Madison

I spent the last week at a cabin in the woods up in Hayward, Wisconsin training and resting abit after Canmore. And today it was time to get back to racing with the Capital Square Sprints in Madison, WI. The race here goes 1/2 way around the Capital Square in an out and back U and they estimated that for the mens race there were 10,000 people out watching making a pretty sweet atmosphere. Today was the skate sprint relay, 2 skiers per team, each skier doing 4 laps. Anders and I teamed up as we usually do but this time we switched things up and had me lead out and him anchor. Worked out pretty well.

I started out slow... we hadn't been able to ski on the course during the womens race so none of the guys had skied for 30 minutes before the race. I ran a bit but in the middle of a city to keep from getting too cold but still started pretty cold. After lap 1 I was at the back of the leaders in about 5th just cruising. Anders came thru in third and after that it was a battle between the Factory Team, CXC, and us, just like we figured it would be. The second laps everything stayed together. Then on the third Andre Golovko from the Factory Team and I opened a gap on Brian Gregg the CXCer only to have Kuzzy close that up and take the lead going into the final legs with Anders right behind and a small gap on Lars. Our plan from the start was to ski relaxed and not do any extra work then I would try to give Anders a lead going into the final lap and he would just fly away like he can we he gets rolling. I tried to open the gap on Andre but he was just a bit too strong and we came thru the final exchange together. Then Anders just unloaded and came in with a huge gap on Lars and Kuzzy. Pretty impressive and tactically magnificent if I do say so.

We just returned from a little cocktail party at the top of one of the hotels on the Square, they do a great job taking care of the athletes around here and it has been really amazing to see the energy that Madison has for ski racing.

One more tomorrow...