After a clear night, the snow was very cold, and the air temperature was about -20 when we arrived. I though my qualifier went ok, but I ended up 16th, and 16 seconds back. It was not the deepest field, as I was 5 seconds out of 15th. In my heat I had #5(Ellis), #6(Touchette), #15(Luke V.) and two others. I had a decent start but wasn't aggressive enough to get a good position and left the stadium in 4th place. I tried to move up several times on the uphill to the top of the course, but Luke kept closing the door by moving over to block me. I tried again just before the big downhill, but the snow was too slow on the outside. On the bottom corner I managed to move up into 3rd, but that was short lived. Once we hit the hill going into the finish, the other guys accelerated away from and I finished 4th. That was enough to retain my ranking of 16th on the final results.
I was expecting a little better, since I had good energy, but I didn't really have the snappiness you need to sprint fast. It sounds a bit strange, but Duntroon is fairly low in terms of elevation and you actually have to ski faster than at altitude. I did gain some confidence for the next time I make the heats. At the very least I got in a good, hard workout the day before the 30k.
Big thanks to Luc and Jonathan of Skielite for helping us with the waxing!
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