Homer Besh Cups

The Besh Cups in Homer Alaska this weekend were held under exciting weather and lots of good competition. This weekend two hundred and seventy competitors traveled the beautiful roads to reach Homer Alaska. I forgot how nice that drive can be on a good day and I also got reminded of how bad it can be in very nasty weather.

As far as the racing goes. We had a classic sprint on saturday which went pretty well. It was a little bit different course than that of what I am used to. Normally when I finish a sprint I feel very tired, but this weekend I could go as hard as I wanted and hardy feel anything at the finish line, it was kind of weird. In the qualifier I decided to double pole the whole course which seemed to work just fine accept for the start which was very soft and I could not accelerate for the first 20 meters. In the end I qualified 3rd just 1.5 seconds out of the lead, so I think if I did not slip so much in the start area I could have won the prelim. Then the heats start up and I cruise through my quarter-final and my semi-final without much trouble. The final came around and I had to work a bit more. I felt great for the first hill and into the second hill. I then had a little trouble over the top of the last hill and lost some time. After that I could never really make it up again. I did not have enough of a finish sprint to make it up. It was still a solid race for me.

Sunday we had a 12k classic race. It was raining, snowing, sleeting, blowing, and some other stuff that I can not even describe. It made it fun. The snow was holding up ok, on the flats the pole tracks were making it very hard to double pole. I was feeling great, I was able to go hard pretty much the whole race and attack the hills as hard as I wanted. I really love klister conditions like that, it is fast and you get really good kick. I ended up 2nd on the day, Lex Treinenen was the skier of the day, he smoked me by over a minute, I am still trying to figure out how he did that. I raced well so I am happy.

Next I leave for Poland on sunday for U23 worlds. I am feeling ready for a bit more racing. When I get back I will pick up my training volume a lot before Canadian Nationals and US distance Nationals. I will have five weeks to get into distance mode. Currently I have almost 600 hours of training for this year and I have a couple more months yet in the year. I will end up probably 250 more training hours this year than what I have done in previous years, so once I am able to absorb all my training hopefully I will be able to be a bit faster.....later till next time, T

and now for some pics, hopefully more to come later...

This is the sun-rise the morning of the sprint...Homer is nice.

Some good looking snow.

Another nice Homer sun-rise pre race.

Race trails, if you look carefully you can see the little people on the far end of the Stadium.

Brent Knight leading his heat.

I am leading my first heat.

The start of the A-Final...

A final finish sprint...almost had it.