From Arctic Circle Up to the North
From Rovaniemi to the first world cup round in Finnish Äkäslompolo.
MODEL
My first ski-o in this season.
Feels easy with orienteering.
Feels damn difficult for knee.
One steep valley with the turn in the bottom.
SHIIIIIT.
Hoping for not much valley crossings at sprint.
Excited and highly motivated for tomorrow’s first race!
SPRINT
Getting cramp to my leg in a starting corridor.
What to do?!
Start!
This is so easy!
Pushing for 100%!
Very satisfied with my performance.
Couldn’t go even one second faster.
21st place.
Expected a bit better results.
Would be good to have some ski wax powder.
Would be good to have waxer here.
2nd highest WRE points ever.
Pretty tired.
TV broadcast from sprint here
MIDDLE
Don’t feel fully recovered.
Missing a bit of the fighting mode.
Getting a map.
The nightmare comes true.
Whole course goes in the steepest part of the terrain.
Super many valleys!
Start.
Good flow.
One extra scooter track missing in the map.
Getting to the wrong place.
WTF?
Confused and unsecure for upcoming three control points.
My flow is back.
Tove pass me by incredible speed difference.
WTF?
Missing that extra motivation to give out 110%.
Not so happy with my performance.
23rd place.
TV broadcast from middle here.
REST DAY
Minus twenty degrees.
Great skiing in Lapland wilderness.
LONG
Fighting mode on the highest level.
Getting ready for minus sixteen.
Why is it only minus seven at competition arena?!?!!!!
Wrong wax.
No time to change for less clothes.
Very good start.
I am in the leading group.
I feel strong.
Tricky orienteeing in downhill.
Not so self-confident.
Would be good to train some ski-o before racing at world cup.
Downhill, turns, bumpy terrain.
Tough conditions even for healthy knees.
Tears in eays because of cold air.
Hardly see where the track goes.
Fall.
Map holder covered by snow.
Can’t close the map holder.
Can’t see the course.
Can't fix the map holder.
Skiing with map flying in the map holder.
Can't read map properly.
Cesta do záhuby.
Many mistakes.
Map change.
Managed to get some snow out of the map holder.
Can’t close the map holder again.
So bad to read the map when it doesn’t stay still.
Time for Enervit gel.
Shit.
I took a wrong one which was supposed to be taken before the last loop.
Hope not to get žaket.
Whole loop goes pretty well.
Last map change.
Why is the last loop so short?
Fall in the downhill.
Auu!
My knee hurts.
Happy the loop is so short.
I will not skip it now!
Why didn’t I take the gel during second map change?
In the finnish.
Tears will not help to this zpackaný race, but they come anyway.
It will take a while to recover mentally from this race.
It was a good lesson.
It was a beautiful and very challenging race technically as well as physically.
You can learn a lot from bad races.
TV broadcast from long distance here.
Two world ranking event races coming already this weekend. Time for the revanche!
It was a very first time when Czech team took part in this first wourld cup round. The reason for our absence was simple. No conditions for proper training before. I went to Finland for one month in order to have these trainig conditions. I had big expactations for these races.
Sometimes things don't go the way you want and my results expectations changed to be-able-to-start-there wish. I am happy I could at least start and finish all races and my knee survived it more than less. I am definitely not happy about my results, but experiences I have gained here will be valuable for my future development.
Going to the internataional races without any supportive team made us realize how grateful we should be for having a couch Richo, ski waxer Radek, cook Ivoš and physioterapist Jana. Their work makes a differnece in our performances. Thank you for going with us to the next international races - European championship in Bulgaria!
