November 13, 2010 (Bruksvallarna, Sweden) – My day is ending much the same way it began: lying on my bed in my underwear with my legs up on the wall listening to The Strokes melancholic New York-inspired tunes. Not a pretty picture – sure, but it’s reality. Between those two isolated, yet similar events (the legs up on the wall) – it was a busy day filled with sprinting action. The skate sprint race today around a 1.6km narrow course here in Bruksvallarna started things off, and an easy afternoon recovery classic ski completed it.
November 13th, today – happened to be the first race of the season for our Canadian contingent and it’s my 3rd year hanging in the middle of Sweden in the xc pseudo-resort of Bruksvallarna to train and compete at my season openers.
As a team we traveled over seas on the [Nov.] 7th, and spent two days training and hanging out in Ostresund to give our bodies a chance to get over jet lag in a more stimulating environment (ie: a town – more things to do in the middle of the day that here in Bruksvallarna which has no town – ok, Funasdalen, 15km down the road) with great skiing too. We stayed up at “Camp Sodergren” a set of apartment/cabin type accommodations right on the ski trails which are situated a few minutes up from downtown. Camp Sodo (as we call it) is good set up, and I have to give the nod to Sodergren – the beds are quite comfortable, which is always greatly appreciated on the road!
With races looming, we moved the ship down the road 2hrs to Bruksvallarna. It has remained unchanged in the past three years – still decent. The skiing here has been getting better and better thanks to the fact that it’s been snowing lately – which is sweet.
We are rocking a bigger crew than the past few years, as we have seven men, two women, a plethora of techs, two coaches and our massage therapist – Wolfman. There haven’t been many dull moments and our days have been great on and off the trails. Some surfing docs’, a White Stripes doc, and plenty of “Modern Family” are being watched (Phil claims it’s the best show he’s seen in years…), Chandra and I have been scratching away on the guitars, and of course we’ve made a few journeys into Funasdalen to solve the worlds problems over a snack and tea/java – all in the comfort of not wearing shoes.
Ok – about today’s race: We managed to qualify five of our seven men and both Chandra and Dasha easily cruised into the rounds, which was a great way to start the day. I felt kind of sluggish in qualifying, yet finished 5th – which for me at this time of year is more than a little surprising. That just solidifies the fact that how I “feel” out there in sprint qualies’ has very little to do with how I actually do.
In the rounds it was a different story. I was feeling great, and enjoying myself. I managed to make the A Final (along with my teammate – young, talented and obscenely tall Lenny Valjas) as we took on some stiff competition against the Swedes and Japan’s Yushi Onda.
The course was quite turny and narrow, and thus it was a tight race with lots of jostling for position – which of course resulted in some contact. It was pretty much impossible to pass out there, (which didn’t play into my snail-paced starts) and our women, and the rest of the men sadly were knocked out in the quarter-finals.
For Lenny and I the day ended well, as we caught a bit of a lucky break late in the A-final to claim 3rd and 4th. [Emil] Joensson won, with Modin finishing 2nd. I was happy to finish on the podium at the first race of year – especially a sprint race, but there’s plenty of racing left this year (read: understatement). Tomorrow will be another tough effort as we all try and drag our bodies up a pretty significant hill five times (it’s a 3km course that is pretty much 1.5km down/1.5km up) to finish the weekend off in the 15km individual skate.
In other news, Yves is happy – I made it three for three (years) winning a case of smoked meat that he’s pretty much addicted to, so everyone wins.
** Sorry about the lack of photos – but you can take that up with my washing machine which maliciously ate my camera (who knew electronics didn’t like warm soapy water?) after our Park City camp. I should have some photos up in other posts – ghetto ones taken with my Iphone – but better than nothing right?