Relays Provide an Exciting End to JOs

Kincaid Park is at the end of a runway -- sights like this are common.

Greetings from Anchorage (for the last time),

It was team relay day at Kincaid Park today and I think the Great Lakes had their race hats on. Team members seemed to perform pretty well, overall. I talked to Jay after his race -- his best of the week -- and he wonders why this didn't kick in until today. I told him next year he'll have to go to Truckee a week early and race a few times before JOs. Ruth said she felt good today; Olivia not so good. Christina had a good race but was coughing like crazy afterwards. Kai seemed to race OK, except he wasn't quite ready for the tag when it was his turn at the exchange zone -- not sure what happened there. Madelyn also had her best race of the week.

Here are a couple of short videos of Jay:

Rounding the bend
Heading uphill


It was a chilly, windy and overcast day at the venue -- no views of Mt. McKinley today. Teresa and I found a spot in the woods where we could see the skiers probably 100 meters after they left the stadium. Then we could move over to another spot to watch them come up a hill.

Jan left this morning at 9 a.m. (same flight we're on tomorrow). We found a cool bike shop on our way back from picking up the wax bench and wax box from Mike at the hotel. They seemed to be
doing a pretty good business, given that it is cold and there is snow on the ground. I've noticed, though, that there are quite a few folks out on mountain bikes, even in the winter.

I should also tell you a story that Mike Young told me. There's a brew pub across the street from their hotel. Last night, he and other coaches went for one beer prior to dinner. The waiter took their orders, then asked Mike for some ID. How long's it been since YOU'VE been carded? To top it off, today (March 15) is his birthday and there was a cake waiting for him at the team meeting last night: "Happy Birthday Tokoman" -- black letters on yellow frosting.

It has been a real pleasure being on this trip. I thought it would get pretty boring with four days of racing, but between watching our skiers and watching some of the close contests at the finish line, it was pretty exciting. It was also nice to not have any responsibility for the race and to just walk inside and warm up for awhile, if that's what I wanted to do. I wasn't thinking I'd want to attend a JO again but after this week I might.

So farewell to Anchorage,

Dean

Classic Day at JOs; One Race Day Left

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.