Nationals update

Nationals are underway here in Mont Saint Anne, Quebec.  So far we’re had three out of  our five races.

Saturday was the team sprint event, which is a relay race where people pair up by club and race against other clubs.  My partner was Graham Nishikawa.  We passed our first heat easily and were looking good as we moved into the final.  Early in the final our team and the defending champs Brent McMurtry and Jesse Cockney from Foothills broke away and were neck and neck for the rest of the race.  I was racing the first leg against Brent and Graham the anchor against Jesse.  Our last lap Brent put in a big attack, but I was able to stick with him and we both tagged off to our teammates for the final leg more or less the same time and far ahead of the rest of the field.  Graham had a good race and coming into the final finish stretch was leading by a couple meters.  I was at the finish line watching it all go down, and thought that we had the victory in the bag.  But in the final 20 meters of the race Graham skied into a puddle of water (it was very warm and treacherous conditions), his skis almost came to a stop and he nearly fell down.  Jesse was able to move around Graham, carry his speed in the finish and out lung Graham for the win.  So that was disappointing for Graham and I and we had to settle for 2nd.

We had a day off after the team sprints and on Monday we had a 10km individual classic race.  It was an ok race for me, we didn’t have the fastest skis, but we didn’t have the slowest either.  I didn’t pace myself very well, I started a little bit too fast and died on the last 5km and ended up 9th (2nd international U23 and 1st Canadian U23).  It wasn’t a great race for me, but it wasn’t terrible either, just and average one.

Yesterday we had a 15km individual skate race.  The competition jumped up quite a bit for this race as the all the Canadian World Cup athletes were here racing.  Including hometown favorite Alex Harvey who just came off a World Cup win last week, Devon Kershaw, who  was the 2nd overall World Cup winner this season and Len Valjas who has also just won multiple World Cup medals in the past couple weeks.  My race went quite well.  I had good skis and skied a smart race.  I made sure not to do the same mistake as the last race and started slow and kept and good pace the whole race.  I ended up finishing 5th and first U23! 

Tomorrow we have a skate sprint which should be interesting to say the least, it’s +15 in the shade here in MSA right now and tomorrow they’re calling for a high of +17!   Here are a couple pictures from the past couple races:

Me leading the way in the semifinal of the team sprints

Me (center) and Graeme Killick in the semifinal

More semifinal action

Me leading Brent McMurtry and Steffan Lloyd in the final

Another shot of us in the final

Coming into the stadium for another lap in the 10km classic

Normally I don't like it when people race in just their race bibs, I think it looks stupid and unprofessional but I didn't really have a choice that day, it was ridiculously hot out for a ski race (+20).  Even with just my bib on I was starting to overheat near the end of my race!

The Men's podium from the 15km skate race.  (l-r) 4th-Marc-Andre Bedard, 2nd-Ivan Bibikov, 1st-Alex Harvey, 3rd-Devon Kershaw, 5th-David Greer, 6th-Brent McMurtry