UNH Carnival

I feel kind of stupid writing a post about last week's carnival the night before the second race of this week's, but I figured I'd go for it anyway.

So last weekend we were in Jackson, NH for the classic sprints and 15/20k skate races. It was the first weekend that Rizzle and Mama Rizz got to cheer us on as the course literally passes their house. SO GOOD to have them there. Rizz will hopefully be there from now on, but Mama Rizzle was a special treat!

The first day of sprinting was really interesting. To start things off, I'm not necessarily a sprinter. And by "not necessarily" I mean not even a little bit. It was also raining/slushing/snowing the entire day. It was a soggy mess, but the course was ridiculously fun. I didn't do well at all, but I had a great time. It's not often I say that...

Women's mass start (pics by Colin)

Kat and I coming around for our last lap

Saturday was the 15/20k mass start. The start was pretty crazy. The first k bottlenecked right off and there were a few seconds where almost everyone was standing completely still. After that it was a solid race. I went back and forth with both Kat and Chloe a couple of times each. We also saw Emery out there in the mix. On the last k or so Kat and I were skiing side by side staring at Chloes back about 10 seconds in front of us. Chloe, Kat, and I crossed the line one right after the other.

I'm really pleased with how I skied. Going into the third lap I had a few seconds where my body just wanted to slow down, but I kept my head in it and hopped back onto Kat who had dropped me a little. I skied hard for the entire 15k. As someone who has real issues with my mental race it was nice to feel like I held things together. I didn't look at the results and I never plan to. I'd rather be happy then look and end up disappointed with how I actually placed.

Chloe in front, me on the left, Kat on the right
Less than a k from the finish

Cheering for the boys...there was a gap in the action and a
beautiful background! (Chloe, me, Em, Kat, Balls)

That's actually my new strategy for the year. Unless my parents see that I did ridiculously well and tell me to look I will never see the girls results for the races this year. I'd rather be happy with myself and how hard I pushed. In the end, I know where I'm at after four years. It's not even in the ballpark of where I wanted to be. At this point there's really not much else I can do. As long as I'm happy with the effort I put into this last season I'm going to be able to call it a success.

On the guys side of things, we had a few that were incredibly close to qualifying for the heats, which is encouraging. The mass start wasn't as successful as it could have been, but they seem to be improving every weekend. A shout out to Adam for his 16th place finish on Saturday. Giving feeds on top of the hill I was so excited to see him come by with the top guys lap after lap. My mom was freaking out as well. She even said, "The way I was cheering you would have thought he was my own son." I can only imagine what that must have looked like...

Mama, Lar, and I
Fam shot. Can you tell Cathy loves pictures?