After just missing out on the World Cup trip, I knew my fitness was in a good place but that I needed just a bit more to really hit the top end. Then I got sick two weeks before Nationals, curtailing training. I went into the Utah races confident, however, and the classic sprint was a good start with a 5th place qualification and 9th in the rounds. But then I got sick again, and the skate sprint was a bust with a 10th place qualification and 13th overall, well off the podium mark I was shooting for. I remained sick the entire week after, unable to do any decent training beyond distance skiing.
Unfortunately once the season starts, any deviation from the proposed schedule creates a bit of a domino effect on everything else. Especially in the sprint event, where so much is dependent upon top-end speed and anaerobic endurance, both of which degrade quickly without training. By missing close to three weeks of focus in this area before, through, and after Nationals, I was sorely lacking in any manner of sprint prowess as we traveled on the 16th of January to Minneapolis for the Tour de Twin Cities Super Tour - five races in eight days. During that drive Scott and I discussed planning. We knew that without that crucial edge my sprinting wouldn't be what I wanted, and the idea of traveling all the way to the Aspen Super Tour sprint (qualifier only) two weeks later for what would only be a three minute effort, without the normal Super Tour payout, was difficult to justify if I wasn't going to be in top form. We decided to wait and see how the week played out in Minneapolis.
The first two days of races at the Theodore Wirth Park venue in Minneapolis were distance efforts; a 10km skate and a 20km mass start classic. I felt really good in the first lap of the skate; it was a pretty gradual course with firm, manmade snow - perfect for a bigger power skier like myself. I skied the first lap fast; too fast, in fact. My second lap saw a decline in speed which dropped me from the top-10 into 19th place, 50 seconds out of 1st. I allowed that it was over-enthusiasm which dictated that result, and got ready for the next day's 20km. Now, last year at this race there was a HUGE crash (search "collide.mov" on youtube for the video), so everyone was joking at the start that we should all be ready for the imminent carnage. And carnage there was. It was a 3.3km, super-icy and twisty course with close to 200 starting men. The main pack stayed together through all six laps, despite crashes, collisions, broken equipment and tears. I was skiing a solid race in the group of top-10 men, avoiding all the mess ups and foul play, when at the end of the fifth lap we came up fast on a couple masters skiers who were being lapped. It happened on a steep herring-bone wall and before I knew it I was blocked out on the trail by a lapped skier who had stumbled onto my skis. By the time we disentangled ourselves the pack was a good 30 seconds in front of me. I skied the last lap yo-yoing between two groups, fighting hard to catch back on to the front runners. In the end, I couldn't regain contact and finished 15th, 20 seconds out of first. But yet through both these distance races my endurance and strength felt good, and I knew they would help contribute to that overall base.
 |
| Reitler Hodgert (BEA) hearts the Mall of America |
The rest of the week we spent doing a bit of ski training on the Theodore Wirth race courses, and engaging in some cultural experiences with our local guide and friend Duane, whose background in the humanities offered us a perfect resource for our tour of the University of Minnesota's art galleries. Our brains thus expanded, we dined at his house on his wife Sid's delicious roast chicken and espresso-chocolate layer cake.
On Friday it was time to sprint, and I woke up hoping that the concerns Scott and I had voiced would be muted by a strong result. Due to the undulating nature of the course a few of us opted to double-pole the qualifier on skate skis, and the decision paid off as we all landed in the top-3 after qualification. I was 3rd; a result which I hoped to build from in the heats. But it wasn't to be; after smoothly moving through in my quarterfinal I had a really hard time keeping the power up in my semi and was relegated to the B final, where I positively exploded, coming in last by many meters. It was a pretty disappointing effort, as I hadn't felt that sort of plow-drop all year. The previous sprints of this season had mostly been derailed by tactical mistakes: taking the wrong line on a corner; allowing someone to step in front of me when I should've blocked, etc. But this one was different: I simply didn't have the gumption to fight. It was eye-opening, and it made for a long conversation that night between Scott and me on the future of the season.
There will always be an initial plan of attack going into a racing year. Primary goals are laid out and starts are aligned around achieving those goals. For this year, the first goal was qualifying for the World Cups. When that was missed, we shifted our focus to the US Nationals sprints. After a decent start I was again shut down on hitting the mark by getting sick. The next focus was more nebulous; the Super Tour sprint leader position at that point was locked down by my regional teammate Dakota Blackhorse von-Jess, so the possibility of late-season World Cup starts wasn't on the table. What remained then was accumulation of strong profile points and perhaps some money to be won. With the Olympics next year, everyone is focused on having the best possible ranking list profile, as this will greatly increase the chance of selection. As a sprinter, there are few opportunities to get really good points domestically due to the large spread of athlete profiles. The best chances come at National Championships - both the American and Canadian. With that in mind Scott and I have decided to balance the rest of the season on being as prepared as possible for the end of season sprints at Canadian National Championships and Super Tour Finals. With these foci aligned, after the Friday sprint in Minneapolis I cancelled my entry to both the Boulder Mountain Tour and the Aspen Super Tour, and planned to be here in the Methow for three solid weeks of hard sprint training before the Madison Super Tour sprints. Then afterward I would have a further four weeks of training before these big end-of-season championships.
I finished the Midwestern races that week in a lukewarm fashion; the 10km individual start classic race which followed the sprint was a disaster; my legs were toasted from the sprint and I could tell I had no pop. The next morning I woke up feeling heavy and flat; the only robustness was the booming of my heart rate in my ears as I stood up out of bed. The race was a 15km skate, and I went into it with little expectation other than the hope to avoid complete combustion on the course. As it happened I kept things in control and finished 11th; it was a far cry from last year's 3rd in the same race but given how my legs felt I was satisfied, and moved on.
Back here at home, the last two weeks have been motivating. My focus has been targeted on improving my sprint duration endurance: I've been conducting workouts every two days where I complete between 4-6 intervals of 2-3 minutes in length, at maximum intensity. The idea is to re-tool my body to deal with a level of lactate and fatigue after such an effort, and to be able to repeat it again and again like I would in a sprint race. So far I think it's working, and I hope to see the results next week in Madison.
 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Juicing beets for improved performance. |
