Last Weekend was full of racing and cold weather. We started the week with what was supposed to be a 30km pursuit on Friday which ended up being moved to Monday due to arctic temps. On Saturday we had a skate sprint which was bitter cold, you could here the snow squeak every time you poled and barely glided forward. For me those are extremely hard conditions to ski, because the snow is so slow in makes the racing even more muscular which doesn’t favour me at all. I skipped the next race on Sunday because it was a skating 15km and if anyone knows me they know that race is not for me. On Monday was the 30km pursuit which I was looking forward to because the pursuit is a fun race and it is the qualification race for the pursuit in whistler in two weeks. I had a tuff night sleep and I did not feel well at all in the morning or through out the day. I tried my best to hang in as long as I could but I could not stay with the leaders past the classic part of the race. Unfortunately that means I will be watching the 30km pursuit in whistler. Then came Tuesday the final race of the weekend and my favourite, the classic sprint. When I am on form I feel pretty confident that I can one day climb the podium on the world cup, so I used this race as my warm up to whistler and to really try dominate the qualifier. Which I managed to do quite well. In the heats I was moving through quite easily till the A final where I tried something new and it back fired, I ended up coming in 4th. But I know where I stand and I was happy to try something new because you never know if it might make the difference on that special day.
That Tuesday night was a dreadful night for me I grabbed my hockey skates to join the rest of the ski gang on the rink to play a some good old Canadian pond hockey. In the end I wish I never found my skates but that is in the past and I have to look forward. Once I lased up I was on the ice skating and passing the puck waiting for the rest of the guys to show up. I took a pass and went to make a turn, my skate hits a rut and I go down. I landed funny on my left arm and herd a weird sound. Boom I knew something was not right. I hope through the night it nothing major but only get 1 hour of sleep proved that I was in pain. After some physio and x-ray’s thing where not looking to good. Talking to our team doctor and shoulder specialist it looks like I have a tiny fracture where my tendon meets the bone in the my shoulder. It was extremely hard to take the news because this means no whistler world cups… I thought to myself this cant be happing, I have been looking forward to showing the world what I can do on our home course in whistler. My goal was to make the A final and challenge for the podium.
Now I will be staying at home and working with our medical team extremely hard to get me back in the game in time to join the team to head over to Europe and prep for the world championships in February.
Good thing i have Postive family / friends / and team behind me
I have to move forward positively and not think of what I could have done to prevent this. I have just around one month and 11 days to get myself back into race shape. Luckily I can still ski and keep my self in shape that way, I will be skiing with only one pole as the other one mends it self quickly I hope. Wish me a speedy recovery so we can rock the world champs as Canada has had the most amazing start to a season and I am sure the men and woman will prove to rock more result at the Callaghan.
Stefan
