Back to the racing

Since I am still on the ski team I traveled up to Elm creek to do a team time trail. It was in the duathalon format. For the guys a 7.5km classic then switch skis and do the same on skate skis. The girls did 5km of each. I was quite lucky that I had my wind block long underwear, that stuff is amazing, without it I would have frozen. Anyways I am mildly pleased with my results, my classic skis were not as fast as the others, but regardless I was able to stick with Nels until the last downhill into the transition zone. So I ended up second in classic, skate ended up not going quite so well. My skis were fine, but my calves cramped up soon after starting. Not much I could do besides keep going so thats what I did. I lost a bit of time to Nels and Ollie (who decided to join in the fun, he is the coach). Jens almost caught me, near the end, I saw him coming and decided he was not going to pass me so I took off. Found my 5th gear if you will. It was great, he went from being 5 or so seconds behind me to being 20ish in the last .5 km of racing. It is comforting to know that if I want to I can do that.
Overall I finished second of the racers on the team, this makes me happy and baffles me at the same time. Happy since the top 3 or 4 are going out to Colorado. But I have hardly been training for skiing, I have not rollerskied once this year, nor lifted. Counting Yellowstone I've skied less then 15 time, and without Yellowstone I think the total days on snow is 4 or 5. For me to beat people who have been ski specific training since last spring is quite strange. I think the debate of whether biking helps skiing is over, it for sure helps. Fun.
The real test will come next week when we go up to Mt. Itasca. Hopefully I will do even better!
Pictures maybe to come later.

Also I just saw to cardinals outside, I thought those were warm weather birds, or?