Thunder Bay was the destination for Nationals this year, so the coaches packed up the team van and went cross-country on the road while us athletes jumped on a plane a few days later. When we got to Thunder Bay the van had arrived and we went straight to the hotel.
Lappe Nordic was in awesome shape even with melting during the day and cold overnight. The ice was well under control and we had great skiing all week! The day before the Team Sprint a few Hollyburn girls stopped me on my cool down and told me that Julien had a crash with another athlete in the exchange zone. Unfortunately Julien was diagnosed with a concussion and couldn’t race the next day.
I teamed up with CVTC’s Geoffrey Richards, Remi and Daniel made a team, as well as Michaela and Sage. In the semi finals everyone fought hard but only Geoffrey and myself advanced to the finals in our respected categories. Due to some complications we didn’t race in the final so our final result was 10th overall.
Next race’s were 10k Skate and 15k Classic individual. These races were on very hard granule snow that made for fast conditions. The thing with Lappe is that there isn’t a lot of flat terrain to work on, so the race would mostly consist of steep uphills and fast downhills! Top results of the two days were:
-Colin 7th in the Classic, and 14th in the Skate
-David 14th in the Classic
-Remi 10th in the Classic
-Chiaki 20th in the Classic
-Michaela 10th in the Classic, and 23rd in the Skate
-Sage 26th in the Classic
Long Sprint Day was next, and in the qualifier Julien, Colin and myself made it into the heats. There was a little drama with a fast corner at the bottom of the hill that eventually got removed from the course for the heats. Now our course went from 1.6km to 1.4km. Colin and Julien advanced to the semi finals, but in the semis, Julien advanced as a lucky looser, and although Colin’s heat was really close together his time wasn’t fast enough to get into the A-Final. Colin finished the B-final in 3rd. Julien found some extra power in the A-Final and finished just behind Jesse Cockney for an amazing 2nd place! Way to go man!
The next morning Julien hopped on a plane to attend Super-Tour finals, so he left in style.
Sport Sprint Day came the following day, and again in the qualifier Remi, Chiaki, and Michaela, made the heats in their own categories. Remi was the only one to get in the semi-finals but just missed out on making the A-Final. He crushed the B-Final putting himself in 7th overall for the day. Michaela finished 15th, and Chiaki finished 24th.
With a day off for everyone, we got a nice sleep-in and went for a short ski to loosen up. Everyone was in good spirits, and we all got our for a nice walk by the bay.
Long Distance day, started out extremely cold, almost -20-C so the course was super hard, but not really fast. Us older guys had to crush a 50k to start the day off, and with lots of steep climbing lots of people were cramping up in the legs. The three of us endured the race, with Colin finishing 9th, David hit a wall on the last lap that moved him from a top 15 to 28th overall, and I finished in 36th overall which I was happy with after struggling in distance races all week. Talking to a few guys after the race the common theme was “Muscle Failure”. With so much climbing and not a lot of rest, it really took its toll on the legs.
Fun fact of the day: I never switched my offset side for the whole race. #youtrythat .
Best results from the youngsters:
-Sage 32nd
-Remi 4th
-Michaela 15th
Nationals are over now and so is the race season, when we got back to Rossland we joined up for one last ski with everyone before the snow left. Looking forward to another year of training and racing.
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Thanks for reading,
Scotty
