Idre Fjäll and A Return to World Cup

The training leading into the races at Idre remained perfect! Good weather, snow and company! Here are a few of the local reindeer we came across.

Training remained fairly hard throughout the week with the idea that it would place me in better shape for later in the season. The races here were more of a test for the body and to get the feeling of skiing with urgency but maintaining efficiency. The results at this point are not too important. With colder conditions, the snow was exactly what I love to ski on. This colder weather unfortunately however brings out the Philpot’s home-made ‘bulletproofs’ (a.k.a. Windbriefs). To his Mum Ann, this is wonderful craftsmanship as always! The ‘double jock setup’ howeve is just not so visually appealing!

Despite feeling tired earlier in the week, I began to feel better towards the weekend and by Saturday’s Sprint my body was feeling great! It was decided that it would be beneficial for me to do the prologue with the consideration that if I was to start in Lillehammer’s World Cup Mini-tour next weekend, I’d need to have the confidence I could put down a reasonable result. With a complete lack of Sprint training since the start of the Aussie winter, I was obviously slightly concerned about how I would perform. To my surprise, even with a crucial mistake on the bottom corner I sprinted better than I did all last season and made finals for the first time here in Scandinavia. 28th and 9.5s off the winners time with around 110 Points. This was certainly a rewarding surprise and no doubt is completely attributed to technique gains. I stuck to the plan and didn’t start the finals – the goal was achieved and the additional physical stress was not deemed worth it.

Sunday’s 10km skate was just as pleasant of a surprise. Last year I struggled with the fast 10km pace in general so a flat fast course meant it certainly wasn’t my cup of tea! With the focus of urgency and skiing powerfully and efficiently I had some good non-result based goals to work on. I went out hard and somehow my body felt good enough to hold it up for the most part of the race. I placed 18th overall, 1min38s off the winner Anton Lindblad who was a full 30s up on second place! With points blowing out a little, my position showed that it was still one of my better results outside of World Cup. Not sure how my body is feeling so good already but I’m prepared to go with it!

With another ~90 Point race under my belt and my form feeling better and better Mattias and I made the decision to make a return to World Cup Circuit next weekend in Lillehammer! If you had of asked me 3months ago, I would have said Mattias was crazy and that I wouldn’t be anywhere near returning this early. Sometimes I guess luck is just on your side. Phil also had a great weekend placing 7th overall in the Sprint! Watch out for this guy this season…. http://www.pbellinghamxc.wordpress.com

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