January 5th, 2008
As I probably mentioned in my last post, a top 10 was my stretch of a goal for Nationals this year. But of course after achieving this in the skate race I was hoping to do even better in the classic, and certainly many people I spoke to expected the same of me.
This just wasn’t to be, however. My race started okay….I was running 8th for the first lap at the first split,
maybe around 2 km, and held steady at the next split. After that though, I started getting splits like “good job Justin” and “come on, you can do it” and “you’re almost there.” As any racer knows, these are not a good sign. I ended up 28th, about three minutes behind Ivan and two minutes from a national championship.
All in all that is about what I expected coming into the week. With a podium made up of teammates I certainly can’t complain about skis–indeed, my wax techs did an amazing job of giving me a little extra kick while barely sacrificing glide, so my skis were perfectly matched to my fitness. And I executed the race well, pushing myself to exhaustion by the end. My arms, legs, and back were all full of lactate as I crossed the line, but I wasn’t losing excess time to the skiers near me…I am simply slow now. Nothing to be ashamed of.
Anyway, now I am home and typing this up while taking care of Iris, who is about to run off with my mouse pad, so I’d better sign off.
