SoHo Wrap Up!

        This past weekend, our whole team was out in Soldier Hollow, Utah for the Super JNQ. The weekend before, we were down in mammoth. I have a photo essay from that weekend here. SoHo was awesome with lots of fun racing! We left Truckee on Wednesday, spent the night in Wendover, NV, and then drove to the hollow on Thursday morning. After arriving, we went for a pre race ski. The snow was pretty great. They had also just gotten about 3 inches of fresh snow!

Pre Race ski (P-Stacey Herhusky)

       We then drove to our houses. This year we rented two condos and one big house (the guys house). Best part about staying in the guys house is that its where the food is! Linda and Dave Dore catered for us over the weekend! A big shout out to them for the amazing meals!

       On Friday we raced a 1.3K classic sprint. I was the 8th skier to go off in the prelims. My warmup was pretty standard for my sprint warmup and I pulled out a decent prelim finishing 7th.  My teammate Brandon Herhusky pulled out the fastest prelim of the day for the U16s! 

Brandons Finish (P-Mi Padre)

  

     I then moved on to a quarter final which I came in second. Following that I was in the first semi final(out of two). Brandon was also racing with me in that. For the semis, the top three move on to an A final and other three move onto a B final. I ended up placing 4th in that semi while Brandon finished 3rd. I also had an awesome B final finishing second!  

Me Skiing Hermods (P-MacBeth Graphics)

       

       The Sprint corse was pretty difficult this year. It came straight out the stadium, behind the buildings and then straight up Hermods hill. We skied about 3/4 the way up and then cut off to whales tail dropping us back into the stadium. I would say about 1/2 the race was double pole, 1/4 classic, and 1/4 downhill. Our team had fast skis today, well thats for the glide! Our kick on the other hand was not so great. It was most definitely a difficult day to wax for. Very little clubs nailed there kick this day. I found it faster for me to just not worry about my kick and use a short fast herringbone on the top of the uphill! Brandon and Ryland both ended up skiing in the A final and it was a draw for 5th between them. It was a lot of fun to watch everyone!

B Final Bill Bord (P-Mi Padre)

       Saturdays race was a little different for me. I was looking forward to this race because I generally perform better on a distance race. Friday was a long day so I was definitely a bit tired from that. My warm up was a little less then normal. I also had a really good starting position in the chevron. Today we were skiing a 5k skate corse that was very hilly. In the start I felt very prepared for what lied ahead of me. The moment the gun went off, I had a pretty bad start. I was simply not fast enough off the line. I ended up doing a weird lane change and got caught up in a bit of a mess. Before i knew it, I was facing back towards the start line and had a bit of a crash. The rest of my race was spent passing people and trying to make up lost time. I was pretty exhausted overall and did not pull out the best race. I was Ok with that though because my coaches were still supportive of my result in 32nd.

Chevron Start (P-Mi Padre)

Half Way Mark (P-MacBeth Graphics) 

Final Stretch Before the Finish. 

       That afternoon, a group of us went to go tubing (figured we better support the funding for the nordic). We were all soaking wet because of the rain and wet snow but over all had a fun time!

That Tube Hill

Over all, I think everyone had a pretty awesome time in the Hollow filled with some great results, people, and food! 

View of Midway, UT

       While we were gone, Truckee got some snow and rain. Yesterday we classic skied at Sugar Bowl/ Royal Gorge and did intervals. The skiing was decent. Today we also classic skied out in Van Nordan. The skiing was amazing! By far the best day of the year thus far! Coming up we have a Classic school race on Friday, JNQ Monday, State Championships the following weekend and only 15 days from Stowe!

Skiing Today! Casey, Ryland, Peter, and Wu Tang Sam!

       Lately I have been watching a lot of the Olympics. Stoked on Sophies race on Tuesday. A little bummed for Kikkan but we have such a supportive U.S. team that everyone has the support they need!

#BeHereNow

January Recap before SoHo

       Just a quick post with a lot of photos to deal with my stress right now. Tomorrow we leave for SoHo after school and I have a lot to study for tomorrow and pack and wax. Anyways i'm really looking forward to this week in Soldier Hollow, Utah! These are some races that I have set goals for and I feel pretty prepared for them!

       Last week we finally got some snow here in Tahoe! The day after the storm we went out for a pre race ski with some speeds and ended up breaking a ski.... Oh well. At least my race skies are Fishers! Thanks to Pacos for the support!

Ryland skiing through the fresh snow on Thursday 

       Last Friday the team sent it to Mammoth for the weekend. On Friday we had a CNISSF classic 6k race and Sunday we had a classic 6k JNQ (junior national qualifier). I had really good races both days placing 5th over all on friday and second over all on Sunday! It was definitely a fun weekend! Now heres some photos from the weekend! 

Savannah, Casey, and Ryland on lake Mary in Mammoth

Me, Brandon, Casey and Ryland

SBA Mens team (except Sam)

Some awesome skiing in Mammoth!

Savannah Blide

SBA team minus Sam Zabell and Coach Jeff (photographer) 

Yeah....

Some quality Sauna time With Ryland and Peter

Cool prizes from Sundays Race!

Fun Photo from the snow storm

       Allright well just a quick update. Ill be updating from SoHo and life results can be found at summittimming.com Well if you will excuse me now, I have some waxing, packing, and school work to get back to!