Well, the racing has finally started here in frigid Anchorage. After waiting around for two days they were able to hold the 5/10km skate races today. The intervals were reduced to 15 seconds in order for the races to go by as quickly as possible. This did not keep me, or many others, all that warm. My hands turned into hard blocks after about 3km and then came back around 7km. Other than that I stayed pretty warm while I was racing. I know a lot of others that did not fare that well though.
All in all, the CXC crew did quite well. We had the national champion, Caitlin, and the 3rd place finisher in Matt. We also had three CXC men in the top 15 and four CXC women in the top 20! The skis were fast as usual. We have extra support here with Brandon Ostroot our wax tech, Wayne Fish who is Bryan Fish’s dad, and John Hugus the father of CXC junior Ben.
To be honest, the race went by really fast and I do not have too much to report. Matt started 15 seconds in front of me, Garrott started 15 seconds behind me, and Brian Gregg start 15 seconds behind Garrott. After about 1km Garrott caught up with me and we skied together pretty much the rest of the way. He was leading at about 3km and we were both skiing within ourselves. He pulled away from me at about 5km but I reeled him in pretty close by the finish. I felt that I skied well and I do not really know where I ended up losing time which is a little frustrating. Both Garrott and I saw Matt in the second lap but he really killed it the last few kilometers which was really key for him finishing so well. Big ups to Matt for his race as we are waiting to see if tomorrow will be a 10km or 15km classic!