Category: XCFeeds

One of the most beautiful, quickest, and underutilized get-aways in Anchorage is ocean mudflats and marshlands. And there’s rarely a soul down there because it can be a perilous place if you aren’t aware of which areas are safe, the status of the tides, mud, ice, or open hours of the Rabbit Creek rifle range. But if you check the stats and keep astute, there’s nothing that beats instantly

One of the most beautiful, quickest, and underutilized get-aways in Anchorage is ocean mudflats and marshlands. And there’s rarely a soul down there because it can be a perilous place if you aren’t aware of which areas are safe, the status of the tides, mud, ice, or open hours of the Rabbit Creek rifle range. But if you check the stats and keep astute, there’s nothing that beats instantly

One of the most beautiful, quickest, and underutilized get-aways in Anchorage is ocean mudflats and marshlands. And there’s rarely a soul down there because it can be a perilous place if you aren’t aware of which areas are safe, the status of the tides, mud, ice, or open hours of the Rabbit Creek rifle range. But if you check the stats and keep astute, there’s nothing that beats instantly

I am finally starting to catch up on life since just recently returning to Anchorage after nearly 4 months straight on the road. I feel like for the past month I have been in a dream… where everything is moving so fast and its just too good.

Some of the US ladies after races

During my two weeks in Oslo for the World Championships I was in such a daze that I struggled to really let my emotions catch up and feel how amazing it was. Once the week of racing started… everything started moving so fast that I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t even describe anything from the week other than AMAZING. It is hard to put words to what it feels like to ski through a tunnel of at least 10,000 people screaming at the top of their lungs. The feeling is just amazing. All I could think was how lucky I am to be involved in the sport that I am.

Giving my autograph to my first fans 🙂

One of the german skiers and I joining the celebration out in the woods on our recovery ski

Fans, Fans, Fans

Great spectating from the roof of the athletes cabin

World Champs Womans Squad

The Norwegians are incredible. They are so passionate about the sport, they just love it. The majority of my races fell on days that it was so foggy you couldn’t see much further than 5 feet in front of you. I imagined this would hold back some spectators… but with no fail all the norwegian fans were still out there screaming their faces off into the fog. I am convinced they had no idea who they were cheering for, or if they were even cheering for anyone. Maybe they just screamed straight for two hours. Regardless, they were still keeping the spirit going.

Warming up in the fog

Me on the big screen

Besides the sprint race I got to start two other races during the week. The 10km classic and the Team Sprint.

The 10k was awesome. I started bib 26, so pretty early. The course was by far the hardest course I have ever skid.. so I just went out and tried to ski hard from the start. I kind of knew there would be a point where I would blow up… but I was hoping the noise of the fans would keep me going. Which is exactly what happened. I crossed the line in first place as I came in before many of the lead skiers- but I got to sit in the leaders chair for a while, which was super fun. I have never gotten to sit in the leaders chair before, and yes it is just as comfy as it looks 🙂

A clip from the TV of me crossing the line in 1st place

Relaxing in the Leaders Chair

Two days later I got to start the classic team sprint with Kikkan. I have done one team sprint before nearly 3 years ago. I have to say this team sprint at World Champs was an entirely different race though. These girls went out my top speed sprinting pace from the start. Team sprinting is difficult because you have to race 3 times in the Semi-Finals. Then if you make the A-Finals, you do the same thing again, 3 more hard efforts. I was a bit nervous, knowing I would have to save some energy for such a long race. Semi-finals were great. Kikkan and I managed to gradually move up through the race and come in 3rd, moving us onto the finals. When the A finals came around 45 minutes later, I struggled a bit more. By the last lap of the finals… the wheels started to fall off. It was all I could do just to get to the finish to tag Kikkan. We still managed to finish 9th at the end of the day, which was fun. I think with more endurance training, this could be an awesome race for us. It sure is tons of fun though. Gives you six chances to ski right in there with some of the best sprinters in the world.

Kikkan and I with some American Spirit 🙂

Team Sprinting in the fog!

As the week concluded, it was so sad to leave Holmenkollen. THinking back to two months ago, when I first got named to the team, so many people told me this was an experience I would remember for the rest of my life. They were right! Not only was it amazing to be part of it, and get right into the heart of ski racing- but it was incredible to watch everyone else. Skiing around the trails on recovery days with Kikkan and listening to everyone chant her name was just inspiring. I think besides their own norwegian skiers, Kikkan may be their next favorite skier. Also watching Bjorgen and Northug do their warm- ups around you and then going on to working their magic in front of your eyes… its just something you can’t appreciate in full until you see it in person.

APU squad

Thanks to all the Norwegians for making it truly amazing- as well as all the americans who came over and cheered. Also thanks to all the people who sent good luck over facebook or emails, it was so fun to have so many people following!!

We took a trip to the Ambassadors house midweek. Here is World Champs announcer, and good friend Peter Graves with Holly and I

Ladies team

Introduced into the world of World Cup racing in Drammen, Norway- introduced to World Champs racing in Holmenkollen…. I think I may be the luckiest person alive 🙂

From here I chill out and train for 2 weeks here in Anchorage before going to my final week of racing in Sun Valley for spring series.

Joining the true norwegian style with my new Onesie

Thanks to all the coaches and wax techs for making the week rock!!

J2 boys start. This was the first race of the day with an 8 am start time, but it didn’t seem to hurt the NE kids. Hamish took the win and Tyler was 2nd.
It was the begiining of another great day for New England and the SMS kids. You can find results on line..but here is a quick recap for our kids (and alums). Tyler 2nd, Brooke 3rd, Paddy 18th, Charlie 20th, Austin Cobb 5th, Bridger 8th, Skyler 10th, Austin Caldwell 22nd, Heather 3rd, Hallie 7th, Cam 8th, Rachel 23rd, Issy P 34, Izzy C 4th, Hilary 10th, Gage 17th. Wow…another 10 all-americans for SMS :).
David Sinclair and Skyler round the corner in the lead. David put on a big spurt to start the 2nd lap and built up a 45 second lead over the middle 5 km. He then cruised to victory.
Chris stock rounds the tear drop at 4.5 km. You can see the leaders climbing the hill on the left and the big chase pack streaming down the hill on the right.
The J1 girls at 4.6 km. They stayed together until 8km, then Corey put the hammer down and no one could keep up.
OJ girls at 1/2 km. They were the last race and waxing was done so they get top billing with pictures today.
The lead pack at 2.5 km…it’s about to break up.
Izzy.
MK and Jen at 5 kms.
Hilary powers into the stadium 1/2 way through the race.
Jesse Diggins skied easily in 2nd for 3 kms and then put the hammer down. Her strong move busted the field wide open and turned the race into a chase fest.
MK and Annie hammer over a hill at 7.5 km.

OJ girls podium.

Looks like shooting was a big factor today in Helena Ekholm just crushing the field. She shot clean, and it looks like a lot of others had a few misses. This is one of those races where percent behind the leader is rather misleading. For instance, Sara Studebaker probably had a very good race in 17th, but relative to Ekholm she’s quite a ways back.

Related posts:

1. <Race Snapshot: IBU WC 2 Women’s Pursuit
2. <Race Snapshot: IBU WC 8 Women’s Sprint
3. <Race Snapshot: WBC Sprint

Nothing in depth here, just a quick look at how the US and Canadian results at these past World Champs compare to past major championships (OWG and WSC). First is a look at the distance results, using standardized percent back from the median skier, and the blue line representing the median performance over time:

For the US women, their best performances weren’t much better than recently, but their median result did improve somewhat. That would point to a slightly deeper squad, if not a faster one.

Despite no big headline results from Kris Freeman, the US men still had a better showing than Vancouver, and a better team performance than the previous WSC (minus a good result from Freeman, of course).

The only modest improvement of the median result for the Canadian men is mostly the result of George Grey not skiing out of his brain like he did last year at the Olympics, and Kershaw getting sick and missing the 50k. He may not have been quite up with Harvey in that race, but I’d bet he he would have skied fairly well.

Not a terribly impressive WSCs from the Canadian women in the distance events. They’re still rebuilding and hopefully it won’t take too many more years.

The sprint version of these plots are a little silly, since there’s only one sprint race per event, so the amount of data is dramatically reduced. Still, for completeness and comparison:

Keep in mind that the blue trend line is tracking the median of only 3-4 values at a time. So you might just be better off looking at the points themselves.

The US women were of course missing a big result from Kikkan Randall, but it was nice to see a few others in the top 30. The US men saw some improvement, thanks to Andrew Newell not falling and some better qualifying efforts by a few others.

The Canadian men’s sprinting just keeps improving, and with promising folks like Len Valjas coming up, it’ll be interesting to see how they develop.

Related posts:

1. <Mid-Season Recap: North American Distance
2. <WJC/U23 Assessment USA and CAN
3. <WJC/U23 Assessment: Norway and Russia