Deep breath and 25hours after leaving the Scandic Hotel in Stockholm I made it to our condo in Mont St. Anne, Quebec. But traveling woes are not interesting for me to reminisce on and neither are they interesting to read about.

So I picked the wrong skis in the qualifier. When I had skied the course before it closed, the tracks up the first hill were really glazed and I thought they'd get even more glaze-y. So I picked a sticky ski. But by the time I raced the tracks had been kicked out from people haring boning and weren't glazed at all. So I almost fell on my face. I guess I've got to learn not to make these mistakes. I qualified in 10th, over 13 seconds back from the winner, Perrianne Jones. I hoped that it was mostly due to the slow skis and that I'd be able to move up in the heats.

Then we had an excellent lunch provided by the race and drove back to our condo where I was looking forward to a serious nap before the heats at 4pm. Shortly after arriving at our condo, we got a call from Linda making sure we were leaving that day. Oops, I guess someone put the wrong date down on the reservation. So instead of napping we had to pack up the condo where the boys had been living for a week already and load everything into the van (not Tiny, Tiny is dead, we're in a van of Andre's). We did manage to get in a short nap, from which I did not want to wake up.

Back at the venue and I was pretty tired so I told myself that I just had to race the quarterfinals, just one itty-bitty short race, I could handle it. I'd worry about the semis and finals when we got there. Dasha Gaiazova and I dropped the other girls in our quarterfinal and advanced. Dasha's been dominating Canadian Nationals thus far so I was reassured to be able to keep up with her in our quarterfinal. In the semifinal, I had significantly faster skis than anyone else (I don't make the same mistake twice in the same day) and pulled to the front in the downhill and lead into the finish from there. I was a little worried that I was using too much energy since there was a wind, but still managed to advance to the A Final just fine.

(course: up1, down1, flat1, dow2n, up2, flat2, down3, finish)

By this point I'd regained my energy and was ready to hit the A Final hard. I suspected that I could win. I followed Chandra Crawford up the first hill, struggling a little to get kick on my slick skis. Then down the first hill and onto a flat. I had planned on staying in second until the second long flat, but Chandra started to slow down on the first flat and I was worried everyone else was going to swarm around us and I'd get stuck in back. So I went around Chandra and tried to get a gap so she couldn't get a draft off of me. It was early in the course but I went for it and hoped I could hold it. And I did. As much as I enjoy winning, I did recognize that it was too bad that a Canadian didn't win Canadian Nationals, oh well, foreigners win US Nationals too. I did wear my Canadian hat between heats though because I like Canada!

And now, after only one night in Mont St. Anne and one night in Quebec City, we're off to Presque Isle today.