Update from Adele at Fairbanks

I got an update from Adele last night. She is in Fairbanks, straight from JO's, and is participating in Distance Nationals this week. She finished 4th on Tuesday, beating many of America's best! Here are some of her comments on the race:

HI Morgan, I'm using my mom's email right now to email you.

I'm in Fairbanks right now. Just watched the team sprints that I didn't race in. I've been coughing a lot from asthma and being sick last week, and then yesterday's race resulted in a bunch of coughing too, so my rib cage is pretty soar. I decided to not race in the team sprint because there were too many opportunities for me to cough. I don't want to brake one again. I guess it's a good thing to rest up for the next long distance races. My next one is on the 27th, a 15km pursuit, and then the 29th, a 30km classic. I'm so excited to race.

Yesterday's race, the 5km classic, was the best race of my skiing life so far! It was a strange experience. I started out close to the beginning since my points up until that point weren't good enough to get me into the "A"seed. The course went up a hill and then winded down and then started to climb for a bit. I started passing all these juniors who had started before me and I thought to myself,"I'm doing well, but I really need to pick it up since the competition is all behind me." So I kept pushing harder and harder and harder and harder. I was going as hard as possible and wasn't feeling a thing, no pain, no fatigue, I even felt like I was not going hard enough and I couldn't figure out why I "couldn't get on top of the speed." The next section of the course winded down a long, long downhill and then it started going up a pretty good hill. This is where I had decided to go for it. It was pretty much all uphill into the stadium, so I kept pushing harder and harder and still didn't feel like I was going nearly fast enough to make it into the top 20. I double poled through the finish, saliva flying out of my mouth and I collapsed at the finish line, so I figured I had gone pretty hard. I didn't taste that iron blood taste during the race, but I had noticed that whenever I came into the open spectators came running over to me and started screaming and cheering. I didn't know why.

I happened to glance at my watch when I finished, and then looked at it when others started finishing after me. It was weird because I was convinced that I hadn't had a good race, but my time seemed to be better than a lot of other people. That still didn't convince me, so I went on my cool down since I really didn't want to see the results. I tried to figure out where in the course I could have raced harder, realized that I need to work on my downhill corners, and then I ran into Morgan Arritola and Taz Mannix from the USST. They started congratulating me like something really great had happened. I was totally confused until they said that I had gotten 4th overall in the race. I honestly didn't believe it at first. It was really exciting seeing that I had beaten Liz Stephen, Morgan Arritola, Rosie Brennan, Linsday Dehlin, Taz Mannix, Caitlin Compton...

So I guess how you feel in a race doesn't always tell the truth!

It's cold here, warmed up today a bit, but it feels like the dead of winter! Very comforting to know the snow will stick around for a bit longer.

Hope all is well in Maine! How's the skiing now? Any snow left?
I'll stay in touch,Adele.
P.S. Sorry about the length of the email, I didn't mean to write a novel.Hehehehehehehehe!