February 13, 2009 (Valdidentro, Italy) – Here is U.S. National Team skier Kikkan Randall’s report from the FIS XC World Cup sprints held on Friday in Valdidentro, Italy. Check out her “Cliff Notes” (Coles Notes for Canadians) for a brief summary of the day’s race where Randall and team mate Torin Koos had top-10 finishes.

Cliff Notes:

I’m not going to lie, the season up to this point has been disappointing. Every weekend I’ve been waiting to feel fit and strong, only to come up short. Finally today, I felt like my sparky world-cup-racer self.

After spending the last 10 days in Ramsau, Austria for a training camp, I was anxious to get back to racing to test out my body before World Championships begins on Thursday. A world cup skate sprint in Valdidentro, Italy was just what I needed.

The qualifying round was a good start, I finished in 10th place, a few seconds back from the lead. Finishing tenth placed me in the 1st women’s quarterfinal. I decided to go for it and take the lead from the start. I attacked hard on the big climb and managed to sneak away from the rest of the pack, except for Pirjo Murranen, the top qualifier. I finished second but easily advanced to the semi-finals for the first time this season.

In the semi-final, I decided to take the lead again, despite a strong headwind on parts of the course. I was able to attack once more on the big climb and finished second to advance to the A final. It was good to be back in contention for the medals!

Although I had a good start in the final, I got boxed out around the first turn and had to be patient. When I hit the big climb I moved to the outside and hammered my way into third over the top. Petra Majdic got a little bit of a gap but I was right on Pirjo, feeling good and ready to attack. Unfortunately, I got a little too close to the inside on the final turn, hit a bump and fell down. My chances at the podium quickly faded away and I was unable to recover. I finished sixth.

It was too bad I fell, because I was feeling really good and it would have been a fun sprint with Pirjo for second place. However, I’m at least relieved that my racing shape has finally arrived and I’m really looking forward to going after a medal in the World Championships skate sprint in two weeks.


The Full Story:

It’s been a challenging season so far. Up to this point, I haven’t really felt 100%. After a pretty rough start before Christmas, I have been steadily improving but slowly. I’ve tried hard to be patient, and remain confident that I would find my form for the most important part of the season. The last couple weeks were the final time to get things right.

After Rybinsk, I traveled down to Ramsau, Austria, where I was joined by my husband Jeff and the other members of the World Championships team. Ramsau was a much needed dose of sun, warmth, friends and good training. I struggled through a couple workouts, but overall it was a solid, final block of training to fine-tune the body for World Championships.

On Wednesday, I said good-bye to Jeff (just for a few days) and headed down to Valdidentro, Italy for a World Cup, anxious to test my racing fitness. Thursday was a good training day, scouting the course and getting prepped.

I usually like to eat my breakfast at least three hours before race start, but the hotel kitchen didn’t open up until 7am, leaving only 2.5 hours until the start of the qualification round. I decided it wouldn’t be a big deal and consumed a breakfast of cereal, bread with jam, coffee and juice. At 8:15am, we made the 15 min drive (-2000 ft) down to the venue.

My warm-up went well, I felt decent. The wind was starting to pick up when I headed to the start. Today is Friday the 13th and I had to giggle to myself when I drew bib 13 for the qualifying round. I figured the double might bring good luck, at least I hoped so.

As I made my way around the 1.4km course, I almost felt a little like I was in slow motion. The wind was strong in a few sections and with a lot of open gliding sections, it didn’t feel really fast. However, I could tell I was gaining on the girl ahead of me and when I crossed the finish line, my body quickly told me it had been a hard one. I was fifth when I finished, but 10th by the time everyone was done. Yet, my thoughts were more focused on how awful I felt.

I made my way back to the wax cabins and started to feel a little nauseous. At first I thought I was going to be able to control myself, but then I realized there was a high likely hood that I wasn’t going to contain this feeling. I headed to a far off snow bank and sure enough, up came breakfast. After heaving a few times, I finally started to feel better. One of the Canadian wax techs walked up with a paper towel. I skied the rest of the bad feelings out over a short cool down and then headed inside to chill before the rounds.

There wasn’t too much time to hang out. So I changed into a dry top and sipped some sports drink. (I didn’t really feel like eating anything after my breakfast experience). The Slovenian girls were hanging out in the changing room as well. I saw Petra Majdic take a couple swigs of Red Bull and decided to crack open the Coke I brought for a little extra boost.

Initially, I was a little disappointed with 10th place in qualifying. I was hoping to be a little closer to the lead. However, it turned out to be a great position because 10th place put me in the first women’s quarterfinal, thus giving me the most rest before the next round if I advanced. The starter gave quick commands.

I got a good start and took the lead heading out of the stadium. I was definitely blocking the wind for the girls behind me, but I was totally able to control the pace. When we hit the big climb, I attacked hard up the second half and was able to get a little gap over the top. Pirjo Murranen, the top qualifier, was the only one able to get around me in the finishing stretch and we had a solid gap over the next skiers. Yes, finally moving on to the semi-finals for the 1st time this season!!

I had a 50 min break between rounds, so I first cooled down on a short ski, then went inside to get out of the wind for a few minutes. With 15 minutes to go, I headed back outside, just in time to watch my teammate, Torin Koos, also advance to the semi’s. Sweet!

In my semi-final, I had another good start and took the lead leaving the stadium. Once again, I was breaking the wind, but loving being able to control the pace. This time, when I hit the big climb, I turned on the jets a little sooner. I hammered over the top and hoped I was able to give myself a little room. Heading into the finish, I was side by side with Pirjo, and easily qualified for the A final. I was feeling better and better every round.

In the A final, I had a good start but not quite enough to get into the lead. I got boxed out around the first turn as Petra skied over the tips of my skis and got knocked in the head by a few poles. I stayed calm and waited for a moment to move up. The wind was really howling in our faces as we headed up and over a bridge. Going up the big climb, I knew it was GO time. I went wide and hammered my way up into third. I had a chance to go into second but decided the draft would be better for the downhill. Petra is a really good glider and she got away from us on the downhill. But Pirjo was right in front of me and I was still feeling really good.

As we went up and around a hairpin turn however, I got a little close to the inside and hit a ridge left by the groomer. It threw my weight back and after a couple desperate attempts to stay up, I lost my balance and fell down. There was a second before anyone came by, but I couldn’t get up fast enough. The rest of the field carried their momentum over the top and I was too far back to catch anyone. I made my way in for sixth place, totally in awe of what had just happened. DOH!!!

Until the fall, I was in a solid position for the podium, with a really good chance to race for second. It was a total bummer because I was still feeling really good!! While a podium would have been awesome, at least I know my race shape is finally back, and that really gets me fired up for Liberec!

My biggest goal going into this season was to go after a world championship medal and now I feel confident that I will be ready for that challenge. I’ve opted to sit out tomorrow’s classic distance race to make final preparations for World Champs. I plan to race the opening 10km classic event in Liberec on Thursday and then race the sprint, team sprint and relay as well.

We’re back, yeah baby!

Cheers,
Kikkan 🙂