Nationals in Canmore: 5 km classic

Today's race was a 5 km classic on the same tough course as yesterday. Even though I'm still feeling under the weather, I had a great race today. I was second after Robbi again, but my time was much closer to hers this time. You can see all the results on the Zone4 Web site. My time was 20:24, which is not bad for such a hilly course. I didn't get the cash today though, because Mary snuck right in and beat me to the third place in the combined category by 3 seconds! On another note, we were talking today about how the Para-Nordic program has grown over the last few years. In 2003, there was only 1 athlete (namely, my mother) at the National Championships, and this year, there were 22 not counting the Russians who came for some friendly racing before the Paralympics. That's pretty amazing!

After my race today, I had the honour of being approached by a CCES (Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports) representative, who gaily informed me that I'd been selected for doping control. So I'm now officially in the Big Leagues! I get to pee in a cup while someone's watching. And it was a lot harder than I had thought: it took me two attempts and a couple of bottles of water before I was able to provide a satisfactory sample. But now I know how it works and what to do for next time, which the lady said was one of the reasons we are being tested this week, so we know what to do at the Paralympics.

So Nationals are now officially over, and pre-Paralympic training camp begins tomorrow. We've not been told anything about the "A" team's plan for this week or whether we're part of their plan or not. So we're kind of assuming we're on our own. Patti and the Ontario group are here for one more day, so we will ski with them tomorrow. As to what happens after that, I guess we'll wait and see. Tomorrow, Alexei, Robert and I are also moving to Andrea's parents' house, thanks to Andrea's generous offer, and Jamie arrives in Canmore. So another busy day awaits. Good night!