Hello Soo Finnish Nordic Members and all others,

It has been an eventful couple of weeks since I last wrote. The Canadian Senior National Championships have come and gone and I still don't know what my marks are from the first semester.

The Nationals were held at Highlands Nordic Ski Centre close to the small town of Duntroon. The weather was beautiful when we first arrived by plane so I should of went skiing right away because the rest of the week's weather wasn't so great. The trails were kept in top shape throughout the week so racing was good though. There were four races held starting on Jan 19th to the 24th. The first race was a 30km classic. I tend to do better at classic races and 30km is a perfect distance for me. Things didn't go as planned. The wax was tricky for getting grip and I didn't feel that great so I ended up 18th 10 minutes off the lead. The fact that 3rd place was 7 minutes off the lead didn't make me feel quite as bad. Lee Churchill had a great race and finished 4th only 4 seconds back of Robin Mckeever. Tough break for Lee.

The second race was an exciting one. It was a relay day and Soo Finnish Nordic was having a club relay team entered. Brady started, Adam was second and I anchored. Brady covered his first 10km skate leg very intelligently as he started slowly and finished strong coming in as the 4th finisher just ahead of Phil Villeneuve. Adam also skiing a tactical race and stuck to Karl Saidla like glue and made up time on all the other teams ending up with the fifth fastest time of the day. For my leg I was tied for fourth with Chris Jefferies and we started hard trying to catch third place teams of Alberta and Quebec. We started hard but we didn't catch them and I started to feel my quick start and Chris ended up beating me by 20 seconds to the finish. Soo Finnish Nordic was the only club team in the Top 5. All the other teams were Provincial teams so be proud of our little club.

On the 23rd was the first half of a pursuit race. The weather was rainy but luckily it was a 10km skate so we didn't have mess around with grip wax. This was my best race of the championship and my first individual top ten at Senior Nationals. I finished up 8th, only 1 minute 30 seconds down of the leader Chris Blanchard. Chris Jefferies was 6th, Karl Saidla was 9th and Dan Roycroft was 10th. That was the first time that NTDC has put 4 people in the top ten at Nationals. Brady and Adam also had great races finnishing 12th and 13th.

The 24th was another dismal day but this time we had to deal with the grip. My skis were iffy but I felt great and I ended up tenth putting in my second individual top 10 seniors. Lee Churchill was 11th and Karl Saidla was 15th.

I would say that these seniors were a success for NTDC, Soo Finnish Nordic and myself. It's nice to be able to say that because those were the biggest races of the year. My next races are Feb 6th and 7th in Giants Ridge Minn. They are continental cup races and hopefully they will be very competitive.

See you later,
Chad Yurich