Pre-season updates and thoughts

Hi

I’m currently on a flight to Seattle, the first leg of a 4-flight journey to Finland to kick off ski season - on the World Cup this time!

The last month or so has consisted mostly of skiing as much as possible and soaking in my favorite time of year in Alaska. I’m not sure if that’s a popular opinion, but I just love the colors in the sky from the low sun, the stars, the snowy trees, and the anticipation for ski season. It’s a rare time when we can ski a lot as a team, on snow, without the chaos of race season quite yet.

There were local races last weekend at Government Peak Recreation Area, about an hour north of Anchorage. It felt so good to race on skis again and feel that focused, flowy energy that racing brings out. It was easy to remember why I do this sport, thankfully!

In an earlier blog, I mentioned I was deciding whether to fly across the world for 1 World Cup start. Well, I decided yes. This will be my 7th World Cup start, and my first start in Period 1 (early season). I’m excited to come in with a little more experience than last year, and with equal enthusiasm for the opportunity. One upside of having only 1 start is that I’m not taking it for granted :)

Period 1 is usually the most competitive time of year, in terms of depth at least. People don’t tend to sit out of P1 like they might in other periods, as it’s a good time to qualify for later races (like World Championships later this year) and the racing fatigue hasn’t set in. It’s also held in Scandinavia which allows some of the strongest countries to take more skiers. Scandinavian countries also pick their World Cup teams in qualifying races right before P1, so the athletes they bring are always fit. The US picks the P1 team based on last season, I think because it’s logistically difficult to host early-season qualifying races in the U.S right before racing overseas.

With all that in mind, I don’t have very specific expectations for Ruka, other than that I want to have a race I’m proud of. I can’t wait to get there, but that’ll be about a day from now. My 4th flight just got delayed 5 hours for weather..yikes.

Thanks for checking in. Hopefully some northern lights photos to come.

-Renae

Moon and mountains combo never gets old

A beached Fin whale off the Anchorage coastal trail

UAA campus lights

Scenic APU parking lot