Canada Games 3 – First classic race of the season

After writing my post yesterday I spent another few hours in the library working on a lab for my Measurement, Instrumentation, and Controls class. The class is about as boring as the name suggests, and the lab reports are very hefty. I’d pin them down as at least 20hrs of writing, once you’ve figured out whats going on. Several people from our team were working in the library. Ben was working on some physics for an online class he’s taking.

Benny pondering the physics of the universe, or something

The meal service here is all buffet, and runs all day. They change the spread during the day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner type foods. Yesterday the Ontario girls brought a computer and watched the World Championship women’s team sprint from earlier in the day. Some of the Alberta team joined us to watch.

On Sunday evening we also had a Team Ontario pep rally to kick off week two at a high school auditorium a few blocks from the athlete village. When we arrived, athletes signed a big Team Ontario banner, thanking Prince George for hosting the Games.

The men’s hockey team signing the banner

I’ve only been to one pep rally-esque event before, which was at Lakehead last year when they introduce all the varsity teams to the freshmen students at the start of the semester. For the Ontario pep rally, we didn’t have an audience, but everyone was still stoked to be there and make some noise. The people leading the rally were impressed with our enthusiasm, considering that we’d all gotten arrived in Prince George at like 3am that morning.

Making some noise during the pep rally

They had some cool videos and photos from week one of competitions, as well as a dramatic introductory trailer that featured “movie posters” for each sport. They also had the posters hanging on the walls. Each poster design was based off a popular movie, the cross country one was inspired by the movie E.T.

C.C banner with all our names on it

After that it was back to our dwellings to rest up for my first classic race of the season. To be clear – I’ve decided that my season restarted after I broke my leg in Rossland. I think the races I did prior to injuring myself are part of a different story. During my recovery I established that the rest of the winter would be a new adventure, with new, novel challenges, and a fresh perspective on myself and my goals as a skier. My return to ski racing this winter has been an enlightening experience on many fronts.

This morning I woke up around 7:00, but didn’t want to eat breakfast right away, so I pulled my foam roller and computer into the hallway to watch the men’s team sprint from Sunday. Bella woke up and joined me to watch. It was a very interesting race. When the race ended, Bella, Sadie and I went to breakfast. We were all excited to race.

Bella and Sadie walking to breakfast

As of late, my pre-race breakfast has been oatmeal, but the breakfast buffet only had tiny bowls so I needed two to get the amount of oatmeal I wanted to eat. Here is an artistic portrayal of my meal:

Once we finished breakfast, it was back to the hotel, then onto the shuttle and up to the race site. It was another beautiful day, and perfect klister skiing. When I initially tested my skis they felt a bit slow, but after I brought them back and they got their final touchups they were awesome. The waxers did a great job today.

The race was 2 laps of 3.75km for the women and 2 laps of 5k for the men. Our boys had a pretty solid day, with Scott picking up a silver medal and Evan just missing the podium in 4th. I also finished fourth in my race and am pleased with how I raced. My goal was to pace myself through the first lap and then try to be a bit sharper the second time around. I followed through pretty well, I still had a 12s positive split, but it was interesting to see that everyone in the top5 had fairly even lap times. Results are here.

Men’s 10k classic podium – 1st Knute, 2nd Scott, 3rd Raph

In my race, Annah Hawthorn (YT) won, just 0.68s ahead of Katherine Stewart-Jones (QC), and Kendra Murray (YT) was third, 14.5s back and 16s ahead of me. Being fourth is always a bummer, but I know where the lost time went – I made the conscious decision to ski conservatively on the downhills. My stability and confidence are still not entirely with me, so I gave up free time there. I’m not upset about this, because I know I chose to ski cautiously on the descents. So while I’m not excited to be fourth, I am definitely encouraged that I finished amongst the top skiers. Especially for my first classic race of the year.

And that’s the day as it was. I am back in the library (as I anticipate being every afternoon) to post this and do schoolwork now. After dinner tonight we will have a team meeting to get the details on tomorrow’s classic sprint race. The sprint course is pretty sweet and I’m excited to race again tomorrow and hopefully improve on my result from today!

Trails at Otway Nordic Centre