Rossland Races
Well this is long overdue, but better late than never, right?
The weekend of the 17th and 18th was another segment of the NORAM race series. On the 17th was a skate sprint and on the 18th was a skate 10km mass start. First mass start of the year!
Photo credit: Angus Cockney
This was in one of the heats in the sprint race. I don't know how I am all by myself because I don't remember racing on my own, but I guess here's proof! The sprint for me was really weird. In the morning I wasn't very pumped to race and for some reason I felt that way throughout the whole day, it was a bit scary. I managed to still do well (I took 3rd place) but at the end of the day I was a bit upset with myself for not having my head in the game and for not being able to mentally push through it. But I had a good chat about the day with my coaches that afternoon and they picked up my spirits and the next day I had a total turn around and felt great!
After my little chat with my coaches, I wanted to make sure my next race was fun. This might not be what some of you want to hear at this time of year, but for me it was important to do. And it worked! Because it was a mass start, the start was pretty fast (other than at the base of the climbs; then almost everyone came to a stop waiting for the person in front of them to have room to ski again) which isn't usually the way I like to ski distance races. Plus there weren't a lot of trails open for warming up and I wasn't able to get a very good warm up in, making the fast start feel even harder than it should. So right from the 'bang' I saw some of my competition slowly getting away from me, but I didn't let that bother me too much because in order to have a fun race I didn't want to be feeling like I was dieing already! So I raced my own race that day, it was 3 laps of a 3.3km and half way through the 2nd lap I started feeling really good and I decided to push as hard as I could from that point to the end. I felt great doing this and I made up a lot of time, I was gaining on the girl in 2nd place but didn't quite catch her. I ended up in 3rd place again.
Photo credit: Marlis Kromm
The previous weekend in Silver Star I had two 4th place finishes, last weekend in Rossland I had two 3rd place finishes, I would say the next couple of races are looking good!
The weekend of the 17th and 18th was another segment of the NORAM race series. On the 17th was a skate sprint and on the 18th was a skate 10km mass start. First mass start of the year!
This was in one of the heats in the sprint race. I don't know how I am all by myself because I don't remember racing on my own, but I guess here's proof! The sprint for me was really weird. In the morning I wasn't very pumped to race and for some reason I felt that way throughout the whole day, it was a bit scary. I managed to still do well (I took 3rd place) but at the end of the day I was a bit upset with myself for not having my head in the game and for not being able to mentally push through it. But I had a good chat about the day with my coaches that afternoon and they picked up my spirits and the next day I had a total turn around and felt great!
After my little chat with my coaches, I wanted to make sure my next race was fun. This might not be what some of you want to hear at this time of year, but for me it was important to do. And it worked! Because it was a mass start, the start was pretty fast (other than at the base of the climbs; then almost everyone came to a stop waiting for the person in front of them to have room to ski again) which isn't usually the way I like to ski distance races. Plus there weren't a lot of trails open for warming up and I wasn't able to get a very good warm up in, making the fast start feel even harder than it should. So right from the 'bang' I saw some of my competition slowly getting away from me, but I didn't let that bother me too much because in order to have a fun race I didn't want to be feeling like I was dieing already! So I raced my own race that day, it was 3 laps of a 3.3km and half way through the 2nd lap I started feeling really good and I decided to push as hard as I could from that point to the end. I felt great doing this and I made up a lot of time, I was gaining on the girl in 2nd place but didn't quite catch her. I ended up in 3rd place again.
The previous weekend in Silver Star I had two 4th place finishes, last weekend in Rossland I had two 3rd place finishes, I would say the next couple of races are looking good!
