Last night was the second of the two rescheduled US Short Distance Nationals competitions held up here in Fairbanks: the team skate sprint. Lacking no complementary member of either Cougar Mountain Racing Project or MOD (as EB had some "school thing" preventing him from traveling up here), I was able to team up with XC Oregon athlete Erik Jacobson. As there were 25 men's teams they held first two semi-final rounds before narrowing down the field to the top ten teams for the final. In my first leg of our semi-final my goal was simple: be in at least the top-3 at the exchange. After working through a tough start position (seeded by points) I managed to shove my way into the lead group. On the final long climb of the 1.5K lap Garrott Kuzzy, Chris Cook and myself managed to form a 10m or so gap on the next group and came through the exchange that way. Goal #1, accomplished. From there my remaining efforts involved trying to keep tabs on the pack in each of my legs. Erik held onto our 3rd place spot, coming in even with 4th at his first exchange, but then in his second leg was overtaken by 5th and 6th. In my final leg I tried to bide my time, not making a big move to regain our top-5 position (only the top 5 from each semi moved on to the finals) until the final climb. Unfortunately by the time we got to that climb no sprint from me was sufficient to regain contact with the two ahead. We came in 7th in our heat, unable to move on. But like the classic race, I accomplished at least one of my goals in the sprint, and have bolstered my confidence as a national-level sprinter which will aid me in training for the coming year.
Next up: 30K skiathlon, tomorrow evening at 6pm. Four laps each of classic then skate, on wicked tough courses. Stay tuned!
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