Easterns

photo credit: musicianonskis.ca

After Westerns I flew "home" to Quebec. I actually don't have a home in Quebec but luckily our team doctor and mother of Alex Harvey, Mireille Belzile was nice enough to invite me into her home for a week. The first day I was in Quebec it rained. I wasn't impressed. Then I got a taste of the real Quebec winter. 50cm of snow came out of nowhere. I couldn't help but build a huge snow fort. Surely it will still be standing in march when i return to Quebec. All that powder snow made for so gnarly conditions for intervals. 

Driving to Ottawa: I had the pleasure of riding shotgun in the Tercel through freezing rain all the way to Gatineau. Etienne and I stopped at every Subway along the way #5dollarfootlong. We rolled up to the Motel Chevalier where David Greer was already waiting. 

Easterns was another mini-tour (3 races are combined for an overall result). The first race was a skate sprint. It was an interesting course, almost completely flat with one steep-as-hell hill right in the middle. My qualifier was good, my skis felt fast and I was ready for the heats. In My quarter-final I took it out nice and easy, deciding to let the others lead. It worked well as I skied only as fast as I had to to move on. It was risky though. there were people falling everywhere. In my semi-final I wanted to stay out of the trouble that I barely avoided in my quarter. I started fast and finished safely in third place to advance to the final. The final was just nuts. we all came into the steep hill together. skis and poles were everywhere. I took the safe route along the outside. One skier went down. I was sitting in about fourth place when the pace seemed to slow down a lot. I wanted to speed up but there was no place to pass and the skier who fell was able to catch up. as soon as he had caught up, he was tangled up again but this time he took out 2 other people. I jumped over some skis and dodged some bodies to find myself in second place which I kept to the finish. 

The next day was a 15km individual start skate. Another interesting course; 3 laps, the first half of the loop is very flat and the second half, full of hills. I had a very mediocre race finishing third junior but well off the winning time of Graeme Killick. 

Once again I had some major time to make up in the final stage of a mini-tour. The last race was a 30km classic, the first of my career. I started fast to catch Alexis, Lee, and Colin. Once together we started catching people one by one. I should also mention that although we skied as a group, most of the "work" was done by long time friend and teammate Colin Abbott. The pace seemed very steady for the first 5 of six laps. A 30km is long but I think it hurts less than a 15. On the last lap things started to pick up. Colin made a move starting the sixth lap. I waited another 2km before I dropped Lee and Alexis. I pushed hard on the uphills because my skis were quite slow but had decent grip. I caught Colin just before the finish and was able to get him a the line. I moved up 8 places in the over mini-tour standing. A good day!

After the race i watched the Super Bowl. Not a big fan of football but it was exciting game, even though i didn't have money on the line like so many others. The next day I would leave to Europe and as luck would have it I woke up with a sore throat. After checking out of our hotel at noon we really had no choice but to chill outside the motel with our ski and duffel bags for 2 hours until our ride came. I didn't get to see GWS at Winterlude! If one good thing came out of this day its that I had a row to myself in the airplane. 

Updates from Livigno, Italy to come!