Race day was warm enough to race, but that was about it. The course was the same for both men and women, and the snow was so slow from the cold! It was a flat course punctuated by two short and steep bridges, but long enough that you could blow up too early if you weren’t warmed up enough. So I put in a pretty long and sharp warmup, hoping to ski fast enough to get into the rounds. That was my goal for the day, so I pushed the qualifier as hard as I could! And somehow, for 3 minutes and 37 seconds, I was the fastest woman in the world. But don’t worry – I didn’t let it go to my head. In fact, when the coaches told me I won the qualifier, I actually thought it was a joke! I refused to believe it, because I didn’t want to get too excited, since I was sure that once they’d fixed the timing mistake I’d be way down the list. But I guess they don’t make mistakes over here! I did a couple backflips on the inside and did my best to prepare for the quarterfinals.

Can I quickly say how amazing our wax techs and equipment are? The new Salomon soft ground skis, with Zach Caldwell’s S1-OX grind (I usually don’t get all nerdy about this, but if you’re interested…that’s the grind of the day) were awesome. I’ve gotten so much help and support this year from all over, and it makes all the difference come race day. So thanks guys!

I think I must have been on cloud nine all day…it was just so exciting! So many North Americans made it to the heats, and there was so much positive energy buzzing around it was hard to stay in race mode. But after falling so many times in Milan, I wanted to stay out of trouble and stay on my feet, so I got out to the front as soon as I could. In hindsight, it might not have been a super good idea to lead the quarterfinal since there was a headwind and it sapped a lot of energy. But it allowed me to set the pace and ski my own race, which was super cool.

In the semifinal, I got to experience one the coolest feelings ever. For much of the race, Kikkan, Ida and I were skiing in the front! USA was 1-2-3 and it was amazing to be a part of that. Kikk and I lunged at the line with a Russian and I squeaked my way into the A final. For the final, I was so tired after treating each round like it was my last (because I thought, each time, that it would be!) so by the time the gun went off my arms and legs felt like jelly. I tried so hard to keep up in the final 100 meters but couldn’t get my limbs to cooperate and ran out of energy. However, I was still psyched out of my mind with 6th place! It was a good day all around for top-30 results as Kikk got 7th, Ida finished 12, Dasha got 22nd and Perri got 24th. Women’s results are linked HERE. Results from the Men’s race are linked here: Devon placed 3rd, Alex got 9th, Lenny finished 12th and Andy got 22nd.   

Right after the race, we walked back to our hotel and started packing up. The distance crew  joined the Norwegians on a bus and drove the 8 hours overnight to Rybinsk, Russia. Dragging my bag through the snow to our cabin at 4:00AM in -18*C definitely didn’t make my top-10 favorite moments, but travel is part of the job/life and you just have to get over it. On the plus side, we’ve got the girls team all together again, in a house! It’s such a great atmosphere, I couldn’t ever ask for more. It only takes one person to shatter team chemistry, but to have a team where everyone truly supports each other and will always have each other’s backs…that’s something special, and it takes input from the whole team to make it happen. Which is why I feel so lucky to be on this one.

A few notes on racing in Moscow/the World Cup in general:

• Training with an air-warmer in is crazy. It’s a little like breathing through a straw…you’re fine until you think about it, then you freak out because you think you’re not getting enough air since spit and water are frozen all over the end. So, so gross.
• The cameras are EVERYWHERE. You start jumping around, dancing or do anything un-professional…and they will find you, and put you on the big screen. It took me a while to figure this out, while my teammates laughed as I was bouncing around the start pen.
• It is very hard to figure out just what exactly the Russian tv crews are asking you in the interviews. I think I gave one of the worst interviews in my life because I had absolutely no idea what the man was saying!
• When Moscow pumps out MJ over the speakers during your warmup, it’s pretty awesome. When a singing, dancing crew gets up on the stage and starts belting out songs in Russian, it gets even better.
• The shuttles to the venue are, on average, 30 minutes late. So plan to catch a 12:00 bus for a 2:25 race, and then you’ll probably make it on time!

One of the coolest parts about racing over here is that even through we’re so far from home, we’re all feeling the love! Thanks so much to everyone for being so supportive through the internet and phone calls…the cheering really makes a difference. We wanted to give a shout-out to everyone back home and “reenact” yesterday’s sprint for you. Edited by the one and only Kikkan: USST Moscow Shout Out 

And here’s another video put together by Newell while we were in Seiser Alm, Italy training. Kikkan and Simi took footage via camera and head cams, and you can see just HOW FAST we were sledding! Pretty fun stuff. Sledding with the US Ski Team 

Tomorrow we race the 10km skate in Rybinsk, and Sunday we race a 15km pursuit. Hopefully it warms up enough to be legal racing temperatures!

After successfully racing the Tour De Twin Cities its nice to be back home and on natural snow.  During the ten days in the Twin Cities I was a little bummed to be missing all the excitement of the IPC world cup at Telemark Lodge, and  I was pleasantly surprised to find out there were still two races left when I got back. I spent the first race outside and thoroughly impressed by the strength and determination of these athletes. The second race however I spent in the luxury of my room, looking of my balcony with a hot cup of coffee and a steaming plate of pancakes! Life is good.

 Although warm out the Cable area trails are still well covered and fast as ever.  

There was little I could do but wait until the guys above me cleared out. In the meantime I tried to collect
myself mentally and move forward. Finally scrambling to my feet I realized Matt Liebsch was right in front of me, so I decided to try and stay with him.

As expected Matt worked hard to reconnect with the leaders and I did my best to keep up. This idea worked for a solid half a lap and I kept telling myself there was still plenty of racing left. I rounded the corner at the top of the biggest descent and decided to take the middle lane seeing a skier a little ways down in the left lane not going as fast. I quickly gained ground on him and was about to cruise by him when he lost his balance popping his right ski out of the track and clipping my skis causing me to launch right across the trail and roll off into the unpacked snow.

Now in a rage I got back on my feet and tried to regain speed as nearly all of the skiers I had just worked so hard to pass went flying by me. This time with no composure at all I started pushing hard to move up in the race. I made it a whole two laps staying upright. The icing on the cake came however when I was running up the last climb of the third lap and a skier I was tracking went the wrong way right into my path. He slipped doing this and faceplanted into the hill, bringing me down with him. Eventually I finished the race nearly 3 minutes back and knowing that I had just wasted a great opportunity.

Although I was furious for a little while after the race, I slowly regained my emotions and realized that all you can do sometimes is laugh it off. Luckily it’s not everyday that you’re a part of a few pretty epic crashes.

My racing went okay. I got off to a bit of a rough start in the pursuit but managed to pick it up for the remaining 2 races. I think I had my best qualifier ever in the sprint, qualifying in 6th position! I was pretty happy with that. I followed that with a strong classic race, finishing in 8th spot. I know that top 5 is just within my reach in these races, and a podium is just around the corner.

I head down to Minneapolis tomorrow to join up with CXC and compete in some Super Tours for the next couple weekends. I am feeling strong and excited to compete. My racing feels better and better as the year goes on, and I have a feeling that things will only improve from here.

A HUGE congrats to my fellow teammates who all did a superb job at Nationals! And to Jessie Diggins who just captured her first World Cup Medal!!!! So proud of you guys!!!

 The weekend started off with the skate sprints on Saturday, in which Kikkan placed second. The course was almost totally flat which made it extremely hard; with two loops of 620 meters, you got no rest but there were also very limited windows of opportunity for passing. I was absolutely thrilled to make it into the rounds, qualifying in 21st. Kikkan, Chandra, Perianne, Dasha, Andy, Simi, Lenny and I went into the rounds for North America. I was in quarterfinal one with bib #1 and Kikkan…so of course I was nervous, but ready to do my best and see if I could just stick behind Kikk as long as possible.

Except I really goofed up the start! I’d been told to keep my poles behind the starting wand so that they didn’t get broken, and for some reason I thought that the gates were going to open automatically at the gun. So when the gun went off, and my gate didn’t open, I hesitated just long enough to be solidly at the back of the pack. Oops. Well, live and learn…to tell the truth, I was just to psyched to be starting the heats that although I finished 4th in my heat and didn’t make lucky loser, I was totally ok with it and super pumped to watch and cheer on my teammates. That’s one of the cool things about the World Cup – there’s such an awesome vibe going that it’s hard to be disappointed for any length of time. I did take away a lot from the experience though – how to handle the start, learning how aggressive the heats can be (these girls play for keeps!) and how to stay relaxed in-between races even when there’s a crazy crowd and you want to just start going faster and faster in the warm up. I can’t wait till the day I can make it though to the semifinals!

The next day was the team sprint, and I was super, SUPER excited to be Kikkan’s partner. I was also terrified. I’d never done a team sprint before and 12 times around the loop seemed like a lot when you’re going at full speed. But I asked around the team and everyone was super helpful and gave me an idea of how the pacing works. Kikkan and I also practiced some tag-offs during the warm up, but in practice there aren’t 9 other teams going crazy around you.

In the semifinal, the laps were going well, until the last tag-off. A French girl cut straight across me and I hit the deck. Hard. And by hard I mean I had fully formed bruises within 10 minutes of the crash. But the worst was the feeling of panic as I scrambled to my feet and tagged Kikkan, knowing she’d have to do some serious catch up. But since she’s amazing, we still made the final with a little room to spare since our heat was a fast one. Still, I felt absolutely horrible about the fall and wanted to stay on my feet for the final.

However, in the second tag-off in the final I crashed again, this time right after a Swedish girl cut across me to get to her partner. I’d been reaching out to tag too, which made it worse, since I was SO CLOSE to making it! Kikk had to grind to a halt and backtrack to get the contact before zipping off to play catch up again. Crashing a second time effectively shattered my already shaky self confidence in the sprint, and when I made it to the service box I didn’t know whether I was about to puke or burst into tears. What actually came out of my mouth was “I can’t do this”.

But there was one last lap in the game, and for me, one last shot at actually doing it right. I skied my heart out and with a couple hundred meters to go gave it everything I had, and finally got a good tag-off! I tagged off around 3rd place and watched as Kikkan worked her magic around the course, and lunged us into 2nd place. And to make the day perfect? Chandra and Perianne from Canada got 3rd, so it was the first time two North American teams hit the podium. What an awesome feeling! It was such a sweet way to open up my World Cup experience for the year, battle-scars and all.

However, it was kinda hard not to beat myself up for falling twice. I kept feeling like if I’d only held it together and not bounced off the other girls, Kikkan wouldn’t have had to use up so much energy catching the pack and we might have won. But I’m learning to let go of the “what-ifs” and enjoy the “what is”. I’m also learning not to read comments in the ski articles, because as nice as people can be, they also have the capacity to be horribly mean and judgemental, especially when they can do it anonymously. What I DO know is that all I can ever do is give 100%, and anyone who askes for more doesn’t understand math very well.

 So after getting back to our hotel in Milano, we packed up shop and drove to Seiser Alm, Italy, which is AMAZING! We’re staying in an incredible hotel halfway up a mountain, and we arrived via a CAT. It’s been sunny and warm and if I was told I had to stay on this mountain the rest of my life…I’d probably be okay with that.

We went sledding down the mountain today on these old-school wooden sleds with metal on the runners, and we went SO FAST! I thought someone was going to get hurt. I wasn’t super good at the stopping part, and when I saw everyone stopped at the top of the steepest part of the alpine run, I thought I’d better hit the brakes. It didn’t work. So I decided to bail, but didn’t want to lose my sled, so I hooked my leg around one of the runners and rolled off. I spun out for about 20 meters and somehow got snow everywhere. It was AWESOME! And I didn’t lose my sled, though in hindsight it was pretty dumb to not just let the sled go since it could have possibly twisted my leg around. Kikkan took some pretty sweet videos and Simi had a headcam on; if I can figure out how to effectively post videos here I’ll definitely do it!

Some fun notes from Italy and the World Cup:

-There were all sorts of noise-makers and air horns out along the course, but my favorite was definitely the chainsaw (sans blade) that some dude was holding above the crowd. Very motivating.

-Italian sports fans are super enthusiastic, and will actually grab you and haul you over to their friends for a picture. One of these days I think someone’s going to get pulled right over the fence.

-I finally got to meet Oystein “the Sausage” Pettersen, and he’s hilarious. Our conversation went something like this:

Alrighty then! Good to know.

-The fans love it when you throw your flowers to the crowd, so after the awards ceremony Kikk and I hucked our bouquets over the fence. Too bad I throw like a girl…the people in the back didn’t have a chance!

-The food here is amazing. Dinner takes about 2 hours and it’s 5 courses…and it’s wonderful. Enough said.

Tomorrow we leave for Munich, where we’ll spend the night before flying to Otepaa, Estonia for next weekend’s classic sprint and 10km WC races. The most challenging part of all this? Not getting carsick on the extremely windy road down the mountain. It’s straight out of a James Bond car chase scene.

I’m having some serious battles with the internet here, so I’ll load up more pictures as soon as I can! (pictures from: Matt Whitcomb, Skitrax and Fasterskier, Salomon and myself).

Going into US Nationals this year my focus was definitely on the distance races.  My distance skiing has been progressively improving and my goal was to ski well in the 15k skate and the 30k classic.  Interestingly those races were mediocre while my sprinting wildly surpassed my expectations.

Nationals kicked off with a skate sprint.  I happily qualified 12th and was pleased with how I skied.  In the heats I was excited to be feeling really strong and skiing at the front moving through to the A final by winning my first heat and finishing a close 2nd in the next heat.  The A Final was extremely tight with the entire group coming over the last hill into the finish all together.  With only four finishing lanes  and sitting in 6th I found myself with nowhere to go and was forced to pick a lane behind someone.  Everyone finished hard and crossed within a second.  I ended up 6th slightly disappointed I did not ski the final stretch smarter but extremely excited about the day.

The classic sprint qualifier was unquestionably my best qualifier ever.  I felt like I was able to hammer the entire time and felt very strong on the double pole.  I was extremely excited to find I qualified 1st.  The first heat went well finishing comfortably in 2nd place and moving on.  I skied the semis from the front and came over the last hill with three guys too close behind me.  I provide a fairly large draft and all three were able to over take me on the descent. It was a close finish to the line but I finished 4th by a boot and was relegated to the B final.   I was looking for a little redemption in the B final and skied hard from the gun and was able to separate myself from the group to win the B final.

It was a very exciting week and I learned a ton about tactics.  I am thrilled with my improvements in sprinting and the valuable experience I gained.

Getting to dance on the podium with your teammates is, without a doubt, the best feeling ever! We train together all year, room together, travel together, have dance parties together, and race together. And I’m super proud and happy for our entire team; athletes, coaches, wax techs. Awesome day! I ended up 1st, Caitlin 2nd, and Jennie in 3rd, while Karl took 6th on the men’s side.

Here’s a bit of a breakdown of my race: I always hate going into a race with a target on my back and too many nerves, so I was really trying to focus on only the things I could control and not putting too much pressure on myself. After a glitch in the timing system got sorted out and the qualifier results came in, I found myself with bib #1 by 2.5 seconds. It was a good confidence booster and I knew my speed was running well for the day.

I spent the quarterfinal and the semifinal playing around with tactics and figuring out ski speeds. I knew my boards were lightning fast, but I also knew the final downhill into the finishing stretch was a huge drafting spot. The semis got pretty messy and I found myself in danger of tripping over skis and poles, so for the final I made a pretty risky decision. I just went from the gun and led the whole thing, knowing Jennie and Caitlin would be getting the benefit of my draft on the downhill but wanting to avoid tangles. Turns out I bobbled and almost took myself out right before the finishing stretch, but caught my balance at the last second!

In the sprint lanes for the finish, I heard Jennie go down as she lost her balance and fell backwards. It made crossing the line first bittersweet because she’s my teammate and good friend and it really, really sucks when falls happen. It’s a part of racing - you need to stay on your feet - but it’s still super unfortunate. However, it’s proof of how awesome she is – fell and still placed 3rd! Caitlin skied smart and fast and it was great to have the three of us on the podium together. I could go on and on and ON about how amazing the equipment was and how well the coaches waxed them…but you’re probably tired of hearing all this by now!

The cooldown was my favorite part of the day (no joke!) because I got to run around the woods with teammates and cheer on our junior girls as they raced the heats. All results linked HERE.

So now we’re getting ready for the next races – we have a day off and then thursday is the 10km skate. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for good weather!

All pictures by Ian Harvey (Toko). Thanks!

The first race of US Nationals in Rumford, Maine is one week away and final race preparations are underway.  Fitness was established over the summer and fall and now provides a foundation for racing.  Early season races provided a great opportunity  to develop race speed, practice pacing, and get use to going hard.  Now it is simply a matter of resting up and maintaining enough intensity so race day I feel fresh and snappy.  That means this week will have low total volume complimented with short explosive speeds. With racing right up to the week before Christmas this year I was unable to execute a long peaking plan but I think the racing paired with rest and a bit of intensity leading up to Nationals should be perfect.

With no natural snow on the ground in Minnesota Elm Creek has been my best option for training.  The loop is only 2.5 k but the conditions are solid and the skiing is really good.  By late morning the trails get a bit congested and the snow starts to soften a bit on the hills but it sure beats rollerskiing.  In all likelihood conditions will be very similar in Rumford so it is great practice for Nationals.

The skiing at telemark has been pretty decent and along with the short man-made loop quite a few of the trails have been rolled.  There are a few rocks here and there, and a couple uncovered patches but its worth getting out.  

I was also fortunate enough to visit ABR for some quality skiing.  The Trails are well covered and I hope to get back out there soon.

ABR before the latest snowfall!

Today during the skate sprint, I tried something a little bit new. Gus and Cork suggested after the qualifier that since the city sprints I will be doing later this season in Milan, Italy won’t really have a warm-up loop, I should try running for a warmup and cooldown before the heats instead of skiing. Sure, why not? Here’s what I found out: running in ski boots on mushy snow for a couple hours is not as easy as I’d thought. So I had to shorten my pickups and walk a little when my legs felt like they’d had enough. I think that, given the choice, I’d rather ski…however, running does pound your body more, which I think helps to clear my muscles out. Either way, it was an interesting experiment.

As usual, our Salomon boards were lightning fast today (thank you Gus and Cork for waxing)! Results are up on Zone4 and linked HERE. The course was pretty cool but very technical. There weren’t many great places to pass because of the corners, so I wanted to try and get out front in the first 100 meters. This is something the CXC team has been working on all summer, so it’s been good to try it in the heats! I also tried to push hard over the first hill, because I didn’t want to be drafted on the gradual down. It’s no good getting out in front if you’re going to get used.

I don’t have any super good blood n’ guts race stories from today…but spectating was crazy. It was super funny (for me at least) watching the false starts. The starter had quite pause between “set” and the gun, and you could see people start leaning forward, probably thinking “oh gosh just PULL THE DARN TRIGGER ALREADY”….and then it was too late. There were also a few crashes out there, one of them involving 4 guys on a sharp corner. I really hope they’re all ok, because the part of the crash I could see looked pretty gnarly. And then the volunteers had to rip a chainsaw to life and cut some brush out of the way because apparantly some guys slid into logs that weren’t far enough off the course. Ouch!

Rossland in general has been super fun the last few days. Our first day here we went on an adventure ski! We didn’t actually mean to, but once we’d gotten out on the wrong trails and then realized they were backcountry and snowshoe-packed trails winding up a mountain….well, Jennie and I thought we really had no choice but to stay. Did we ski with good technique? Nope. Did we stay in level 1? Absolutely not. Did we have a great time? You betcha.

We got up in the woods and then realized it’d be a really fast downhill with little room to check speed or snowplow, so we turned it around. As we came out of the woods I nearly had a heart attack as Gus had followed us up, taken off his bright hat and hidden behind some bushes. As I rounded the corner he jumped out. I’m sure you’re not suprised to hear that this happens to me all the time…and I FREAK OUT every single time it does.

Turns out Gus and Cork thought a little adventure would be fun, so after dropping Sara and Karl off on the real trails, they came back. We tromped up and down the mountain for a while, and every single one of us face-planted into the powder at least 4 times. It was awesome. Although next time, I probably won’t be on cross-country skis, because if Salomon reads this I may never get another pair ;)

I’d say the only bad thing that’s happened here…happens every morning. It’s been nearly impossible to get the van out of the driveway – not that we don’t try anyways! It’s actually pretty funny to watch. We usually end up putting on chains so we can go 100 meters, and then taking them back off. Sometime you slip, sometimes you get stuck, and you keep trying anyways. C’est la vie.

Soooo….hopefully tomorrow we’ll be firing on all cylinders! (sorry, bad pun, couldn’t resist. You CHOSE to read this, remember?)