A Week Can Change Everything
I recently received some sage advice following a very trying opening World Cup races in Ruka/Kuusamo, Finland, followed by a weekend of personal bests at the OPA cup in Goms, Switzerland: A week can change everything. This is a well-known attribute of normal life, but as usual, I felt the need to specifically apply this to my experience with the fickleness of ski racing. Generally there is a level of expected performance in an athlete's mind after assessing and analyzing their training leading up to race season, and one can usually have an accurate guess on where their fitness lies in comparison to the previous season. So with the beginning of race season, I had quite high expectations of myself for this year, knowing that I had made drastic gains in strength, technique and fitness since the end of the Tour of Canada last March, which in my mind, should have equaled a higher level of success in every race I entered (right??). I was very pleased with the three season opener races in Beitostølen, Norway mid-November, and was quite hopeful (and turns out, with too much self-applied pressure) that Kuusamo would follow a nicely linear upward pursuit of "success" and "all of that hard work paying off."
I ended up going really slowly in the Kuusamo classic sprint (which was one of my best positions in a non-tour WC race last season), and ended up becoming disappointed to a fault, feeling quite defeated, and a lot embarrassed. The 10k classic was the following day, and after the previous day's solitary blubbering, I was determined to find enjoyment in racing again, all pressure and expectations removed. It didn't turn out terrible, so I felt all was not lost in the arctic North.
Fast-forward through a few weeks of training, a lovely visit from my long-lost parents to celebrate an early Christmas after a 7-month hiatus, a minor cold, two more mediocre races in the Lillehammer Scandinavian cup, and I found myself back in one of my favorite, smelly countries: Switzerland. Callum and I joined the younger British Nordic skiers to prepare for the three-day OPA/Alpen cup competitions in Goms. After Kuusamo I had been working on squelching the unnecessary nervousness and pressure that amounts before races, and treat each race more like an epic group or solo interval session. There are athletes that thrive on the high-strung nerves and stress pre-race, but I've found that I race my best when I maintain an optimistic, chilled attitude, and let the competitiveness and interval/muscle memory take over en route. I ended up with 13th in the 10k classic and 8th in the 10k mass-start freestyle, both excellent races for me (feeling like an early Christmas gift). Currently Andrew, Callum and I are training and preparing for an oven-less, apartment Christmas in Livigno, Italy before the start of the Tour de Ski on New Year's Eve!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Annika
Road trippin' with Scal (Callum) to Livigno Christmas from Goms 
Goms racing
Cold smiles
Early-morning Lillehammer racing with Pappa T's expert photography