Relay

Today I skied like a rookie. It's only my second international relay... but I'm still pretty annoyed with myself.

Other than the sections of the course that were salted (few) it was a full on slushfest out there. 5 inches of dirty wet corn. On those days it pays to start out smooth because if you go too hard there is no place to recover and every section of the course is work. Plus people tend to fade hard in these conditions so it you can ski a strong second half you can make up a ton of time on people.

Freeman started off and skied a great first leg coming in not far behind the Canadians and Germans who had some great skis being driven by Devon Kershaw who was on a mission. Cook skied a solid second leg as well bring us in 7th (I think) 20 seconds behind Kazahkstan and 15 or so in front of Italy. I started out nice and smooth trying to gradually work my way up to the Kazahk when about two thirds of the way up the first climb Killer Piller Cottrer came flying by. Had I been thinking, I would have thought "there is not way that I can maintain this for 30 minutes" and kept going about my work. Instead I picked up the pace and stayed with him over the top of the hill and tried to get a ride for a while hoping he might settle down. He didn't and that didn't work. I made it up the next small climb behind him and then my legs started to get wobbly. It took a little while but I managed to get myself back together and salvage something of a race out there but my legs were never right again after the early effort. Pretty frustrating.

Next up for me is the 50k on Sunday. The ladies do a 30k tomorrow which will be a good preview of how the course skis. If it is anything like it was today out there it will most likely be the hardest race that any of us have ever done. Making Sapporo, the previous hardest, look like a walk in the park. The rumor is that they will salt the course which would be beautiful.