April 02, 2011 (Canmore, AB) – My winter’s over although here in the Bow Valley, you’d never now it. I should rephrase: my 2010/11 competitive winter is done. Looking back, I am thrilled with how the overall year played out.

If you would have told me that at year’s end I would be on the World Cup podium four times, win my first World Cup, win a World Championship gold medal and finish in the top 10 overall (World Cup standings) I would not have hesitated to verbalize that you’d be nothing short of nutty, buddy. Before I reminisce too much and this thing morphs into nostalgic drivel, I should fill you in on how the season ended.

World Championships: Oslo
How fortunate am I? Last season I got to race at an Olympic Games in Canada and the following year the World Championships were held in the mecca, the birthplace of skiing Norway.

What makes Norway a special place to race? The amazingly beautiful women by the thousands? Maybe, but it’s also the most inspirational, exciting and historical place you can race in this gig. I distinctly remember watching the 1994 Olympic Games and the 1997 World Championships on old VHS tapes back when I was young and struggling to believe that the sea of screaming red and blue were actually thousands and thousands of super-fans out trail side for a CROSS-COUNTRY SKI RACE LIVE?!? Being able to compete in such an event in Norway was a dream come true for me. Nowhere in the world can you find atmosphere like that in cross country skiing.

1.5km Free Technique Sprint (24.02.11)
What wasn’t so fortunate was my first race in front of the thousands upon thousands of passionate fans. The skate sprint. Good lord. After feeling flat and racing badly in Drammen, I was hoping I’d be a new man and feel amazing four days later in the sprint. Well, that didn’t transpire. It was too short an outing for me as I didn’t even advance through qualification.

I was crushed to see the result especially since I had won a skate sprint this season. I was 0.02 seconds too slow to crack the top 30, and ended up finishing in the worst place EVER for a sprint race: 31st. Argh. Still digesting our prep, I wasn’t sharp enough when that day came, and ended up being a spectator (not by choice) in a race I was so keen to perform well in.

30km Mass Start Pursuit (27.02.11)
Following that dismal sprint, I’ll admit it – I wallowed. It was a big disappointment. Luckily, the next challenge came quickly in the form of the 30km pursuit. One positive from the sprint was that it was another opportunity to wake up the body and I was feeling better and better with what almost felt like every passing hour. As most championship pursuits are known to be, the race itself was tactical.

The courses in Oslo are really tough but that didn’t stop us men from skiing tactically, marking everyone and keeping the pace super chill for most of it. As is fairly standard in championship pursuits – nothing happened in the classic. Early in skating Alex launched quite the little move, getting upwards of 18 seconds at one point off the front for his 7km solo mission in the lead.

The pack was disorganized, and I actually thought for a while that Alex was going to steal the win because of it. That didn’t transpire. The gap was erased with a lap (3.75km) to go and then with the pack back together the name of the game was trying to get into a good position for the last 800m. I knew that, yet I still went to the front at about 2.5km to go and started to pin it. With all the corners and shorter climbs, it did nothing except stretch the pack out into a line. It wouldn’t have been so bad had the guys following me not sling-shotted by me on a long descent with 1.25km to go, but that’s what happened and in the most critical part of the course I found myself in bad position. Oops.

I felt great but got stuck in heavy traffic… I all but watched as Vylegzhanin and Northug sprinted up the last hill with 800m to go and ski away for the medals as I bashed and thrashed through bodies behind. That was frustrating. When the dust settled, I had to settle for 9th, a shade over 6 seconds from the win. I beat myself up for my costly tactical error (going to the front too early), but the positive thing was that my body finally felt good. WAY better than it had been feeling for the sprint and Drammen. Thank God.

15km Individual Start Classic (01.03.11)
Psych! I didn’t do it. But that was no easy decision. The 15km was the race (along with the team sprint) that I had been training for, dreaming of, and focusing on all year. I LOVE that race. The next shot at a championship 15km classic is in Sochi. Yes, cross-country skiing is weird.

As hard as it was, Justin [Wadsworth] and I decided the day before that with the team sprint happening the day after the 15km and having just completed the 30km two days earlier it was just too tight to be 100% guaranteed that the body would be ready. Took the risk and went for broke, putting all our eggs into the team sprint. I knew we had a great chance for a podium in the team sprint with Alex, but what made it hard was I knew I had a great chance for success in the 15km as well.

Team Sprint Classic (02.03.11)
Boom! The decision to skip the 15km classic worked out better than I could have ever imagined. Not only did we hit the podium – we (Alex and I) became World Champions. For the first time in Canadian history, the Maple Leaf stood above the rest at the Nordic Ski World Championships. It was crazy. I still cannot believe it!

It took Canada over 100 years to win our first World’s gold (Norway has won over 100 gold medals at the World Championships?!) yet I have a feeling we won’t have to wait another 100 years to win our next one. It was one of those days that I had been dreaming of my entire career and to win in Norway, in front of thousands and thousands of screaming fans was unreal. It didn’t make up for being 4th and 5th last year at the Olympics at home, but man it was close.

Yet, it almost didn’t happen. On the first lap of my semifinal, my ski popped off and flew backwards. Somehow in the congestion of bodies my binding lifted allowing the ski to shoot behind me. I was dumbfounded and couldn’t believe it. I distinctly remember thinking shit. Just like that, we’re out and I didn’t get to do the 15km?!! ARGH!

I tried to stay as calm as I could, went back 15m, grabbed my ski and reattached it. Then, with my heart pounding and nerves squeezing my chest, I started chasing after the pack, which was at that point about 10+ seconds up the track.

It was so freaking hard, but thankfully I managed to get back on (to the pack). The semis were terrible for me after that I was hurting badly. The effort coupled with the adrenaline dump through my system left my body and mind feeling like overworked play-doh.

In the final, my nerves settled and things came back around – I felt great again. On the last lap, the Finn, Jauhojaervi jumped Northug and I on the big climb and caught me off guard. He put a sizable gap into us and neither Northug nor I could get back to him. I came into the exchange right on Northug’s tails for 3rd and Alex had the perfect opportunity (with Hattestad) to sit in and let Norway pull back the gap to Finland.

That’s what happened. Alex let Hattestad chase, they all caught the Finn and next thing you know Alex out-sprints the 2009 double World Champion to give Canada our first gold. Yeah buddy! To see him coming out of the fog in first place was surreal. We met the king, did a ton of media and just like that Alex was knighted on the spot the new crown-prince of Quebec. (Kidding but its bananas how famous Alex is in Quebec. His phone has mystically been grafted to his ear which I’ve heard is helping!)

Sick. Boo.
Little did I know that the team sprint would be my last race of the 2011 World Championships. I woke up sick the morning of the 4x10km relay. Then my health got worse for the 50km which I sat out as well.

I missed the two most iconic races, and a chance of a lifetime to compete in front of 100,000 stoked Norwegian super fans, 20,000 of which camped out on course in tents to save their spots. Argh. I was so congested and rocking a sore throat, feeling terrible. In vain I tried for a miracle recovery, logging more time in bed than I thought possible to no avail. The Championships were over for me.

Spring World Cups (Lahti, and the Sweden Mini-Tour (Stockholm/Falun)
I was still quite sick when I arrived in Finland and it took me until Thursday to feel even halfway decent. The Lahti World Cup weekend didn’t go well. First up was the 20km pursuit where I felt amazing in the classic portion, only to lose a crazy amount of time and drop out of contention in the skate portion finishing a disappointing 22nd. Sunday’s sprint was no better. Actually it was worse, battling slippery skis in the qualifier on a really heavy/hard course found me outside the top 30 failing to advance to the _ finals.

Sunday night (the night after the sprint) I was greeted with a surprise, just not a happy one. I had an epic sore throat ravaging my being. It was as if tiny men with scalpels snuck into my mouth, jumped down the inside of my throat and started cutting it with fanatical-gusto. The following day I saw a doctor in Finland who then informed me that I had a throat infection (similar to Strep throat) and put me on antibiotics. Awesome.

Racing while taking anti-biotics isn’t something I’d recommend, and the mini-tour didn’t go well on my end. In the Stockholm city sprint I was able to qualify for the _ finals (barely). I picked classic skis (for a classic sprint) but most people opted to double pole (using skate gear no grip wax = faster skis) for both the qualifier and my 1/4 final, and that proved to be a mistake. I felt fine racing (surprisingly) out there, but I got totally dusted on the flatter terrain by the double polers. Turns out skate skis were WAY faster. I learnt something: work hard on my double poling so I can sack up enough to try it in a World Cup quali next season and not get decimated on the flatter/descending terrain like I did this year.

The last three races of the season were spectacularly below average as well seems my body was ready for it to be over and coming off a cold and a throat infection I don’t know what I was expecting (ok, I expected WAY more). First up was a 3.3km classic prologue. It was dumping snow and conditions were terrible. I paced it like a sissy, giving up 10 seconds in the first 500m (seriously) and while I was cooking for the last 1.5-2km, I had left too big a hole to clamber out of. The costly pacing error left me in 22nd.

In the pursuit the following day, things again didn’t go my way. I felt great in classic and terrible in skate (I picked the wrong pair of skate skis, which were so, so, so slow through the soft/slushy conditions) to finish that day a disappointing 26th. The final race of my season was a 15km skate handicap start and it didn’t go well either. Starting alone, I went out fast trying to erase a 23-second deficit to a group ahead of me and get in their draft. I came within 6 seconds of getting on a good ride (Vittoz and Freeman), but soon after I consequently blew up quite badly and struggled home to take 27th in the mini-tour.

Not quite the 10th place in the Kuusamo mini-tour, or 7th place in the Tour de Ski and looking at the year’s standings it seems that I was lucky that World Cup points were not awarded for time in the handicap start because I was in a tight battle with the French skier Jean-Marc Gaillard (who was 9th overall) and while I raced poorly, he raced pretty well in Falun.

Now I’m finally back home in Canmore, surrounded again by the Rockies. I haven’t been resting yet the snow is too good here at home and I always train into April before taking some real time off without training for a few weeks to let the body heal up (usually down south somewhere to replenish the vitamin D!). May 1st is fast approaching and with it another training season where I’ll need all the energy I can get!

I am still feeling decently good (although yesterday and today I’m paying for my big ski touring days and a little fatigued) and I’ve been skiing at the Nordic Centre (there’s so much snow up there) and backcountry skiing like crazy.

I toyed with the idea of going to Spring Series down in Sun Valley, but after so much traveling I couldn’t will myself to pack a bag three days after getting home and drive 14 hours to Idaho and I am really enjoying the serenity and snow in the high Rockies right now and I’ve had some fantastic days on the randonee gear.

That’s the word.
D

PS: Everyone asks what’s up with the air guitar? Back in 2006 when Chandra shocked the world and won the Olympics she did this…

 

So, when I won in Toblach, I had to do this…

 

So, it was just the natural thing to do when Alex and I won. I almost felt like I was in a real band as we both shredded our imaginary axes together. I hope that by the time I’m done, the CCC offices are plastered with Air Guitar shots. First though, I’d better rest up and be ready to train like a banshee starting in May.