Trails:
The races are taking place at the Canmore Nordic Ski Center, which on top of having hosted previous Canadian Nationals and Canadian selection races, has also hosted some World Cup races.
Here are a few photos from the race site, pictures unfortunately don't do the views justice but hopefully they will get you to come check it out for yourself some time.
Part of the stadium/race course.
The XC Ottawa boys posing with the mountains in the backdrop.
Accomodations:
We have quite a treat this year when it comes to accommodations. We rented a house for all of our team to stay in for the race week. We expected a house, we got a MANSION! the house is about 6000 square feet, heated floors, 4 bathrooms, 2 kitchens, etc!
A picture of the kitchen... other than the race site, we spend most of our time here! :)
Yes this is also part of the houses interior, a rock climbing wall. Only the essentials for us!!!
Races:
Races start up tomorrow (Saturday) with a team sprint. The boys racing this event are all in the University CCUNC category, but we'll also have 2 womens teams competing in the open women category. It is a 6 lap race, 3 laps each, and the short steep 1.2 km course will make for some pretty hard racing.
This race is followed up by another skate technique race on Sunday, which is a 5 and 10 km individual short distance race for the men and women respectively.
We then get a a well deserved day off before racing the medium distance classic race. This is a 10 and 15 km race for the men and the women.
The next day is another classic race, this time a sprint so between 1.2 and 1.4 km distances. If you do well enough the first time around in the qualifier you have the luxury of racing again in the heats.
Finally, we get two days off before racing the longest distance event of Nationals... the 30 and 50 km!!!
More info can be found at the event website www.skinationals.com
Results will be posted at www.zone4.ca
We'll do our best to keep the posts coming :)
thanks for reading
Andre
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