McCall for the win

After what feels like a very short season of training and racing, we are finally getting ready to head to Truckee, California for the 2015 Junior Nationals! The final deciding race was held last weekend in McCall, Idaho. The whole intermountain squad made the long trek to these beautiful trails in the Ponderosa State Park. It was definitely worthwhile, because we were able to ski some fun trails and we experienced some of the most beautiful sunsets that I have ever seen!

The beautiful sunset of day 1, featuring Payette Lake

The first day of racing was classic sprints. In the prelim everyone has stellar races and everyone qualified for the heats. In the quarter finals a good majority of the Wasatch athletes moved on including, Karsten, Henry, Sarah, Olivia, and myself. Everyone else was close by a hair. After those races we moved on to the semifinals. I was in the second semifinal with Olivia. Sadly, I had a bit of bad luck and backtracked a little bit on the uphill by literally falling on my butt. It was all good though because Olivia was able to move on to the A final! I got to represent Wasatch in the B final. Woop Woop! Olivia skied into second place and made everyone very proud while I also made the second position in my final. Sarah, originally a U14 but skiing up to U16, finished 5th in her B final. Karsten and Henry both skied very well and finished 3rd and 4th. Overall, it was a good day for Team Wasatch! 

After a fun first day of racing, we hit the town and decided to check out some of the local thrift stores. Our treasures were quite astounding...

We decided that Jenae needs to model ski goggles

And that Olivia needs to model mens clothing

On Sunday morning they held mass start skate races. Almost everyone skied a shortened version of the races that they usually ski. For the U18/U20 women, the distance was only a 5k where we usually ski 10k. It was very fun though! The course was extremely fast and the race was over before you even knew it. 

Later that day was the naming of the 2015 Intermountain Junior National Team. Everyone was obviously very excited and nervous. Mostly me! A solid season of racing and training there brought an even more solid team for the Intermountain Division to send to Truckee, CA. 

The 2015 Intermountain U18/U20 Girls Team

Let's hope for snow (in Truckee mostly)! Bye bye for now.