travels: Nationals

March 26th 2013 - Nationals day 5

Today's menu featured medium distance classic races. The entire team was faced with very difficult conditions. It was hot, sunny and hot. Our Junior girls got the ball rolling with a 10km. Anna was our first girl out the gate followed by Maya. Anna had a good race despite tough waxing conditions coming in at 83% of the winner's time. Maya, who's been feeling under the weather, thought it better to save herself for the classic sprints tomorrow and decided to pull out of the race around 3km.

Next up were the Juvenile girls. Corey and Megan were facing some extremely tough grip waxing conditions. The temperature was changing very quickly and the snow was rapidly turning to mush and slush. Elora and Lisle were putting up a good fight, but unfortunately lacked effective grip wax. Elora came in at 84% and Lisle at 83% of the winner's time. Before beginning her race, Elora noticed a fly had nestled in her klister, she thought it best to leave it in and race on it. Why bother messing with klister on race skis?

Quickly following the Juvenile girls were the Junior boys. Ben had a very good first and last lap, separated by a mediocre one. The race was poor (except for the first lap) as he puts it. Sean spent his first lap trying to find his groove, as he began his second lap, his grip left him and he needed to alter his race plan and muscle his way through the rest of the race.

For Levi, the temperature rose so quickly that his grip wax was rendered useless. He thought it better to save his arms and legs for the sprints tomorrow and dropped out at the 5km marker.

I had quite a bit of time between the juvenile boys and the junior men. I had a nice slow morning compared to the others who got up at 5:45. My race featured a slew of murderous hills which had been used during the 2010 Olympics. They're nowhere near as easy as they look on tv. My grip wax was effective in some spots and useless in others. It made for a challenging race as I never knew if I could climb the next hill. Needless to say that the entire team had a very challenging day. They all handled it with composure and grace.