O-Cup #1- Thunder Bay (Plus, the First Races)

The past few months have been eventful and exciting to say the least. Super quick recap: Some early on-snow trips to Forêt Montmorency and Canmore came as some amazing escapes from the sad, snowless conditions in Ontario. Despite a broken pole in the interval start, the races at the Canmore NorAm were very fun (loved the trails there), and a nice way to shake the dust off the racing suit. It always seems to take longer to get back to racing than I expect. The free mass start was an awesome hammer-fest, but sadly the sprint day was not my day. However, nothing but lessons coming from all of those races and a great experience all around. After that trip I was super psyched for the rest of the season. (video: Canmore Mass Start, courtesy of James MacLean)



Anyway, the trip out to chilly Thunder Bay was super awesome. It was actually enjoyable to be somewhere cold, and with plenty of snow! I had a great time hanging out with the team at the house we stayed in and had an awesome time out on the boards the whole way through. Racing-wise-- most of all-- I feel that I was able to dig deep in all of the races and to keep pushing right until the end. I really enjoyed the courses for the two classic interval starts and I was surprised at how tough the 10km could be without ascending Pilon's or the Grunt. I went into the sprint day with some pretty sore legs, but nonetheless hopes of going out and hammering. After a bit of a rough semifinal, I was able to turn things around in the B-final, ending things on a positive note.


Above: Poised for the start in the sprints (Photo: Anna Buske) Below: In the 7.5km cl int. start (Photo: Martin Kaiser)


Looking forward (you could say I'm juiced) to some more racing, and watching some racing: I'm super pumped--already-- to support my teammates Ryan and Joey who qualified for World Juniors in Romania. Until next time!

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