November 24, 2010 – It’s no secret – this past weekend was not the World Cup opening our Canadian contingent was hoping for. It got off to a rougher start that we would have wanted/expected, and we buried ourselves effort-wise without the pay-offs on the results board.

Earlier in the week, after some solid races in Bruksvallarna, we moved locations and flew up to the Northern Swedish town of Gallivare which is located near the 67th parallel in Swedish Lapland to contest in the first World Cups of the season.

Brent, Alex and I were joined by George midweek and Ivan graced our team with a Thursday evening arrival – which allowed Canada to field five men in the distance race, and our entire Olympic relay team was poised to compete on Sunday’s race.

Coming into the weekend I’m not going to say that we were expecting banner results, but we were excited and motivated to begin another racing season on the World stage. We had a great training season, and had done some serious training upon our arrival in Europe a little under two weeks ago.

As well, I was feeling cautiously optimistic after my two races last weekend. I felt as though I had an above average skate sprint, and an average performance in the 15km skate in the tune up races. A good launching pad – and both races were in line with my performances in November in previous years. Along with the racing, I completed a 22hr week in Bruksvallarna and along with the racing I was feeling happy with how I was feeling. Sure, I was rocking some heavy legs – but that was normal after hard training and races.

I’ll tell you what wasn’t normal. My race on Saturday. The heaviness in the legs never subsided. The 15km skate (Saturday) was one of the worst skate races I’ve had in the past few years. It was a cold day (not THAT cold – but -12 or so), and the tracks were prepared perfectly. Yet, right from the gun I was struggling. I could not change gears, and felt very flat out there. It felt as though I was getting 60% power out of every stride and on the gradual course with long working sections it was grinding me down at an alarming rate. I was never in the race, and couldn’t follow anyone who came through me – no matter how hard I tried and willed myself to. It was a double whammy. Hard mentally and physically as I was turning myself inside out on course.  It was a frustrating day – and to finish an embarrassing 58th stung. Actually it cut fairly deep. I was bummed out. Hellner was in a class by himself – claiming his second World Cup victory in Gallivare, with Cologna finishing 2nd and a surprise to me was Richardsson finishing a stellar 3rd – in a World Cup skate race!

Things changed so fast in six short days. Last Sunday in the 15km in Bruks’ I was 45 seconds down on Hellner, and only 10 seconds down on Richardsson. That was after transcontinental travel and some decent training. For sure the Swedes weren’t rested at all either – but to feel so different in six days was a bit perplexing.

Which made matters worse was the fact it was rough day for our entire team. Alex managed a “ok” race to finish just outside the points in 34th, and the rest of us were awful. Ivan was 54th, George 78th, and Brent 94th. An unbelievably bad start.

I hadn’t had a start on the World Cup so poorly in the fall, well… Ever.

We tried to shake it off and regroup for our relay today – but sadly it went no better for us. I raced in the 2nd leg and although I felt a lot better today than yesterday, my legs were still not super snappy or responsive. I fought hard again, and pulled back a few spots. Body still wasn’t great, but I felt it was a step in the right direction. We finished 18th as a team – which is (let’s be honest) – kind of a disaster.

Of course we are disappointed. Man, I mean we’re not happy at all with how the weekend went. But, life as an athlete is all about taking the bad with the good – and the season doesn’t have feelings or take concessions for us or anybody. It continues to tick along. We need to have some perspective on the weekend. It’s the 3rd week in November, and there’s still the entire season left. It wasn’t good. That’s just being realistic. Yet, there will be plenty of other chances for us and our goals remain the same. We want to contend – as we have contended in the past and we will strive to be better – as always.  I have no doubt we will have some stellar days – but to get to those, sometimes you have to wade through some muck.

We’ll take the lessons, lick the wounds and come back better. Five days until the next race – so not a ton of time. Tomorrow [Monday] we’ve got a 6-hr drive East as we move from Gallivare, Sweden to Kuusamo, Finland ahead of next weekend’s 3-race “mini Tour” which starts with a classic sprint on Friday.

That’s the thing with the World Cup – it’s game on from November onwards.