The course consists of about a foot of slush. Not ideal. All of my strengths, the skills I have that make me a good sprinter, are useless in conditions like this. Explosive power, no good, your poles or skis merely plunge deeper into the mire. Impressive strength, no good, there's nothing stable to push off of. At this point in their carreers, most skiers have had to race in nasty conditions, but none of us seem to have gotten very good at it. Conditions like this require the racer to drastically change their technique. Deep slush requires a shorter push off and quicker tempo to make up for that. If you push off too long or too hard your ski slides out from under you and you waste all the the power you applied. The really elite skiers can adapt to this; I'm still working on it.

They took 30 into the heats, World Cup style. I qualified in 24th. It shocked me how many women, even at this level, couldn't ski the course. People were simply falling, not because they got tangled up with someone else, but because they couldn't handle the snow. I had two girls fall in front of me in my quarterfinal, one 10m before the finish & I had to jump around her. I came in third in my heat, close to second but not agonizingly close. So that put me in 14th place overall.

Morgan Smyth had the stellar performance of the day, qualifing in 21st and moving up into 7th place! Sadie Bjornsen had to pass 2 people on her qualifing round because they seeded her 66th by FIS point rankings and made it in to the quarterfinals. Way to represent the Methow & PNW. Liz Stephen & Taz Mannix also made the quarterfinals for junior women. LinWilli & I were the U23 women to make the heats and Steve Scott and Mikey Sinnot made the quarterfinals for U23 men, finishing third in his heat.

Overboots: Dad, I'm not going to make fun of your overboots anymore. All the Swedish women had them & I wished I had them. I also wished I had another pair of dry boots; I changed my socks three times today, but my feet were still never dry.