada has had a bit of a rough go over here. Almost every athlete has had some version of the flu lasting from 8hrs to 3-4 days. Now our wax techs are starting to get sick too. I myself had a pretty mild version of it 4 days ago. It hasn't been great for overall team moral, but I have been impressed with the way that everyone has handled the situation. It isn't very much fun having the flu at home, but when you are traveling it sucks even worst but nobody has let it get them really down.
We have already seen some solid results. My team mate Heidi Widmer posted a 15th place in the junior women's qualifiers on Monday and finished up 22nd after a heart breaker of a fall in her quarter final. The other 3 junior women and the 4 junior men narrowly missed qualifying for the heats.
In U23 competition our men's team led the way with 3 men qualifying and Len Valjas finishing 9th. I qualified 15th after a bit of a spastic qualifier. I was nervous and it showed in the way the i was skiing. I rushed my strides and got a little tangled up with myself a few times, but I was happy to qualify and make it into the heats.
I felt like I skied my quarter final heat well. I was in second for 2/3 of the race, and both uphill climbs which are not normally my strong point. The European sprinters are much more aggressive in the sprint heats and just staying on your feet with everyone jostling you around and stepping on your equipment is a feat. I held my ground in the sprint, but got a little turned around when a girl stomped on my pole and tugged me backwards and then I lost concentration for just a few seconds and the race was over. I was still happy with the way that I skied it, but just wished that I had been able to finish a little stronger. I finished the day in 21st position. Only one other Canadian women, Emily Nishikawa, started yesterday's race. Emily finished in 27th position after battling with a cold these last couple of days.
I race a 10km classic tomorrow. I am excited to go out there and hammer up those hills. It is a tough course, but I think that it will be fun. We'll see...
Team Canada has had a bit of a rough go over here. Almost every athlete has had some version of the flu lasting from 8hrs to 3-4 days. Now our wax techs are starting to get sick too. I myself had a pretty mild version of it 4 days ago. It hasn't been great for overall team moral, but I have been impressed with the way that everyone has handled the situation. It isn't very much fun having the flu at home, but when you are traveling it sucks even worst but nobody has let it get them really down.
We have already seen some solid results. My team mate Heidi Widmer posted a 15th place in the junior women's qualifiers on Monday and finished up 22nd after a heart breaker of a fall in her quarter final. The other 3 junior women and the 4 junior men narrowly missed qualifying for the heats.
In U23 competition our men's team led the way with 3 men qualifying and Len Valjas finishing 9th. I qualified 15th after a bit of a spastic qualifier. I was nervous and it showed in the way the i was skiing. I rushed my strides and got a little tangled up with myself a few times, but I was happy to qualify and make it into the heats.
I felt like I skied my quarter final heat well. I was in second for 2/3 of the race, and both uphill climbs which are not normally my strong point. The European sprinters are much more aggressive in the sprint heats and just staying on your feet with everyone jostling you around and stepping on your equipment is a feat. I held my ground in the sprint, but got a little turned around when a girl stomped on my pole and tugged me backwards and then I lost concentration for just a few seconds and the race was over. I was still happy with the way that I skied it, but just wished that I had been able to finish a little stronger. I finished the day in 21st position. Only one other Canadian women, Emily Nishikawa, started yesterday's race. Emily finished in 27th position after battling with a cold these last couple of days.
I race a 10km classic tomorrow. I am excited to go out there and hammer up those hills. It is a tough course, but I think that it will be fun. We'll see...
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sci di Fondo
Ciao!
So I am beyond overdue for an update here. Let's start from where I left off...
Olympic Trials: 7th in both sprint events. I qualified 5th on day one then 3rd on day two. I was pretty excited about those results, but they weren't enough to qualify me for the Olympics.
From Trials I went home to Pakenham for a short Christmas break with my family.
On January 30th my buddy Pate picked me up and we drove from the Ottawa area to Quebec city for world under-23 (U23) qualification races.
I was 7th (3rd U23) in the 15km pursuit. That was the race that I was least looking forward to because it was the longest, hardest, and involved 50% skate technique... my weaker technique. Day 2 of racing in Quebec was the skate sprints. I qualified as the top skier in my category, but ran out of steam in a big way for the B finals. I pushed so hard in my semi final to try and make it into the A final but just missed an A final position but cemtimeters for the 2nd year in a row. This meant that I had to race the B final and win it, but I bombed it hard.
I went home after that race pretty shaken up. I felt like I had blown my shot at the world championships for a 2nd year in a row. We had a rest day after that race before or final race--a 10km classic technique.
When I woke up on the 10km day I kinda felt relieved. No one really counts me as a contender for a distance race anymore and it felt nice to have no one expecting anything of me. I knew that I could handle this race 2 ways. I could just give up or I could just throw caution to the wind and really go for it. I love classic skiing so I decided that today would be my day. I hit the trails and hammered for the entire race. I ended up 4th overall and 2nd U23. The top 3 women are all going to the olympics for distance races and I finished right behind then! I was pretty happy. the fun thing was that I didn't really care how my results looked I just knew that I had skied a good hard race and tried my very best and at the end I was happy with it no matter where i ended up on the results.
My 2 good distance results were enough to qualify me for the Under 23 world champs in Hinterzarten, Germany! Right now I am sitting in my hotel room in Livigno, Italy where we are staying for 4 days before we head to Hinterzarten for the championships.
Team Canada arrived in Europe on the 14th and spent the first few days in our home away from home in the Hinterzarten area. We raced 2 days after arriving and that was a weird experience. I was so jet lagged on the start line! I qualified first in the German cup sprint that we were competing in but ended up 8th at the end of the day. 8th and totally sleep depreieved! I was shaking because I was so tired, hungry and confused. I found that there was about a 3 second lag between the time that my brain would decide to do something and the time that it took my body to react. A bit of an out of body experience!
We start World champs in about a week. Stay tuned for updates!
So I am beyond overdue for an update here. Let's start from where I left off...
Olympic Trials: 7th in both sprint events. I qualified 5th on day one then 3rd on day two. I was pretty excited about those results, but they weren't enough to qualify me for the Olympics.
From Trials I went home to Pakenham for a short Christmas break with my family.
On January 30th my buddy Pate picked me up and we drove from the Ottawa area to Quebec city for world under-23 (U23) qualification races.
I was 7th (3rd U23) in the 15km pursuit. That was the race that I was least looking forward to because it was the longest, hardest, and involved 50% skate technique... my weaker technique. Day 2 of racing in Quebec was the skate sprints. I qualified as the top skier in my category, but ran out of steam in a big way for the B finals. I pushed so hard in my semi final to try and make it into the A final but just missed an A final position but cemtimeters for the 2nd year in a row. This meant that I had to race the B final and win it, but I bombed it hard.
I went home after that race pretty shaken up. I felt like I had blown my shot at the world championships for a 2nd year in a row. We had a rest day after that race before or final race--a 10km classic technique.
When I woke up on the 10km day I kinda felt relieved. No one really counts me as a contender for a distance race anymore and it felt nice to have no one expecting anything of me. I knew that I could handle this race 2 ways. I could just give up or I could just throw caution to the wind and really go for it. I love classic skiing so I decided that today would be my day. I hit the trails and hammered for the entire race. I ended up 4th overall and 2nd U23. The top 3 women are all going to the olympics for distance races and I finished right behind then! I was pretty happy. the fun thing was that I didn't really care how my results looked I just knew that I had skied a good hard race and tried my very best and at the end I was happy with it no matter where i ended up on the results.
My 2 good distance results were enough to qualify me for the Under 23 world champs in Hinterzarten, Germany! Right now I am sitting in my hotel room in Livigno, Italy where we are staying for 4 days before we head to Hinterzarten for the championships.
Team Canada arrived in Europe on the 14th and spent the first few days in our home away from home in the Hinterzarten area. We raced 2 days after arriving and that was a weird experience. I was so jet lagged on the start line! I qualified first in the German cup sprint that we were competing in but ended up 8th at the end of the day. 8th and totally sleep depreieved! I was shaking because I was so tired, hungry and confused. I found that there was about a 3 second lag between the time that my brain would decide to do something and the time that it took my body to react. A bit of an out of body experience!
We start World champs in about a week. Stay tuned for updates!
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