Different time, different format. That is how I would describe last night’s team sprint. For some reason the French decided it would be interesting to see who could sprint the fastest during the time of day that most athletes would be in bed sleeping. The schedule of events yesterday kicked off with the first quarterfinals being at 7:00 PM and races continuing until men’s finals at 10:15. After all was said and done I watched the Germans cross the line in first at 10:40 PM!
I have been racing the OPA circuit for the past four weeks, so it has been great to meet up with a group of about 15 athletes and four coaches earlier on this week. It makes racing a lot more enjoyable when you have a team around you, especially in a sprint race when the more cheering you get, the faster you seem to go. Because the senior women’s field only had 9 teams starting, we got to skip over quarterfinals and only had to race finals for the evening. The US started two teams, Caitlin Compton and Nicole Deyong partnered up and Katie Ronsse and I partnered up as well.
At 8:15, the start of our race, it was cold, dark, and windy, but there was no lack of energy. Lots of spectators and lots of athletes made for quite the exciting atmosphere. The race was held right in the heart of the small town of La Feclaz, with the finishing stretch right in the center. Right from the gun, the group took off with a charge, instantly breaking the nine teams apart into smaller groups. Both US teams took the first lap a little more relaxed, falling back a bit but deciding it was better to ski into the race and attack when the rest were fading and getting tired. The next two legs both teams slowly moved up through the field picking off what we could. Arriving here a couple of days prior to this race made it a bit more difficult for some of the girls- but they put in a hard fight. Katie and I have been here a while, so we had a bit of an advantage. Needless to say these European skiers are strong girls and you have to really work to ski with them! Katie and I ended up crossed the line in sixth and the other US team shortly behind in 8th.
With such a late start it was a bit of a balancing act trying to decide when to eat dinner, where to warm up, and what to do all day for preparation. With an 8:15 PM start do you do a workout in the morning? Do you eat a spaghetti dinner at 7:00 when it is served, with a possible outcome of having it come back up during your race? Nobody really knew, which made it all the more fun.
The best part of the night’s adventures was warming up for the race. It was dark out, and the only area lit was the sprint course, which you couldn’t ski on. Which left you with the only option of going out on the trails and skiing in the dark. With no headlamps, this turned into quite the adventure. Luckily the past couple of days I have been skiing on these trails so I know the general flow of them- but every once in a while you would unexpectedly come to the end of a trail, or find the track had ended and you had somehow veered quite far off path. The best part is you couldn’t really see people coming until you were right on them. At one point I came within inches of slamming into some person when I was booking it down a hill back towards the stadium. With so many athletes out there I can guarantee there were some unexpected collisions last night. The good news is, it was dark out so you would never know whom you ran into. You might be able to tell which nationality they were, based on which curse word they yelled or how they apologized.
Tomorrow is a 5/10K mass start skate race. Stay tuned!
