Classic Day
· Jan 4, 10:27 AM
Well, 30th is not exactly what I’d hoped for, but it didn’t come together for me really at all yesterday. My nasal membranes dried out around 8:00 Wednesday night, and I woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night with a very dry nose and mouth. I tried hard to convince myself that I wasn’t getting sick, and lay awake for a few hours focusing a lot of energy on not getting sick. A day later, it’s pretty clear that didn’t work, and the sickness I tried to will away is here. I have a full blown head cold that’s migrated to my throat and my new goal is to keep it out of my lungs. That means definitely no sprint and probably no sprint relay. I told Violett that he might need to find a new partner. If it wasn’t January I’d give it a go – I can probably be okay for a sprint relay – but there’s a lot of season left and I’m looking forward now.
Yesterday started off alright. I was hoping that I could hold off the cold long enough to produce one more good results and get myself on the Canadian World Cup trip. I went out fairly hard, but new that I had Bird 30 seconds behind me and that he was going to be on a mission to destroy the field. He caught me between 4 and 5 k and I skied with him for half a k or a k before I let him go. I hadn’t worked real hard up to that point and was probably skiing right around 10th, which would have been fine if I’d had a good second lap in me.
But I didn’t. The first problem was skis. We had silly fast skis with great kick – then the tracks glazed hard sometime around when we started. I had solid kick for only the first 5k of the race before I was herringboning all the hills. Afterwards I looked and had quite a lot of wear. I guess it got a little abrasive out there, which I hadn’t anticipated. More than my skis though was my body. I was giving away time hand over fist all through the second lap. When I tried to punch it I had nothing to give. And when Babikov came through me at 14k from 3 minutes it was impressive to watch. We were not doing the same sport at that point.
So I guess I’m one good day and one bad day for nationals 08. It looks like days 3 and 4 won’t happen for me, so it’s time to get healthy and start looking towards the second half of the season. The best is definitely yet to come for me this year.
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Hi Brayto!
I am so sorry to hear that you are sick. Please do not leave without letting me and/or Will connect with you—we have a book that I think you will enjoy; we saw it in a bookstore on X-mas eve and couldn’t keep ourselves from buying it for you! Plus, how is Coupling treating you? hopefully it is making the cold a little less boring if you didn’t plow through them in the first day!!!
anyway, I raced this week, too. It was humbling in terms of the place I ended up in, but good races for me ( I only raced the distance). If this gives any indication, Kate Whitcomb asked me why I wasn’t racing this week (maybe just because I was in a seed so far from hers that she never saw me out there…) but, it is a MAJOR improvement for me from last year, which is cool for the oldest lady in the field. I keep remembering Tom Campbell telling me he skied his fastest 10 km ever in Lillehammer when we were there for World Masters when he was in his 40s… so there is hope! (in spite of what Ruff says)
feel better
am thinking of you!!!
Sarah
— Sarah Dominick Jan 5, 02:41 PM #