Wow! what a week of Nationals Ski racing up in Alaska. I just came off the best results I have ever had. I am now in an airport off to Germany to meet the rest of the USA Junior and U23 ski team. I did not have any clue of my fitness or form going into Senior Nationals. I came off of Crested Butte and was thoroughly shocked with how fast everyone was skiing. I wrote out my training plan for the next three weeks and put full faith in it that it would get my ready for Anchorage. My sister was back in town from Dartmouth College, and along with her came my good friend John Gerstenberger. It was nice to have John to go and ski short intervals with knowing he is crazy fast, and that he would push me to go hard. It was also nice having Paige home because I could ski with her and keep things easy and fun. It was a dialed combination. I did all my intervals skate skiing and focusing on the 15k skate, because I am weaker in classic skiing. As pointed out by my good friend and excellent classic skier Matt Gelso. He said “Tad I Googled your name, it says you suck at classic skiing.”
I flew in late only two days before the first race. The skate sprints. Man, what an awesome day to watch Aspen home boy Simi Hamilton win the whole thing. Quite excited to see that. Now I focused on the skate race. Dinner the night before the race I ate a Qudoba burrito. One, they are really good and two, I was too lazy to do dishes or cook any food. It was a way longer walk than expected because we got lost, but maybe a little walk in the cold night air would be good. Looking at the start list I drew the top B seed skiing out in 21st.
I did the math and learned that I would be skiing my second lap in the middle of the A seed and maybe get a ride from the fast guys. It made me excited and relaxed liking my seed that much. Race morning was great because it was not -14 degrees and we warmed up in the dark. It is an awkward feeling getting ready to race hard when you feel like its 5 am out, but no one was on the trials. You know when you are driving at four in the morning and no one is out and you drive a little faster than normal and blow stop signs and such. That’s how I felt getting ready to race. I had the perfect day at the perfect time thanks to a lot of hard work by guys like Swix Salomon and the CXC waxing crew. My skis were fast.
The CXC girls even decided to test them out against their race skis, and my skis saw more action throughout the day. After I learned I was Second I had a media relations lady fallow me around and bring me from interview to interview. I felt like a child on Christmas morning, because my smile would not fade and I could not sit still. I got some well placed teasing on my actions after the race.
Well, my week up in AK was done in my head but a 30k classic mass remained. I had another great day skiing with two good friends Brian Gregg and Justin Freeman. Justin helped me last year change a car tire in Anchorage straight off the plane at two in the morning in -30 weather. He is a good guy. We settled in together working well and going into the last lap not one of us knew where we were in the placing, thinking maybe top 20. We skied by Sparky Iverson and he yelled, "5th,6th, 7th." We all started laughing a little bit, but the pace got upped significantly and I got dropped.
Truthfully, I was happy to be there. I skied in hard, ended up 7th and was just as happy with that as my skate race. Matt Gelso said if I ever beat him in a classic race he would hang up his skis. I did beat him in the 30k but he says that it is actually ok. He might stay with it. I am glad, because I never laugh as hard as do around him. Maybe he makes my core stronger for better classic skiing.
TAD