Yesterday was the men’s 15km Freestyle race.  I had a very solid result with a 4th place finish.  Results w/splits below.  CXC’s Tad Elliott had the race of his life and finished less than a 1/2minute behind World Cup star Kris Freeman… awesome!  I started fairly conservative with the hope I could really wind in up in the last half of the race although the slowing snow conditions made it tough to maintain speed (check the splits, all the men got slower every lap).  I gave everything I had and then some.  My head felt like it was going to explode and I felt nauseous all afternoon yesterday.  I could have gone harder out of the start but I don’t know if I could have held on.  The points from the race were pretty good for me but I needed to be a bit closer to Freeman time-wise.  Tomorrow is a 30km mass start classic race and I am excited to see if I can hang.  Classic os not my strength but I work on it a bunch during the off-season.

http://www.anchoragenordicski.com/nationals10/results/1_4_10/results_with_splits_for_us_nationals_interval_start_100104.pdf

Thanks Ian and Toko for another great pic.