Right now I’m sitting in the Book Peddler, off West Yellowstone’s main street. I love book stores. And I get another couple of days to enjoy it, since CXC will be here till December 1st, when we move on to Bozeman for the next Supertour races.
5km classic podium...Kate Fitz, Me and Jennie (picture taken by Dave Knoop)...VERY reflective material by Bj.
The last race of the Yellowstone series went off very well. As usual, race results are on Summit Timing (linked here). CXC had a solid day, with all our girls and guys in the top 16! If you’re tired of me raving about how great the skis and wax were…sorry, but not really. Because they were awesome. I was really happy with the race because even though it still hurt (a LOT), the pacing was much better. I went out more conservatively, so I was able to really hammer the last 2km. Although I’m extremely grateful for the lack of picture evidence of my double-pole technique on the final stretch…it was pretty rough stuff!
Sister picture! Kenzie, and Emily and Leah Ranta. (photo by Carl Bohacek)
Although these are slightly overdue, I have some pictures from Thanksgiving night, which I was super pumped to spend with my little sister and “skier family”, the Stillwater team! It was great to see so many friends, teammates, alumni, and coaches. And then we watched the final Harry Potter movie…and really, what could be more epic than that? I dare you to come up with something.
And that's not even the whole crew!
I’ve been getting a lot of questions as to why I decided to start my year out West instead of Europe; simply put, I talked it out with my coaches and we thought it’d be best to work into the season. The past few years I’ve kicked things off in West, and it seemed to work really well so why change it, right? I’ll be spending the second half of my year “across the pond”, and don’t want to burn myself out on Europe too soon. So far, I’m really into the plan and will continue to race domestically up till Nationals, even if I gain World Cup start rights in December through the Supertour leader’s place. I don’t want to offend anyone with this plan; I’m not trying to “waste” any start rights, just trying to train and race smart so that I will be able to continue this sport for the next 10-15 years.
Looking forward to a good week of training!
