(title copyright 1983 by Glenn Jobe / Diagonal Cowboy Productions. All rights reserved.)
Well after some ridiculously horrendous travel delays and changes I finally made it out to Anchorage, AK for US Nationals 2010!!! I am here with coach Ben Grasseschi and junior racer Russell Kennedy in a sweet condo with a kitchen. Also sharing the condo with us is Martin Benes (far west alum now coaching for Bates college - two Bates athletes are also staying here.)
Ben is making us some awesome dinner right now: rice, broccoli, chicken, and some salad. Russell is helping. Right now Martin is waxing one pair of my skis for the 1.5k skate sprint tomorrow, while Salomon wax tech Josh Korn waxes my other pair. It is an unbelievable relief to have such support…a place to stay, ground transportation, wax support, food, registration, all taken care of! Now that I am here and all done with the Christmas craziness and travel insanity, I am feeling extremely excited and happy!! Nothing to worry about but getting ready to race my best tomorrow.
Today I skied the sprint course about 8 or 10 times (maybe more, not sure), and then skied the course for the upcoming 15k skate a couple times (it’s three laps of a 5k loop which is very hilly and cranky.) The sprint course is pretty much identical to last year except for the big climb which is a little bigger this year. Overall it is very hilly compared to some sprint courses - it will be tough for sure but I’m ready to tear it up!
Conditions here are very cold but definitely not as bad as last year. The low tonight is supposed to be 4 degrees, and it is supposed to warm up all the way to a whoppin’ 9 degrees. Then the low tomorrow night will be 8 degrees. Big temp swings up here in Anchorage ; )
It will be awesome competition as usual at US Nationals - but even tougher this year as 100% of the full field of college racers and juniors will be here, a few of whom had to go home last year before the classic sprint because the sprint ended up being postponed to the end of the weekend due to illegally-cold temps. So, if I can improve on my 21st in last year’s classic sprint, it will be an accompishment for sure. I’m actually mainly excited to just see how high I can place in the qualifier/prelim, and see if I can get some really really good points for that (all the ussa points are based off of the prelim round, not the subsequent elimination heats….so if you ski super fast in the prelim and then drop out or bomb in the heats, you still get great points.) Not that I won’t try my best in the heats, but I like the prelim since it’s really about how fast you can ski the 1.5k, while the heats are more about tactics and positioning.
Well, more news to come shortly…you can follow action almost up to the minute (or at least up to the 3-hours) on fasterskier.com …and here on the senior blog! If I can get some pics I will post them…or maybe some videos too, we’ll see…always a little tricky to get those on race day when you’re racing but I’ll try!
