March 30, 2012 (Craftsbury, Vermont) – Kikkan Randall (APU/USST) wrapped up a historic racing season, one in which she captured the World Cup Sprint globe, by winning her 17th national title in the women’s 30km freestyle race at the US Distance National Championships held at the Craftsbury Outdoor Centre. Today’s race was held on a 1.5km loop of mostly artificial snow, with competitors completing 20 laps.

Rebounding from a cold she picked up in transit from Norway, which kept her out of Wednesday’s hill climb competition at Jay Peak, Randall skied the entire race at the front with her USST team mates Jessie Diggins (CXC) and Liz Stephen (Burke Mountain Academy). “I felt that my cold symptoms had reduced enough to make it safe to attempt the race,” Randall told SkiTrax earlier today. “Not knowing where my energy was going to be, my strategy was just to jump into the race and hopefully ski into it and feel strong to the end. I decided to take the first half a little conservative and then see what happened from there.”

The threesome set a fast pace from the start and, along with APU’s Holly Brooks, built up a 30-second lead on the rest of the field by the midway point of the race. “Liz pushed the pace going up the main climb on the first lap,” Randall explained, “and continued to keep the pace high up the climb on every lap.  We traded places a few times but Liz and Jessie ended up doing most of the leading.”

The four skied together until about the 14th lap, by which time Brooks was starting to drop back. “With about six laps to go it was clear that it was a three-person race,” Randall continued. “I took the lead with three laps to go but only held it for a lap or so.  My quads started cramping pretty badly on those last three laps.”

Cramps or not, Randall wound things up on the last lap and only Diggins could stay with her, but Randall had just enough in the tank to nip Diggins at the line by 1.1 seconds. Stephen crossed the line in third, 14.3 seconds back, with Brooks taking fourth, 2:19.5 behind Randall.

Despite the short 1.5km loop Randall said that congestion wasn’t much of problem, although the course did start to break down as the field completed lap after lap. “I had never done such a long race on such a short lap so I had no idea what to expect. It turned out that the laps actually melted away pretty fast. I was initially concerned about lapping the other skiers but it worked out pretty well. If we had momentum we usually just went around them and when we yelled track people were pretty good about moving out of the way.”

“For only a 1.5km loop, the course actually skied really well. It seemed to have all the right elements: climbs, downhills, flats, etc.  The first lap started off pretty firm with icy snow underneath and a light layer of new snow on top which made it slow down a bit.  As we made our way around the course through the 20 laps, each lap the course seemed to break down a little and some sections got pretty soft, slow and wet.”

Randall was certainly please to end the season on a high note with today’s victory, and was delighted to do it in the company of her team mates Diggins and Stephen: “Pretty special to be able to wrap up the season with national title #17!  It was really fun to ski the whole race with my US teammates and best buddies Liz and Jessie.  Now looking forward to celebrating with everyone.”

With the conclusion of today’s race Randall is looking forward to reconnecting with family and friends after five months on the road, before heading to Maui for some downtime. “After Fast and Female on Sunday,” she said, “I am on my way to New York City to visit my brother who lives there and works in fashion design. I’m spending a week with him and am looking forward to doing something totally different from skiing! Then I head back to Anchorage and home where I haven’t been since November 13th.”

“Really looking forward to seeing my husband, and my cats, and doing some ski touring in the record snow fall that came to Alaska this winter.  After two weeks at home I will be heading to Maui with my husband for a warm beach vacation.  April is going to be awesome!!!”

Full results HERE.