January, 2011

Three races in to the four race series, we’re taking a day off before tomorrow’s Skate Sprint, the final race of the championship.  Congrats to Tad Elliott on CXC’s first National Championship of the season and to Jessie Diggins, number 1 qualifier for the 2011 US World Junior Championship team.  It’s been an exciting week after warm temps and rain almost destroyed the entire race trail.  The trail’s been getting better and better everyday as cold temps allow for lots of snow production.  The course should be in pristine condition for the sprint.  Stay tuned. . .

For now, here are some shots from the 30km skate yesterday.

Tad on his way to CXC’s first National Championship of the season.  Nice work!  He edged out Lars Flora by 0.1 seconds in an interval start 30km race.  That’s about as close as it gets!

I ended the 30km with my second Top-10 finish of the week in as many attempts.  That was my first marathon distance event in a long time and it felt great to pin it for over an hour.  Looking forward to a blazing sprint tomorrow!

All photos from Ian Harvey – Toko.

US Nationals Day 1 is in the books.  The race trail survived a couple days of warm temps and light rain.  It looks like it will stay cold now and conditions will only improve – with a lot of snow making and shoveling – throughout the week.

The East is known for extremely variable weather conditions and yesterday’s race was no exception.  Despite the fact that the race trail was a lot more brown than white, the track was really fast, making for some fun classic sprinting.

Leading the heat - Photo: Ian Harvey - Toko

Toko’s Ian Harvey was on hand taking photos of the action.  We had 5 CXC athletes make the heats, keeping coaches Jason and Gus busy all day.  I’m pretty sure they were more exhausted than the athletes after the long day of racing.  The course finished with a long downhill and we opted to sacrifice a little kick for faster glide going into the stadium and it paid off.  Winning the B-Final was a nice consolation, but I’m looking forward to even stronger finishes in the days to come.

Cruising into the finish - Photo: Ian Harvey - Toko

No racing today.  Some of the athletes drove across state lines into New Hampshire for some skiing.  I opted to ski the 500m wax test loop for an hour or so.  There was practically no one at the race course today and the race trails were all closed.  Volunteers and race officials were out shoveling snow onto the course while snow guns blasted snow onto other parts.

Race course: Highlighted. Needs shoveling: Highlighted.

I was really impressed by how good the trail looked today.  Although it sounds like we’ll be competing on a short 3km loop, the trail should be in good shape.

View of the stadium: perfect untracked corduroy

Everything else might be bare, but the course looks like it’s in good shape.  Can’t wait to get out and race some more later this week!

. . .start tomorrow!  Classic sprint at 10am.  Follow along here.

final prep before the races

Sunday, Jan 2: Classic Sprint

Tuesday, Jan 4: Classic 15km

Thursday, Jan 6: Skate 30km Mass Start

Saturday, Jan 8: Skate Sprint