2009 Junior Nationals

After two days of travelling, covering enough miles officially classify this trip as a ‘road trip’, we (CB and Durango) pulled into the parking lot of our home for the week, the Boreal Inn.  Shortly after arriving, we got out for a short run in order to stretch our legs and get a lay of the land. The location of the hotel is perfect.  While all the other divisions have to stay down the pass in Truckee, the RMN skiers and coaches are housed right at the race site.  This will infinitely simplify the logistics for the week.  The stadium for the 2009 Junior Nationals is only located a short 500 meters from our hotel front door, with the base lodge of Boreal Ridge (where we eat our meals) half way in between.  Shortly after we settled in to our rooms, the remainder of the RMN skiers arrived from the Sacramento airport, marking the official start of Junior Nationals for the complete RMN team.  Game time.

 

Saturday and Sunday we broke up into age groups and previewed the race courses, talked some strategy, and prepared for Monday’s sprint races. Oh yeah, and we marveled at how much snow is on the ground out here!

 

On the morning of the sprint, the RMN skiers were ready to lay down some speed.  Everyone was focused on the job at hand and they ripped it up!  We qualified 17 skiers for the heats and ended up with multiple top 10 finishes.  Lars, Gino, and Alicia were the 3 skiers from Durango to move on into the rounds.  Be sure to check out the full results on http://www.durangonordic.org/Results/results.htm. 

 

Today was another training day and once again we broke into age groups and previewed the distance skate course one last time before tomorrow’s mass start race.  The 5k loop that the J2 boys and all girls will be skiing is a tough course without a lot of rest.  The climbs are short and steep, but typically followed by a log gradual uphill grind.  This is where we are going to ski fast.  There are no long downs that those lower elevation dwellers can catch their breath on, so our plan is to make them suffer: to push the pace on the transitions to eliminate any chance for the group to rest. 

 

Tomorrow is going to be a good day for RMN skiers, I can feel it in the thin air….