I am Alive.

When I wrote last wednesday I had no idea just how much freezing myself had taken out of me.  I didn’t just punish my hands that day I froze myself all the way to my insides and paid for it immensely.  It took me the entire day to stop shaking and days more for my hands to go back to normal.  My lungs were toast. My limbs were toast.  I was toast.  I slept horribly that night waking up every 40mins or so and when I woke up the next morning I could feel how tired and heavy the previous 24 hours had left me.

I went through the morning normally.  Eating, testing skis, zeroing my rifle, warming up.   It wasn’t until 5 minutes before the first starter that I decided I wouldn’t be racing.  I was dragging, starting to hack up oddly colored goo.  So after a short pow wow with the coaches I was scratched from the start list and would not race either races.

It was a hard choice to not race.  Especially the mass start, I had been very excited about the mass start and the opportunity to rub shoulders with the women’s team.  However, I know opting out of those races was the best thing for keeping me healthy.  My body has infact mended itself, and I’m feeling better on my skis each and every day.

The weather got even colder after that day and continued to plummet straight through the weekend.  I was reintroduced to classic skiing as the temperature stayed well below 0F for days in a row.  Put in some quality time on a stationary bike as I watched a string of alpine boys hop, skip, and prove themselves more flexible than I as I spun away.  And even attended yoga at the Yoga Lounge here in Canmore.  Despite my inflexibility I’m kind of hooked.  Its the calmest I’ve felt in a long time, which I’m sure makes my team mates happy.  (A non-stir crazy corrine = a happy team)

We finally got back on the skate skis yesterday morning which about 6 hours to soon.  The track (which there is probably about 5km of race grade trail now) was sand paper.  I had to walk up a few hills because gliding simply wasn’t an option.  You would push off and your entire ski would just kind of stick there, I began to wonder if someone had kick waxed the bottom of my skis.  The afternoon was a little better I actually felt like I was skiing again!

Our days here in Canmore are drawing rapidly to a close and despite the wonderful coffee shops and mountains that I will leave behind I’m looking forward to being home for a little while before we jump into the next set of races.  Only a short intensity block and a handful of distance skis stand between me and the plane in Calgary.  We’ll talk again before I hit the midwest.

Here are some pictures from the race I did get to do!