With the thrills, spills, chills and frills of the trial races over, the bountiful forces of of Team Black Jack shifted their focus to the Eastern Canadian Championships. Taking place in its yearly locale at Nakkertok Nordic, across the river from the Nation’s capital, it was pleasant to experience again the lovely trails with their skeletal deciduous trees and the heart wrenching falls that would happen on everyone’s favourite drop; Dirk’s Dive.
Colin, Julien and David all avoided skewering themselves on the menacing trees at the bottom and pulled out some strong finishes.
Sprint stallion Julien once again showed his prowess, eviscerating his quarter final breezing through to the semi-finals. Explosive equipment would ultimately prove his demise though, where a shattered pole off the line would restrict access to the A final. Salvation did, however, come in the form of a win gracing him in the B final, earning another 7th place on the season, matching the fabled “Silverstar Chronicles”.
David brought out his V12 engine during the 15km skate showing he ain’t just any old skid from the block, surpassing a flailing Colin en route to a 10th place finish. When asked how he felt about the race, reporters were mystified and enthralled by those magical five words, “yeah, it was good, yeah”.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom for Colin on the weekend. With billions of nanometres of snow falling the Saturday night, the 20km classic would entice the waxers to bring their A game and Colin to excel in one of his favourite races of the year. An explosive start in soft saw over 100 competitors raise a flurry of mini marshmallows flying every which way and the pack quickly divided. Colin pulled through with a 9th place gaining all three men a top 10 on the weekend.
Once the excitement of canal skating and beaver tail eating quelled, it was back to Rossland for David but Julien and Colin would take their game to a land less travelled.
~ Colin
Thanks to Bernard Pigeon for the shots.
ps – Better late than never
