Day Two.  Yes day two in Germany’s very Germanish Germantastic cup.

Because I’m not german I got to start at the back of the field, with no direction, no waiting, no warning, no words at all.  And with that I missed my start. Well sort of.  I was on the line. In maybe the right lane, since no one told me other wise.  However the gun went off before my poles were even on!  Amateur hour, I know.  I got the straps on and hustled off after the group of 25 or so rapidly double poling girls.  We had a little up hill corner not far into the start and I knew no matter what it was going to cluster up there badly.  I took the corner calmly because I knew that the rest of the course was open and wide enough for me to make up any lost ground.  I took the very outside and just hammered.  I even had to make some coaches move out of my way, silly coaches standing half way out into the trail.  Suddenly I had moved from last into the lead group of girls and thought it was the perfect place for me to hang out.

With the mass start format we shoot the first stage in an assigned lane.  I stopped at point 24 and the other girls filed into points 1-3.  Exile the american!!!  I missed one, and took off out on course in a good spot.  I kept moving through the field and came into shoot my second prone stage in probably 4th or 5th.  I took some time and cleaned!  Awesome!  I hauled out onto course stoked.  I skied all the way into 2nd for our first standing stage!  HOORAH! yes?

then I missed 4… 4!  oh billy!  Yep standing is not looking good right now.  I skied my penalty loops and took off once again, back in the role of chase, chase chasing, chase chase chase.  The fourth stage went only slightly better, I missed three.  but I fought as hard as I could.  So 8 penalties. 7 in standing…  You can’t win with that.  But the high light was how well the first half (more than half) of the race went!  Still not good, but a whole hell of a lot of awesome took place today.  Just a little glimpse of what could be.  Oh the what if’s!