So I have not been true to my work on posting once a week, but it always seems hard to be candid about what goes on especially when its not going the way you intend it to. I guess the first lesson in being an elite athlete is to have faith in your fitness and the work you have done and not give up mentally when your results dont go the way you expect. This first period of racing for me fell well below par as far as performances go. I was motivated with a descent first weekend of racing in West Yellowstone having put down two top ten performances with the races there, but the weekend following was nothing short of a disaster. The body felt tired and did just about everything it could to disregard anything i wanted it to do. For the first time since I can remember, i finished almost 4 minutes out in a 15k classic mass start. This was a race that i generally would be competing for podium position in the past. Nonetheless, I tried to stay positive and remind myself that i did the training and this was not typical for the body. Thankfully, i was right. The body finally tanked itself over US Nationals and I ended up with a solid head cold. Not the best place to be sick, but at that point i was ready for the body to finally kick whatever it had been dealing with for the past month and a half. Having paid for all the races and starting to feel a bit better I decided to just into the 30k classic race. I had skipped the 15k skate when i could hardly get out of bed on race day. I had gone out to ski the day before and felt like someone had beat the bejeezus out of me and I hoped that the 30k the next day would not feel the same. Its hard knowing that the last 15k classic race i had raced was a disaster and that this would be twice the distance and i would be one day out of being bed ridden with a cold. I placed no expectations for the race and let myself relax to the idea of just going out and seeing how it went. I was pleasantly surprised to find the body was responding to almost all my requests. I felt strong for the first time in a while and found myself comfortable in the lead pack for 25k. The body was not quite ready to respond to some strong attacks on the last lap, but for the first time in quite a few weeks, i felt like the racer i had trained to be. This result was followed by one of my best sprint finishes at Nationals.
My goals going into this season were to qualify for the Canadian World Cups that happened in December and to put forth my best efforts at US Nationals to vie for that outside chance of making a World Championship team. Judging from how my training went this summer and fall, i felt both these goals were attainable. Its important as an athlete to understand that there will always be hiccups on the road and sometimes they may derail you. I felt a bit derailed the past two months and its finally feeling like im making forward progress again. Very few athletes will enjoy a perfect season with stellar results at every race. The athletes that succeed in the toughest of sports are the ones that can keep the faith in the hard work put in even when the produced results simply dont add up. Im looking forward to see what comes of the Minneapolis Mini tour during the next two weeks and I will keep this blog updated.
