Check! And Cheering.

In the past eight days I have been able to check something off my life list four-times over: racing in Europe. Check! It has been an exciting experience, to say the least. Watching Olympic medalists and World Cup regulars train and then starting in the same races as them has been pretty amazing.

Today marked the end of our weekend of racing with a 10 km skate. The weather was definitely cooler but the snow was still fast and as I crested the top of the big climb on my first lap I caught a glimpse of sunlight hitting the windmills. (That was sometime around 11 am.) Sunlight here is always a reason to celebrate. Ida didn’t race today, so she was out there cheering us on as we made our way up that hill two times. In any race, but particularly one where you are feeling tired, there isn’t anything better than hearing a friendly voice yelling and cheering for you. Ida is wicked good at saying just the right things to get you to pick up your pace a bit and ski a little better. Thanks Ida!! A number of us also got cheered on by Justyna Kowalczyck as we raced by her while she was doing a cool down. Another excellent motivator. I was feeling really tired today but it was still satisfying to go hard. After a ski in the morning tomorrow we will head south (it’s all relative) to Rovaniemi for our last week in Finland and two more races!