Greetings from Anchorage.
It seemed to be a better day for Great Lakes skiers today; if not in terms of finish places, at least in terms of spirit. Everyone seemed upbeat today, both before and after the races. Temperatures stayed below freezing. In fact, when we left our apartment this morning at 9:30, it was 17 degrees.
It was classic day, with the J1/OJ boys doing 15 km, the J1/OJ girls doing 10km and the J2s going 10km. The tracks were fast and the course looked to be in very good shape. The stadium looked, again, much better than it did Wednesday and like a completely different place than Monday. The organizers have done a good job getting things in shape.
Christina Mishica and Mariah both said they felt pretty good during the race. Mariah said the course was very fast. Jay had a pretty good race for the first 12km or so and then he said he started to fade. Madelyn skied a good race in the J1 girls and looked very strong at the finish.
Kai started strong, but was involved in a crash early -- just out of sight of the stadium. I talked to him afterwards and he said there was a pile-up in front of him and he slowed down and was looking for a way out, when someone crashed into him from behind. He probably lost 20 seconds or so and, in a 5km race, that's hard to make up. He said this was the best he has felt all week. Ruth also looked very strong at the end. In the last 200 meters, she was making up time on the girl in front of her, but ran out of time :-)
Olivia did not race today. She fell yesterday and did something to one of her arms. I talked to her at dinner and she said she is definitely racing in the team sprints tomorrow.
We had dinner with the team -- well, sort of. To say we had dinner WITH them is a bit of a misnomer. We had dinner in the same room as the team.
The day just seemed to fly by -- of course I wasn't racing 15km. Because all of the OJ and J1 races were two laps, we had many opportunities to see the skiers, if we moved around.
Today was also the first clear, sunny day of racing and Kincaid was gorgeous. From the high point of the stadium, right by their chalet, you could look in the distance and see Mt. McKinley. It is 250 miles away. Even so, it looked very impressive -- it must be just magnificent when you are closer.
If time allows -- i.e. if I get packed in a timely way, I'll post one more message tomorrow night.
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