T'is the Season, Finally!! Alberta Cups 1 and 2

This weekend was the first race weekend of my 2010/2011 race season, and came in the form of a skate sprint and a 9km classic interval start race, both here in Canmore. The racing got underway yesterday morning with the qualifier of the skate sprint. For me, it was a little disappointing, qualifying as the 6th Junior (I was hoping for 1 or 2). But, after returning to my house for a few hours to recharge a bit before the heats, I managed to turn things around in the afternoon. I made it through my semi final fairly comfortably finishing in 2nd. Then it was on to the A final, where I was the lowest ranked skier of the 6 of us, but I knew that didn't mean too much. I had a bit of a slow start, but we were all very tightly packed going into the first hill. Unfortunately for all but two of us in the heat, a guy at the front crashed and caused 3 of us to be slowed down while we navigated around him, while the other two guys were able to take off and get a lead. They managed to stay out in front and take 1st and 2nd place, and I was able to hold on for the bronze medal. So, all things considered from that days events, I was fairly content with my end result.

Todays race was a 9km classic interval start. It was 3 laps of a very hilly 3km course. I was feeling pretty good in my warm up this morning, so I was hoping for good things. I decided that I would go out harder than I have in the past, and hope that I wouldn't blow up before I reached the finish line. This tactic proved to work out pretty well for me, and when I crossed the line I felt really good about how I skied my race. I ended up falling 15 seconds short of the podium, finishing in 4th place in the Junior category, and 21st in the overall mens results.

Now that the Alberta Cups have wrapped up, I'll do a couple more days of training here in Canmore, and then it will be off to Silver Star BC on Wednesday for the first NorAm of the season, taking place next weekend. From there, we will pile back into our team vans and drive to Rossland BC for the next NorAm, which will be taking place the following weekend. These two weekends of racing will be my first chances of the season to see how my competition from eastern Canada is looking this year, and I can't wait!

I'll try to do updates like this one immediately following each race weekend to let you all know how things are going. Until then, happy skiing!!