OPA Trip

After training while the rest of the OPA team raced in Latvia, I was excited to put on a bib and race in a Scandinavian Cup in Estonia last weekend. The first race was my favorite event, a classic sprint. The course was fairly short and fun.  I was really fired up for the qualifier and qualified in 3rd, 2 seconds behind the leader. I lead my quarter final and easily made it into the semi-finals. I was in a good position in my semi until the last 100m when I was forced into a bad lane and lost the lunge for 3rd place. There was no B-final so my day ended there and I was officially 7th. I was definitely disappointed to miss out on the final but it was still fun testing myself against some fast girls!

Sunday was a 10km classic. I had a decent distance race for me. I finished 15th on the fun, rolling course. Kudos to Eric, Fraser and Patrick for great coaching and waxing!

After the race we packed up our bags and drove back to Riga, Latvia. We went for a delicious and cheap dinner and Zoe and I did a morning jog to explore the old city.

I waved goodbye to the OPA crew Monday and flew to Munich. Louis met me at the airport and we drove to Seefeld, Austria to meet the World Cup Team. Seefeld is a scenic ski town with tons of ski trails.
 

I spent less than 24hrs in Seefeld before packing up once again and driving to Munich. We spent the night there, flew to Wroclaw, Poland Wednesday and drove to our hotel near Szklarska Poreba. Our hotel is fairly nice with a few odd touches. Our towels were arranged in flower shapes on our beds when we arrived and there is a woman whose sole job is ensure the lobby floor is clean (=constant mopping!).

We found some hiking trails along a river to run on to avoid the busy, narrow main road. The area looked like it would be beautiful in the summer. 

I will race my first World Cups of 2012 here tomorrow and Saturday. There is a skate sprint tomorrow then 10km classic on Saturday. It should be an exciting couple days!