The second week of this trip will be spent in West Yellowstone, MT for U.S. Nationals. I have never been to West but I hear that it�s a real nice town to hang out and race at. Plus the race director guaranteed me hard packed �fat kid kinda trails� to race on. The other reason that I look forward to going there is because of the last race of the season is the national championship relay. We have a really good team and it would be nice to get on top of the podium for the final race of the season.
Day 1
Today is a travel day to Canmore, Alberta, site of the 2001 North American Championships. Canmore is definitely one of my favorite places to ski and especially in March when it is usually warm and sunny. But I am getting ahead of myself. First is a 3 hour plane ride and if you have read any of my journal entries since October you know that its never a sure thing that my flight leaves on time! Back in December I came out Canmore for the first set of North American Cup races and on my way here I ended up missing my flight to Calgary. Not today though as I got to the airport an hour and half before my scheduled departure time. I say �scheduled departure� as I never leave at the scheduled departure time. And today was no different, but not too bad as we were only 15 minutes late, because the pilot took a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong runway (I think he had too much to drink before the flight).
Funny little story. Once I got on the plane, I remembered that today was Anders Ingdal�s birthday. Before we had to turn off our phones on he plane I decided to give him a call and wish him a happy birthday. After talking with him for a couple of minutes, I said that I �just called to wish you a happy birthday��to which he replied��thanks, you too Ryan�. (The funny part is that it wasn�t my birthday!!)
Once we get off the ground I find out that the couple across the aisle from me has a young baby and after 15 minutes the entire plane knows that they have a baby because he is crying quite loudly. After a while the baby calms down and I take a nap. The rest of the flight goes pretty smoothly except for near the end when the turbulence gets a little rocky. But I think the pilots buzz wore off and he was able to land the plane smoothly. After landing in Calgary we had to wait for our ride: Dan Campbell. Dan drove out west about a two weeks ago to go to Salt Lake and watch the biathlon world cups and then he drove up to Canada for these races. So we had to wait for Dan for a while, but I brought something to read so it wasn�t a problem.
After Dan arrived we headed out to Canmore. It�s about an hour drive and before we knew it we were in Canmore. Since we hadn�t bought any groceries, we decided that the best option was to eat out for dinner. So of course we headed to the Grizzly Paw (a local microbrewery) for a burger and a beer. The burger was much better than the beer. After dinner it was time to check into the condo and get unpacked. Without too many hassles we moved up from a 2 bedroom to a 3 bedroom and got settled in.
Day 2
While stretching after my morning run I noticed that Danny�s truck had a flat tire. He said that he noticed it the night before but didn�t want to get into changing it that night. So after breakfast we tried to get the flat off and the spare on but it was not a simple task. After about an hour and half Dan finally called AAA to have someone come out and help. The guy from AAA came out and said that the tire was the wrong sized tire and that it may need to be cut off. After a few minutes though he managed to pound on it enough to shake it loose. The problem is that the guys that had put the tire on originally used an air wrench to put on the nuts and ended up stripping the threads. So after a little work Dan managed to get the tire on and drove it to a mechanic to get it fixed.
After all of this, our coaches figured out that we needed help and decided to come back and pick us up.
So after finally making it to the venue we got zeroed and did a short combo workout. After getting back to the condo I grabbed a quick bite to eat and then a short nap.
Day 3
I am beginning to realize that this is a fairly poorly run race series. It is two days before the first race and the courses have yet to be marked. Its not like everyone just knows what the course is�.for men it�s a 20km race consisting of 5 loops. Most likely it will be on 2 or 3 separate loops, but as of this morning none of the trails are marked.
This morning we made it to the venue at our predetermined time without any hassles. And much like yesterday�s workout, I shot poorly. I don�t know why�I just did. Hopefully we can get all of these bad shots out of my system before the races.
Day 4
Awoke to snow falling outside my window this morning. I like to see snow, but it is the day before a race and today is the day that we test skis. This snow is just going to screw things up. This is not going to be what conditions will be like tomorrow for the race, so picking skis today is somewhat of a crapshoot.
After getting to the venue and testing skis for while it was time to do my workout. The workout today consisted of a few hard short (2-3 minute) intervals that would roughly simulate the race format for tomorrow. All in all it was a poor workout. I had heavy legs and I shot extremely poorly (12 out of 20). Thankfully today was not a race, because if it were, then I would have been �lit up� by many.
Around 8:30 we had our team meeting to go over all of the details of the race. Originally it was planned that the first race would be a 20km for the Senior Men (my division), but at the coaches meeting it was decided that we would race a 15km Mass Start instead of the 20km Individual format. Fine with me as I like to race head to head and know exactly what place I am in. Usually at the coaches meeting the day before a race is when the bibs are handed out, but not today. The Technical Delegate (Race director) decided that he would look at old results and seed (rank) everyone based on his findings.
Day 5 RACE DAY
Finally race day. During my morning run I noticed that it was quite a bit colder than previous mornings. I like this because this meant that the snow should have set up firmer than previous day. Oh how I love hard packed snow and today was going to be fast.
After having breakfast we headed up to the venue and quickly got into testing skis. I had picked two pair yesterday and now I needed to find the better of the two pairs so that Gary could work his �wax magic� on my skis. At the wax room we found out what our start numbers were. It was almost funny what the race director had done. He had stated that in order to get a fair set of lane assignments that he would need to look at other races and seed people based on how they had raced previously. Fair enough in my mind, as I was in 4th place overall on the North American Cup Series. I figured that at the very worst I would end up in the second row. Well I was wrong. I was placed into the third row with Dan and Andy. Being placed in the third row meant that the race director thought we would place somewhere between 20th and 30th. That was not about to happen, so after a few moments of venting about my start position I put it behind me a starting focusing on the race. After dropping off my skis with Gary I had to hustle to the range to zero. After throwing 15 rounds down at the targets for zero it was time to warm up.
The Race:
Well as fate would have it, Lawton Redman drew a prime starting position in my lane but didn�t race because he was sick. That meant that in theory I got to start in the second row. In reality I might as well have started in the 4th row and waited for everyone to clear out. The guy starting directly ahead of me (and supposedly a better skier than myself) took off at what can only be described as modest pace. If anyone has actually seen the start of any ski race, the race does not begin with a modest pace. People sprint and jockey for the best position. So instead of trying to fight my way through everyone in the first kilometer of the race I sat back and relaxed as I saw others break poles and crash. Ok I actually caused someone to crash, but even that wasn�t entirely my fault. One of the guys that was seeded higher than me started out strong in the first kilometer, but faded badly on the first hill. He almost stopped. So I quickly step left to go around him but in the process I stepped on one of the Canadian guys skis, causing him to fall down. I was sorry about that, but stopping wasn�t going to fix things. (I decided to buy him a drink at the bar that night).
I figured that my conservative ski pace in the first lap would help me shoot clean the first stage and then I could modify my tactics based on what place I was in. Well it didn�t work so smoothly as I missed 2 shots in my first stage. This put me back in about 11th for the next loop. The second time in I shot clean and moved up to 7th. I skied slower on the 3rd loop and when I came it to shoot this time I missed 3 out of 5, pushing me back to 10th. On the 4th loop I skied a little better, and coming into the range for my final shooting I knew that I needed to shoot clean in order to move up. I got a solid position and rattled off 5 shots in under 25 seconds and was back on course after hitting them all. This moved me up to 6th place, where I would finish. Not too bad, but I know that I could have done better so it is a little disappointing.
After a short cool down it was back to the condo for lunch and a nap.