Lauren here, checking in from Lake Placid. The last few weeks we wrapped up the 2022 US National Championship in Heber City, Utah, and SuperTours in Sun Valley, Idaho.
At U.S. Nationals, we raced four races at Soldier Hollow which included a skate sprint, a skate 20km/30km mass start, a classic 10km/15km, and finally a classic sprint. This was an incredibly successful week for the team! A few of the major highlights include Logan’s 2nd place in the skate sprint, Hannah’s 6th place in the skate 20km, Mariah’s 3rd place and Erika’s 4th place in the classic 10km, Finn’s 7th place in the classic 15km, and finally, Hannah’s 3rd place, and my 4th place in the classic sprint. As any nationals’ week goes, there were exceptional races as well as some disappointment that left us hungry and motivated for more.
To cap off the week, our results from this week and previous SuperTours earned Logan, Finn, Mariah, Erika, and myself World Cup starts in Planica, Slovenia. Sadly we only had about 12 hours to process this news before the World Cup was canceled due to the increase in Covid-19 spread throughout Europe. This definitely felt pretty disappointing because starting World Cups is critical to taking the next step in our ski careers. The good thing is that we’re motivated to earn more World Cup opportunities throughout the season! For now, we’ve got our sights set on the SuperTours in Lake Placid, Craftsbury, and of course, The Birkie. After the Sun Valley races and before we headed East coast, we had a week in Bozeman to recharge, sleep in our own beds, and get some good training sessions in. I’m very excited for the upcoming races out East because I love the energy of Eastern College Carnivals and Eastern Cups! The races have huge fields with a variety of seriousness and expertise but the same amount of passion for the sport. Another reason I’m excited about our trip out East is that the trails at Mt. Van Hoevenberg were renovated in hopes that they become World Cup courses for Nordic and biathlon.
Throughout my four years on the carnival circuit, I raced at Mt. Van Hoevenberg a variety of times; I loved the Women’s 5km course but hated the flat sprint course. However, when the team came out here for a summer training block, we checked out the new renovations. We did a sprint roller-ski race on the roller-ski track that is the same course we will be racing this week. And the new course is most certainly not flat! It has everything one could want: short and steep climbs, long climbs, and technical downhills. The new distance course is the same, it has epic climbs and screaming fast downhills. So, you could say I’m excited about this weekend of racing. Our first race is on Saturday, and it is a classic sprint. That is the race I’m looking forward to the most because I’ve become a little bit of a classic sprint specialist this winter. On Sunday we have a 10km skate mass start. Personally, I find mass start racing is the most exciting and fun type of racing. It should be a great weekend of racing, and we will post the links on how to follow these races once we know them. Check back in for a post-race update from Simon!
