Day 7: First day of forerunning, Nordic Combined.

Hey!

We got to have a bit of a sleep in this morning, we were fore-running for Nordic combined this morning and they had to do the whole jumping portion before we even got on the trails. Nordic Combined is a pretty cool idea. Basically, the skiers ski jump, and the farther they go, the bigger a head start they get in the cross-country segment of the race. This is super cool to watch, it is essentially a huge chase, with the finish coming down to a sprint between many, because the best jumpers aren't usually the best skiers. They were skiing a 10, but with 2.5k loops, and so we were only really skiing 5k officially, 2.5 before and another 2.5 after. We managed to get an hour and a bit of training in. It was a nice day, but of course the skies opened up for long enough to get us all good and soaked before retreating over the mountains. But no complaints, I feel like we haven't seen the sun in forever. Fore-running was so cool!! You don't have to work super hard, because the most important thing is to ski as a group, but you get to ski in front of a HUGE crowd, with nothing to focus their excited energy on before the race but you. Kinda stressful, but crazy amazing, cameras flashing and people cheering from all directions, all along the way. Granted, this was probably more to push off the post-race stress/boredom, but still, we can pretend.

One other amazing thing about fore-running. Seeing as we are the last people on course before the race and the first on after it, we get awesome spots, with the start line on our left and the finish line on our right, about 3m from each, right in the middle of it. The atmosphere is incredible, you could almost see the excitement. And this was for Nordic combined, i mean, who even knows what it is? The first cross-country race is tomorrow, women's 10k and men's 15k skate. SO FREAKING PUMPED. Its is going to be incredible, and, to make it even sweeter, they have decided that only the girls will forerun for the women's race and only the guys for the guys race, which means that we (the ladies) will see the entire guy's race, awesome.

I should go to bed, we have a 5:30 start tomorrow morning, as busing takes FOREVER. Also, no pictures, I'll post them tomorrow, we went to see valentine's day tonight, i guess this is what happens.

Goodnight!!

Michelle :)