.: SilverStar

After a long and slippery drive from Silverstar, I’m now back in Canmore for the World Cups. My races in Silverstar went well, I placed 6th in the 15km mass start classic and 3rd in the 15km individual skate race.

In Saturday's mass start race I made a tactical mistake going into the last lap. There was an attack from the Swede who ended up winning and I didn't respond as aggressively as I should have and got dropped from the lead pack by about 20sec. The gap from me to pack ahead stayed roughly the same until the finish, which was kind of frustrating, if I could have stayed on during that initial attack then I think things could have played out quite differently. But 6th is still a decent result and I’m happy enough with it.

Sunday's race was pretty good, I skied a smart, consistent race. Michael Somppi and Pate Neumana (who started 30sec and 15sec behind me respectively) caught me at the end of my first of three 5km laps. We skied together for quite a while, and with about 1.5 km left in the race I made an attack. I managed to cross the line 29sec ahead of Pate and 8sec ahead of Michael, which means that I ended up beating Pate by 14sec overall, and Michael beat me by 22sec. Michael ended up placing 2nd overall, me 3rd, and Pate 4th, with fellow Yukoner Graham Nishikawa taking the win.

Now I’m back in Canmore to race the World Cups later this week. I will be racing the two distance races, a mass start 15km Thursday and a 30km pursuit Sunday. This will be my first time racing against the best in the world so I’m looking forward to this great opportunity!

Here are some pictures from this weekend: