Unfortunately Kuzzy was a little sick, so Gregg raced with another individual, Topher Sabot. They did really well, finishing fifth, and Gregg had some of the fastest splits of the day. The set up was semi-finals at 10am with the top five teams advancing from each semifinal and those ten teams racing the final at 12:30. The men's final was pretty exciting with a tight group of three teams skiing together and a coming down to a close sprint finish. As much as I like all six of the guys in that group, I was pretty psyched to see Marshall Greene and Brayton Osgood win it. Because Marshall's from Spokane, WA so we were on the same race circuit back in the day. Also ex-PNSA racers racing were Emily Chenel and Sam Naney. Colin Rogers & Zach Simmons were second. James Southam and Anders Haugen were a close third. Compton and I had a poster of James Southam above our area in the warming hut-- we decided that we must always have a poster of James with us. Unfortunately I just remembered that we left our poster at the race venue so we'll have to ask him for another one (our third, since we had one in West Yellowstone also).

Compton and I easily made the finals, like I said, there's not very many of the big teams here. It was pretty sweet to see all of the BSF athletes out racing. There were a lot of juniors racing today and yesterday and they were looking pretty good. The MSU team also had its athletes out racing and it was fun to see them since I've been on the RMISA circuit with them for the past four years. Anyway, I thought it was cool to be out there with the up and coming J2s/J1s/OJs. It reminded me of back when I was a junior trying to keep up with the pro skiers and being jealous that they didn't have to go to school. And now I'm the one people are trying to pass. Weird.

Anyway, the finals went smoothly. Compton led off and came in with a slight gap. I took off and we maintained our lead throughout the race to win with a comfortable margin. I did hear a rumor that Taz Mannix and Kate Pearson crashed, but I haven't confirmed that. SInce they were the second an third teams, that might have contributed to our gap. Karin Caminisch outsprinted Ida Sargeant in a really nice striding finish to take second for her and Pearson. Mannix (APU/USSkiTeam) and Sargeant (Burke) teammed up to take third.

I also must say that I was pretty impressed with the race organization by Bridger Ski Foundation, it ran very smoothly and there were lots of volunteers shovelling snow and picking out rocks for us. Also, I couldn't believe how nicely the course was groomed considering how little snow there was in the park.

And now it's time for our afternoon strength workout.