One more good picture from Turkey: Sadie and I with the Junior girls relay team: Stephanie, Corey, Emily and Mary (Sadie photo)
Lahti has been so fun! It’s been cool living right in the city, and getting to explore the mall and see just how behind I usually am on fashion. Kidding. Well, half joke. Sometimes you buy new clothes because washing your old t-shirts in the sink makes them fall apart and you’re tired of it. It sounds incredibly lazy, and I guess it is, but please don’t judge until you’ve lived out of a suitcase for a couple months!
Behind the stadium, there got to be quite a crowd buying food, beer, and crazy headwear.
Racing here was quite an adventure for me in terms of how ready my body was. The whole first half of the week I was still super tired and not recovered from being sick in Turkey. And my head just wasn’t into racing yet. But once I took away all my expectations for the skiathalon and just focused on racing to get the feeling back, I did much better.
The courses were pretty hard and hilly, with some steep climbs in the classic and lots of icy corners. I got off to a good start in the 15km skiathalon but took myself out in the first classic lap on a downhill corner, which killed my buzz (and momentum). I was immediately swallowed up by a big pack of skiers, which made navigating the course a good challenge for someone who likes to take her corners alone! But the skate part went much better for me and I was able to get back into a good race mode, where you know you’re body’s hurting but it’s worth it to try and catch just one more group.
Simi about to crush his quarterfinal!
The classic sprint didn’t go well for me, and I know it’s because my head just wasn’t into it. I skied a pace better suited for a 5km race! Oops. But I can’t change it now, only get motivated to make it into the heats in one of the two classic sprints left: Drammen and Stokholm. However, seeing Kikkan get 5th and Simi make the semifinals was so fun! I always get such a kick out of seeing someone have a really good race. They give off this happy energy, it’s impossible to not be excited with them!
After the races we had what should have been one of the more chill travel days of my life, only I managed to goof it up by not having a ticket. That’s right people – I actually walked into the airport to board a plane without a boarding pass. In my self-defense, I was sure I’d gotten the ticket weeks ago but there’s been so much travel I lost track! Luckily Oslo’s a fairly easy place to get to and I was able to buy another ticket there, arriving later that night. I really hope this was one of those mistakes I only ever make once!
