Dec. 5, 2011
Classic Sprint:
The classic sprint went pretty well for ol' Brent. On a fast striders course, I was pretty comfortable and the Prelim went pretty well. They had done a lot of work on the course and was in pretty good shape considering we were on mostly dirt the day before. For a 1.4k, the prelim was pretty tight result-wise. Lars took the top spot with myself in 11th less that 4 seconds behind. The Quarterfinal placed me with Lars and a few other more "sprinter" type folks. Lars took the pace out hard and fast and we had a hard time keeping the pace through the first half. I pulled some time back through the second uphill and got myself in second position. The double pole section was long and in the end, i was simply a ski length too slow and ended up third in my heat. Thankfully, I made the LL (Lucky Loser) position and moved on as one of the two fastest third place finishers.
This was my first time in the semifinals in a national championship. My previous attempts have come close, but something always seems to happen. But the semi final went really well. I had a really strong heat and it was tight all the way to the finish. The top three move on and unfortunately i finished fourth of the 4 of us that broke away. I was now relegated to the B final. This B final did not go well for two reasons; My time between finishing the second semi-final and the B final was only ten minutes. I did not have enough time to run my skis over to get touched up and cleaned up. The other reason was simply because I had nothing left in the tank. I burned the last of my sprint fuel in the Semi trying to qualify. I still had fun and the 12th place finish overall was a really solid sprint finish for me.
15K Classic
After a couple days of rest, i was feeling pretty good this morning. We had 6 laps of a 2.5k loop today and the course was in my opinion a little meager as far as climbs. But it is what it is. We had some ski confusion this morning just before the race start and i ended up a little tense afterwards. There were two pairs boards put out for me when i was told there would be only one. Having a relatively small wax staff for 25 athletes can create this once in a while. Waxing was a little tricky which made for quick turnaround from getting the skis, testing the skis, and getting to the start. I got my skis about 8 minutes to start and had just enough time to make one quick pass on the nearest uphill. The kick was adequate and because the coaches looked a little overwhelmed and I really didn't have time anyhow, I just jogged to the start. I felt good and the first lap went pretty well. Clean skis are fast skis and therefore for most people today apart from being fresh in the body, the first lap was the fastest.
I was a little frustrated through the middle of the race though, because this is when i realized that my boards were not breaking really well at high speeds. During the first third of the course we have one good sized uphill followed by a long downhill where you hold a tuck for a good minute and 15 seconds or so. I was losing a lot of ground through this section and i think it was due to the difference in snow used. The top side of the course was mostly man-made snow from the snow guns and the lower part was more trucked in snow. My skis were fine on the upper part of the course, but it was frustrating to be losing 10 seconds or so to other athletes purely off of ski setups. I heard many athletes had the opposite problem, having fast skis down low and slow skis up high. Oh well. I just get frustrated when the equipment makes the heavy difference and not the fitness of the athlete. I still managed to stay in the top twenty and was in the company of many other top athletes dealing with the same frustrations. Such is ski racing though. I am happy with the effort today nonetheless and look forward to tomorrows 30k. 12 laps of the same course and with a mass start should bring some wild surprises! Hope everyone is well.
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