Today we had 1.5km classic sprints at Lake Creek in Ketchum, ID. Kuzzy was still feeling sick (but better than yesterday) and didn't race. Gregg just missed out on qualifying since they were only taking the top 16 (World Cup races take the top 30). Bryan Cook had his debut race of the season after a series of unfortunate events this summer which delaying his training cycles and came in 25th. I'm not sure if this is reasonable, but Compton and I both watched Cook to see where he double poled/dbl.p.kicked/strided around the course. Maybe it's because he gives us good (and sometimes absurd) race strategy advice so we wanted to see him actually race. We did have one of our boys qualify, even if he isn't technically our boy. Sam Naney, skiing for BSF, is staying with us until the BSF team comes up for the weekend and he qualified in 14th and then got kicked out of the heats in his quarter final. If you're wondering who was winning since it wasn't our boys... it was the Canadians. Everyone in the men's A final was a member of the Canadian National Team. And the rest of the top 16 contained a good number of Canadians. Very fast. And very good looking. I think they might have hurt Caitlin's results because she was checking out the Canadians instead of warming up. Just my suspicions. Not that, of course, we had the guts to actually talk to any of them. None of the US Ski Team members are here this week, they got back home Monday night and are mostly enjoying some time at home after an unfulfilling trip to Europe.

The women's field was small-- only 17 people on the start list, but only 15 actually started so everyone made the heats. I was feeling pretty shabby this morning, I kind of wanted to stay in bed instead of start what I knew would be a day of racing. But we went to race and let Kuzzy do the sleeping in for the team. I executed our standard sprint warm-up and tested my skis. Actually almost missed the start because there was no race clock up to keep track of the time & I was starting first so there wasn't anyone else to follow to the start. Luckily, I guess, the announced me as a scratch and that got my attention so I went over to assure them I intended to race and got there 45sec before my start. Anyway, felt super stiff in the qualifiers so during lunch I stretched out a lot. Made fun of Compton for falling over and still qualifying in third, silly girl.

Quarterfinals were chill, Compton and I both won ours. The semifinal was tougher, we had Perianne Jones, a very strong Canadian skier, Kate Pearson (Rossi), Compton, Valaas. It was close, I won it and Jones came in second to move into the A final with me. Compton had requested a little too much kick on her skis and they were too draggy so we would pull ahead on the downhill/flat parts of the course. I was pretty traumatized not the have Compton in the A final with me, we've raced every semi and A final together this year. She had a five minute break after the semis (in which Fish fixed her skis) and then raced the B final, coming in second behind one of the Canadians, Sarah Daitch, to take 6th overall. Pearson was a couple seconds back to take 7th.

Let me describe the course: slight uphill start, long downhill, flat along the river, gradual up, 20m steep up, 20m gradual up, steep down, flat corner, slight up to finish. For the final I started out in the inside track in the lead. I kept the lead on the downhill, the girls behind me were drafting and could have stepped around since they were picking up speed, but instead pushed on my pole so we could both go faster. I took the hint and opened into a double pole to start accelerating again. Kept the lead across the flat and into the gradual uphill where I heard someone tell Shayla Swanson, who was skiing right behind me something along the lines of, "just relax, stay where you are, you have plenty of time to pass her on the hill." And it made me smile, because I knew how fast I was planning on skiing up the hill and suspected that passing me might not be that easy. Then we hit the steep part of the hill and I skied the steep to gradual section of the course as fast as I could and opened a decisive gap. Then a tight tuck and a few double poles into the finish to take the win. Swanson was second and Jones third, Tara Whitten fourth. Now that I think about it, I led (or skied even with one other skier) the entire way of every heat. It was nice not to have to scheme and plot to get the win since on a steep uphill drafting isn't a big factor. And then Bryan Cook had saved me a chocolate chip cookie and I ate it and was happy and now I am wanting to go back to bed again.