A Week In Telemark

Last week the Super Tour made its rounds to Telemark, Wisconsin. With temperatures as low as -15, it managed to warm up to zero degrees to kick off the skate sprint on Wednesday . The course wasn’t any ordinary sprint course. To put it plainly, it mainly consisted of two up-hills…one big hill and one really big hill. I skied to a solid second place in the qualifying round and ended up forth overall in the A-final. Colin Rodgers skied strong all day, qualifying in second place and holding his second place finish in the A-finals.

We had two days off before we found ourselves back on the trails racing. Saturday was a 5/10k classic on a very challenging course. My energy felt good and I knew I had to go out there and hammer every bit of the course. Despite a tumble on a down hill, I managed to get 5th place, 10 seconds out of a podium finish. Dave Chamberlain proved his dominance in classic skiing, finishing

Sunday was a 10/15k skate mass-start. After watching the men’s race at 9:30am, I learned that the course and its lack of hilly terrain was probably going to make for a tight finish in the woman’s race just as it had for the men’s race. A pack of 20 men came into the finishing stretch within a matter of about 10 seconds. Colin Rodgers finished 8th and Dave Chamberlain finished 12th. The top women stuck together in a tight pack until the last two kilometers. I decided to put the hammer down and begin my charge to the finish. Kristina Stranberg followed close behind and it came down to a sprint in the final 50 meters to the finish. Unfortunately, I did not have quite enough in the tank to maintain first place…she out-edged me by 1 second!

Overall, it was a successful week in Telemark. Many thanks to Dennis Kruse for housing several of the athletes this past week! We appreciate your hospitality!

I am back in Sun Valley, getting ready for the Boulder Mountain Tour this weekend! I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.