The First Race: 5k Individual Start

A question that is asked commonly here at Junior Nationals, is: What event are you most looking forwards to? For me, this is a difficult question, because I enjoy all of the races, and because of the shortage of racing this year, I don't really know what my strengths are. But one thing that I know I truly excel at is being able to push myself as needed: so if I'm in a group of girls that are going hard, I can stick with them, working harder than I normally would be if I was by myself. So in my view, the race I was most nervous about was the 5k individual start, where I'd have to push myself without anyone around me.

One thing I learned a long time ago: You can push yourself and still have fun!

As I mentioned in my last post, the Midwest has a big advantage of already racing this course several times, and I believe that really helps, because I knew where I could go hard, with the help of built in rest, or where I needed to conserve a little speed, so I could make it around a corner, The Midwest team pulled out a big day yesterday, with almost all of our athletes having good races, so the atmosphere was a lot of fun!

Although it was very warm yesterday, it is predicted to be the coolest race of the week

I knew throughout the course that I was having a good day, but because I started early in the seeded line up, I knew that a lot of the faster girls who were seeded in the middle, still had to make their way up Mt. Telemark. When I finished the race, I knew I had given it my all, and I finished with the 2nd fastest time in. I didn't want to get my expectations up, and I was really nervous. My goal for the day was All-American, top 10, but what I was wondering was, 'is my best effort really enough?'. Sometimes after an individual start, where the results are still unofficial, it's hard to admit you've skied your hardest and given it your all because if you don't do as well as you thought you could have, it's a hit to your ego.

Really putting the hammer down in the custom Midwest's pink hair

So after the race, I brought my race skis (which had amazing kick and glide thanks to the wax techs who put a lot of time and energy into all 50 Midwest skis!!!) back to our Wax trailer, grabbed my bags from the athletes tent, and skied back to my condo, where the first thing I did after collapsing on the couch was look up the online results. And I was very pleased and relieved that not only had I stayed in the top 10, but I had the 7th fasted time of the day out of U20 skiers (and got 6th U18!).

Thanks to Skinnyski for all the pictures!

I'm very excited about the race, and pleased that my hard work over the past year has really started to pay off on the National level. It was hard for me to not preform as I had hoped at Senior Nationals, so now I'm hoping to make a bit of a statement here! The Midwest team is doing a great job recovering from the hard course and the draining heat, but our eyes are now looking forward to Wednesday's classic sprint races!!!