Training Log Archive: AliC

About 10 minutes warm up just around the stadium again, putter putter. Legs feeling a bit tired, but not terrible.

Relay- 8th- woo! Ahead of Hungary, Ukraine, Great Britain and Japan! We're really happy, Alex had a great one, moving us up to 5th from 6th, only losing 4 min to the leaders and Cristina totally, totally rocked it for her best ski-o ever and losing only 3 places! Wahoo!

My race did the job, finished 6th, end of the 2nd pack of Finland-Czech-Swizerland-USA, Russian and Norway were up ahead about 3 minutes. But it was scrappy. I wiped out twice on downhills, tried to take the second loop clockwise instead of counter-clockwise, and had a tree steal the glasses of my head once (I stole them back). A suspect route choice or two on the upper bit and tired. But still good, really coming in right in the middle of the real race!

The first part was down in sprint-relay land, which was generally flatter with some nobbly sections, a good mix-it-up from the big slope we've mostly been on the whole week. Was pretty good through that, going to all my own forkings and in 5th crossing the bridge that was roughly halfway. Then tried to go to control 12 instead of 7 or something, noticed there were not tracks, so reavaluated and realized I had to slog all the way up the hill again. Think my route choice up was non-optimal, and then also the next one, but at least didn't loose oodles of time. Was for sure tired heading up, and skis did not feel as fast as yesterday- too warm wax?

Then there was pinball control-pick through narrow trails on the way down. Pretty fun, despite my two falls. Ah well.

And that's it for ski-o for the year! Sad! It's been really, really fun this week, and just wish I could play more, am really psyched to train a bit more for it next year and hopefully improve!

C • Another super job, and so n... 9

Forgot down jacket at hotel, so a smidgen or a warm down over there to go get it and then cheer, cheer, cheer!

Forgot gloves at race area, had to go back to get them too.

Little warm up in the stadium, not much space!

Woooooooooooooooooo! 8th! So so psyched! =) I was hoping to crack the top 20 again today, so super-duper happy with at top 10 result!

Gosh. So how'd it all go? Unfortunately don't have my GPS track, because wasn't seeded in top 20 this time (depends who the top teams actually put in each race). But no big mistakes, biggest one was just into the final control before the bridge before the finish, went the wrong way around the houses, which is probably how I gave up 7th place...

Anyways, started not too strongly, probably was in 20th going over the bridge, some chaos involved in that as some girl skied on top of my ski and then fell down, ah well. Then was a looong uphill climb to the first control. I started just skiing by girls steadily climbing up and think I got to my first control (was forked) in 5th. Some were confused by the forking, had to stop and readjust their plan, happy that I had stayed in contact the whole way up!

Then cruised around the rest of the loop, sometime in contact with other skiers, sometimes not, always doing my own thing, not getting distracted by other forkings. There was a really fun downhill right towards the end of the first loop, screaming down a little narrow trail ending in a big trail so you really didn't have to worry about too much speed, awesome fun. Came into the map exchange, apparently in 4th! Not that I knew it at the time. Then was a super gimp getting my map in the map holder again, missed getting energy drink and the Swedish girl who ended up winning passed me right then.

Second loop, think I had the slightly longer forkings, so gals were catching me a bit, also might have been tiring a smidge. =) Did the uphill with the Swede, Helene, and Czech, Helene was faster, but I was about the same speed as the Czech. Through the equipment control, got a little sports drink there, and then on. My forking took me across and then up higher than the first time, Marte Renaas caught me on the flat crossing bit. I wasn't losing time much on the small trails, just a bit, and more when I was really studying my map.

Then down the hill, to one little control just off the big trail that the Russian just in front of me missed and was coming back up to, sweet! Should be able to get her, if I can stay ahead the few controls on the south side- so I was studying that bit really hard skiing on the big trail right to the control before the bridge again, and oops!!! missed the left turn and when the long way around the group of houses. So the Russian was ahead of me again. =( Ah well.

Executed the final 3 controls perfectly fine, heard gals in back of me and could see the Russian in front, so was definitely pushing, but I don't think much ground was given or taken.

On finishing, found out I was actually in 8th! Cool! I knew by the numbers on the bibs around me that I was doing well, but not exactly where, so happy with that place for sure! Woo!

C • Super! 5

C • Plagarism 5

Little rest-day joggeroo with Cristina, Alex, Nikolay and on the way back, Norweigian Marte Renaas. Was one of the nicest bits of the day, sunny! Body feels fine, not too tired from past 3 days of racing, so should be ready for another go tomorrow. Bit nervous about trying to make sense of the 1:15 scale and also about the mass start. Sound like the mass start will head out and immediately go up over the bridge, which is sure to cause chaos....

C • 8th 29

HTFU (thanks Cristina) training with Greg and Scott out in the howling wind on the flat open bit, so was really really windy. Deep drifts and then icy windblown sections. Almost impossible to see where the little trails were, and the big snowmobile ones were only visible because of the stakes in the ground... will have to see what it's like later, wind should be calming down and they should be going over all the trails to make them actually there. The crust is thick though, winder if cuts across it will make up part of the game today....

C • web TV 6

Whoops, showed up without mapholder! Found out when they said I was supposed to get a GPS and there wasn't a mapholder to strap it onto. So skied back to the hotel, scampered up and got it. The rest was more normal warming up, actually really boring, just back and forth in the stadium.

Sprint Relay @ Ski WOC in Tänndalen

This was a blast! Despite wind and snow and drifts. 3 x cool little sprint course, different enough each time, although you were gaffled with yourself, so definitely knew the 2 common controls the 2nd and 3rd times around.

Greg took us off, sprinted into the wind, and handed off to me right with the New Zealand team and Spain I think. The first leg was probably my best, had a clean and fast run, with I think all the right route choices and passed a bunch of gals putting us in 10th.

All the team was super helpful in between, adding clothing to me between the legs, and storing it between. Adrian also gets points for coming over early and walking through the stadium to explain it to us, and Alex for keeping my spare gloves warm in her armpit. Warm gloves rock.

2nd leg, I'm pretty sure I made one bad route choice, decided to go over a hill on a big trail instead of around on flats and a little trail. Little trails are perfectly fast on flats, would have been a fine option. I again just passed the Italian and Austrian gals coming into the finish to tag off Greg.

3rd leg, clean, any route choice errors must have been small, and was killing it to catch the Italian woman at the end, had the routes to the last two controls memorized (we had been in this area each leg before) and was just going going going, but when I came into the arena, she had just made the curve to the finish, just too much to reel in. Afterwards, figured out that they mispunched actually anyways, making us 12th place.

Really was great fun and a good addition to ski WOC (1st time there has ever been a sprint relay.)

C • Great race! 1

Warm down in the windyness with Greg and Nikolay. Flower ceremony happened halfway through, so skied little loops spectating that, too cold to stop! Oh, and also skied back to hotel at end. I like commuting on skis =)

Warm up on the model area above the road, on the 1:10 map. Also tested skis and because of the new snow, the ones with the less aggressive grind were faster despite the others having the fluoro topcoat. Ah well, always better to go with the fastest option. Practiced skiing and keeping in contact with the map, better than the first time out on it for sure. I also tightened up the straps on the mapholder, which probably helped!

C • Simultaneous logging... 2

Middle distance race at Ski WOC in Tänndalen

Blizzard! Lots and lots of snow, but was predicted and already like that when warming up in the model, so at least was ready for it. You had to keep wiping off your mapholder and somehow snow also got inside my glasses, not sure how it was managing that, maybe the crazy wind helped?

Anyways, I had another good race! Not quite as pleased as with yesterday's sprint, because made one quite painful mistake and some other littler ones. But yesterday's race was good enough to move me to the second seed group (first 30 are put into seed groups of 10 then randomized) and I got a GPS, so you can see my track here.

It was very, very technical out there, especially with the snow erasing unused trails left and right and making cut-throughs look just like trails. More like foot-o because trails were less helpful in general. Although maybe like foot-o in a dense fog, that also attaches itself to your map...

Just got to start in time and headed off pretty strong, similar routes to the fastest ladies, although chose to do more big trails than some up to #3. Then had a big mistake to #7, looking at my track, I think what happened is I didn't notice the first snowmobile trail *at all*, thus was pretty confused T'ing out on the 2nd one and skied around in a little loop.

Also got quite confused to #10, but wasn't punished for it nearly as much. I took a cut through, but though I was on a trail, so again could just not place myself when I came out on the snowmobile trails. So cut up, realized I was on the high trail, and did more sensible things from there.

Cruised over to the map exchange, hear Carl cheering for me, floundered with map, and then huge climb back up the hill on a big trail. There was an option to use small trails, but I thought I'd be faster skiing and totally gained on a Finnish girl that way, she must have been 100m ahead when she turned off, and then I got to the control before her. A small mistake coming down off the hill to the GO control, but not huge, and then in in in!

I came in, and they announced I was in 7th, so knew my mistakes hadn't at least added up to a horrible race, since I started I think with just 15 gals left to go. Ended up 18th, tying yesterday's placing, which I'm very happy with, although was much further back in percent back.

Will do the sprint relay tomorrow with Greg, snow should calm down, but will be colder, brrrr, really feels like midwinter here now....

C • Tracking... 7

C • 18... 2

Warming up in the little area we were allowed in the flat bit of the model. Felt a bit draggy to start, but ok by the end of the warm up, guess warm ups are worthwhile!

Woo, a good race! Pretty psyched, came in 18th about 2 min back from the winner.

Started, and choose big-trail routes to the first 2, which involved a lot of climb. Was doing ok, reading a control ahead (but definitely not more!), and picking ok routes I think. I could see the Bulgarian in front of me from 3 until 9, which helped some for sure, kind of an early warning about the trails I probably wanted to take, although we didn't always take the same routes.

To 9 I was out of contact just the final bit, I was reading ahead the last little inset while on a big trail (the final 4 controls over the bridge on a little square inset), then saw a biggish track and figured it was the one I wanted, so I took it, but it was the snowmobile trial instead of the big one I was planning on. Slowed down, worked it out, and it was a fine route choice anyway, phew!

Then over the bridge over the road, round the corner and last 4 control pick. I did it fine, the Bulgarian went the wrong way, and was surprised to see Alex coming at me at one point, she had just made a small mistake.

Came in, and they announced I was 2nd crossing the finish, but the girl in front must have mispunched because then they announced I was leading slightly after! Cool! Of course when the red group started coming in, got displaced, but still really really happy with the race.

C • Also pretty psyched back he... 14

Started on the 1:10000 map and promptly got lost. The map was quite hard to read (lots of buildings/changes in forest color) along with the trails, so a bit more cluttered than usual. Still, should have slowed down instead of getting lost! Relocating was ok though because of the buildings around though.

Got a bit more into it after finally getting to #1 and then there was #3. In the middle of a really quite steep downhill. Plowed to check a bit of speed just at the tippy top, then went for it and totally got the punch (we're touch-free emitting this, so it's a matter of coordinating when you go for hitting the control bag hanging on a wire). Rest were ok, just not happy how slow I had to ski to stay in contact.

C • Slow skiing? 2

Re-ran the middle, plus a bit extra on the 1:5000 map. Much much easier to read, was a happier camper out there for sure!