Useless Rubs

Today I am in West Yellowstone on a weekend adventure with my MSU ski buddies. The races here are qualifiers for Nordic Junior National Championships, but as I have already decided not  to attend Junior Nationals this year, the races are a way to get some fun, healthy competition in at high altitude.
The trails at West Yellowstone are amazing, and it’s great to get some quality skiing in on ski-specific trails with no dog poop or rocks. I seem to have ironed out all the crinkles since last time I was here for the Thanksgiving SuperTour, mostly because my Nordic and Biathlon priorities for this season are now straight.

No matter where you go in the nation, it's nice knowing that
there will be great competition and friendly skiers

My good friend Neil was my wax tech for the sprints, and used an amazingly fast wax that was later found to be in the BSF Team’s wax arsenal as well, albeit in the “Useless Rubs” drawer. It was their loss, not ours, because that useless rub qualified me fourth, then led me to a victory in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, placing me (for the first time in a long time) into the A Final.

The Semi-finals. Even though we were at 6700 feet,
I was able to get the skiing to click. It felt earned

I felt terrible after the prelim, mostly because of the altitude. My body started to shut down and my lungs were burning. After about an hour I got over it, and started feeling like a sprinter again. I’m not going to give a “there I was..” play-by-play of the final, but I will tell you it was quick. It took us less than two minutes to round the course, and in the end I took second in an epic sprint-off to Bridger Tyler, who has been skiing super strong this season as well as for the past five seasons. It was a good day for my friends as well, with many placing in the A and B Finals.

The A Final.

Being a relatively unknown skier in the Intermountain Ski Region, it was a little humbling to be recognized at the awards banquet and look out over the crowd and see an entirely new Nordic community, as closely knit as the Alaskan contingent. Hopefully I can bridge the gap between visitor and comrade.


On a side note, I have to say that the Intermountain Ski Region is a very deep field of talented skiers, all the way down to the J6 category. I had to smile when I saw J5s collapsing at the end of the race, dead tired from skiing so hard. It’s hard not to find inspiration in their accomplishment at such a young age.