Last week marked the first real set of races for the 2021-22 season! I was excited to spend the week in one of my favorite cities, and race in my home state. My teammates and I were also very lucky to be staying in a lovely home situation with some of my family friends. Duluth has developed an impressive race venue, and in classic fashion, the lake delivered every possible weather pattern and snow condition in my short time there, keeping everyone on their toes the whole week.
Saturday's skate sprint race wasn't exactly the race format I would have chosen to start my season with, but I made the best of it. I think I actually skied well enough to qualify, but was stuck behind some slow skis on my first descent of the course. I ended up just out of the top 30 that would move on to the heats. Knowing that I had taken advantage of everything I could have controlled during my race that day, I was content to save my energy for the next day's distance race.
I was super excited about Sunday's 10k skate course which was defined largely by five laps up a big steep hill and down a technical descent. I also expected the 6" snow forecast for the day to cooperate with my skiing better relative to others. When it came to the race, I felt good, had great skis, and was just excited to do a distance race at sea (lake) level. I got lots of feedback during the race which indicated to me that I was skiing well, and I was, but in the end, it was was not as well as I had thought/hoped. I finished 25th, which despite not being my best SuperTour finish to date, was probably in the most competitive race field I have ever been in. Solid, but I'm looking for more. It is, after all, December, and I have a long season of opportunities to improve upon this race ahead. Hopefully this progress may even show in the upcoming week's races in Cable, WI.
I have only this one unflattering picture from Duluth, which is why I've relied more on writing for this week's update.
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