Well, Ben got the short end of the deal
today as he headed off to race bright and early with Alex and Megan as his
support crew. The weather was mild once
again and today the trail conditions were superb. Ben was, as he put it, as pleased as he has
ever been after his classic sprint race today.
We managed to give him decent grip and glide and he skied the very tough
1.6 km course once for qualifiers and again for the quarter final heat. To put Ben's field into perspective, it is on the small side but almost every other skier is from a training center team. Ben was not deterred.
The remainder of the team had the chance to
sleep in a bit and have a relaxing morning.
There was some work involved as there was ski cleaning and travel waxing
to be done, getting classic skis ready for home.
I heard some unverified reports of unconventional waxing methods and reportedly Dom picked up a bit of slack . .
We were given space in the boathouse below the Lodge
so we were able to do lots of waxing on site.
The afternoon focus changed to skate skiing.
We all had the chance to ski the trails in the afternoon, with the
athletes pre -skiing their courses for Sunday. The support crew got our own
chance to head out on skis, including me. Conditions were beautiful, around -2 and warming up to near zero, still with a firm base of snow. Pauline and I did some exploring and we saw parts of the race course and also the view from up near the top on one of the upper trails. It was a very therapeutic ski.
The afternoon was spent resting, with most of us napping a bit. The team was showing signs of the long week but they were able to use their refocusing skills after the team meeting in the evening. Last sleep tonight and last race tomorrow.
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