Race Recap - Andorra and Boi Taull World Cups
Oooft. I genuinely do not want to write these recaps. Having not really performed as I'd hoped I'd much rather just completely forget these two weekends.
There’s nothing special or exemplary in highlighting your mistake or failures. If you go back and read through my first two posts you’ll notice I was fairly honest in my assessment of what I expected out of this season but when things didn’t go as well as I’d hoped it would have been a lot easier to hide the results, hide the mistakes and just move on.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, this isn’t really the attitude I was raised with or cultivated. As big headed and stupid as that sounds I promise you I’m not trying to demonstrate a “better than thou” attitude…I’ve sat at this little desk staring out of this little window trying my best to find whatever excuse I could to just sweep the last two weekends under the rug.
My parents are amazing people who escaped an immensely challenging life to build a better one in Australia and they’ve instilled a good sense of self reflection. On top of this the people I've worked with and the people that I’ve looked up to there always preached a pretty great example of “sometimes you’ll make mistakes…that’s ok…admit the mistakes…reflect on what you can do better…try and do better.”
On top that Brookie was always a pretty great example.
So with that, here we go…
ISMF World Cup Andorra - Mixed Relay
Let’s start with a positive experience and a little background into what the Mixed Relay is.
The Mixed Relay is the other race format that will be present at the Milano-Cortina ‘26 Winter Olympics. If you’ve dug into my last post on the Austrian/German Sprint Champs, or if you follow the below link to my Instagram, you’ll have a great insight into what a Sprint Race is. Now the Mixed Relay, from a logistics and geometry perspective is in essence a double Sprint.
But from an effort perspective it definitely doesn’t feel that way and at the bottom of that first downhill you are absolutely fried and have to muster up the wherewithal to transition to uphill and do it all one more time. Let’s look at that first uphill and downhill section though because this is where I felt the best.
Qualification for Mixed Relay works as an individual time trial on the course, women first then the men, heading off at 30 second intervals. During my first uphill I felt strong enough to keep pace with both the athlete in front and behind which is a little win I’m taking with me.
The first section of the race consisted of a longish flat section that steadily climbed until it hit the bottom of a STEEP uphill/downhill where the race organisers we’re nice enough to set aside a “couple” of kick turns. With the race starting at the bottom of a cheeky valley, on top of rainy conditions the previous day and mixed with a shadowy early morning the entire slope, including both the up and down hill, were icy as all hell.
Below you’ll catch a glimpse of me at the second to last kick turn before the icy, tight and sharp downhill started.
After surviving the downhill the transition into the second uphill begins and this is where everything absolutely felt like hell. I’m unsure I’ll ever be able to describe it but you’re so cooked from the pervious effort that as you move from skinning to boot packing and back to skinning your brain is screaming at your legs to go faster, and I'm sitting there thinking I have another gear, but absolutley nothing happens.
That bootpack section was infinitely shorter than the bootpack at Austrian Champs but as I reached for just a little more effort there was nothing there. I mean look at this mean looking head…does this look like a guy who’s going fast?
Finally, you finish the last downhill and are staring down a silly 10 metre section where you need to transition to skinning one last time to jaunt your way to the finish line.
It’s definitely not uncommon to see athletes in all sorts at the finish line.
Between the cold, the effort and the two sets of skins stuffed into your race suit you look absolutely destroyed. Or at least I looked absolutely destroyed. As I sat there trying to regain my thoughts and my wits I noticed that the drool and snot which was pouring out of me on the last uphill had now frozen to my face.
Unfortunately for you dear reader there are no pictures.
Results: Last.
On reflection it was a race of two efforts; the first uphill and then the second uphill. Like I said I felt really good in that first uphill and thought that with a reset I’d be able to translate the effort/capacity to a good showing at the next World Cup stop.
I was wrong.
ISMF World Cup Boi Taull - Sprint
Hmm…
In a nutshell the Sprint in Boi Taull went like this:
I don’t feel like I need to explain the formatting of the race but to keep things simple the first two sections, skinning to boot pack, felt good. For me they felt smooth but that I was pushing out an appropriate amount of effort.
Then I completely botched my toes in transition from boot packing back to skinning and this frazzled me. If you watch the best athletes…I mean hell even if you watch anyone that isn't me you’ll notice that their transitions aren’t always insanely fast but they're smooth and controlled.
If they make a mistake more often than not they’re not flustered. They work through the mistake smoothly and press on at an otherworldly speed once they get moving again.
I did not.
After getting flustered the second skinning section caught me off guard as it was a lot flatter than I remembered in the course inspection which lead to a little wobble and me entering the final transition to downhill well and truly not in the right headspace.
I felt smooth-ish in that last transition but ultimately in a race of only 4 minutes 18 seconds I’d done a good amount of damage.
Fin.
Results. Last.
And here we are…
Two weeks until the next World Cup stop, the Olympic Test Event in Bormio, trying my best to salvage some confidence and find those small things I can improve on.
Oddly enough the actual results, although laughable, don’t hurt as much as the fact that I thought I’d do better. I never sat here, or proclaimed, to be a world beater. I didn’t entered the season with superior lofty goals that would blow minds but I genuinely thought I would have done just a little bit better.
I appreciate that the prevailing thought at the moment is that you’re only competing against yourself but at the end of the day it’s really hard to swallow some pride, especially after a good amount of work this year, and write down that I came last…twice.
A week on and back in Austria I think I’ve moved past the poor showing but I feel this one may stick with me for a time. Hopefully though it sits there more as a reminder; to work a little harder, to practice a little more and maybe take myself a little less seriously and enjoy the moment.
Here’s to the next race and a couple of loosies below.
Also also also… I appreciate that this is at the end of the post but in no way does it reflect my thoughts on those people below. I hope this week is to write a “How we go here and what’s happening with Aus Skimo” post but to put it simply it’s amazing to see the people below competing and representing Australia.
Great people doing amazing things.
Alright I’m done now.
Love you, son! Next two weeks will be better!
Thanks for your honesty, as always. Sorry to hear that you didn’t get the results that you wanted this time round!