Well, Alaska is still my least favorite place to travel. It takes a long time to get here, its dark pretty much the whole day and its always cold and wet. Yes the mountains are pretty but unfortunately I'm a cross country skier and do not get to enjoy that part of this state.
Back to racing, I had a less than stellar race which is why it has taken me so long to update, I had to sort it all out in my head and get over it before sharing. It was a skate sprint, which is not my best event but I thought this course suited more of my strengths so I was hoping for the best. I had a good qualifying round and ended up in 13th which isn't too bad for me (I have never been a strong qualifier). In my quarterfinal, I had a great start and skied up the first big hill really well and was in 3rd at the top of the hill. After coming down the fast downhill and swinging around the corner into the next uphill everyone in the heat glided right on past me and that was game over for me. I was never able to catch back up and pass people. So, in short, a combination of slow skis and not very sparky legs left me mad and disappointed at the end of the day. Overall, Dartmouth did poorly, many of us had slow skis and weren't on our top game so we are all looking forward to today!
Luckily Nationals is a serious of 4 races so I have 3 more chances to redeem myself, the first one being today! The temperatures have actually warmed up so I am even hoping that I can race in gloves instead of mittens! There are moose just all over the trails, its weird if you don't see one. This is pretty cool, but also terrifying as every local has a story of being chased by one so hopefully the boys that race before us will scare most of them off!
