Alayna checking in post tour - pre Period 3 world cups

Alayna here

Alayna getting ready to start.

After a fun period 1 of World Cup racing in Europe, I was excited to be selected to race in my third Tour de Ski. After the Davos World Cup, I traveled over to Toblach, Italy for a week of rest, a little training, and Christmas celebration. I was joined by my parents, brother, and boyfriend, making it a very nice week all together. It had been four years since I'd spent Christmas with any family so I really felt the love of having everyone come join me in Europe. The day after Christmas, I moved out of my parents apartment and into the USST hotel just down the road for the start of the Tour de Ski. 

Finish line hugs with teammates Jessie and Julia.

This year, the tour started in Toblach with four stages in five days, followed by three more stages in Val di Fiemme, Italy. Typically, the tour travels across three countries in nine days, so this condensed geographical tour was slightly different from the norm but a treat for the athletes who really take a beating during the mid-Tour travel days. The first day of the Tour was a skate sprint and ended up being an exciting one for the entire team. Jessie took home the win and Ben had a great day as well. Personally, I had a career-best result! I qualified 25th and selected to race in quarterfinal four. I had qualified 17th in Davos a few weeks prior and learned a few things in the quarterfinal - I needed to be more assertive from the start of the race. So in Toblach, I went out as hard as I could and was focused on any opportunity that came my way. About 600 meters into the race, a small window opened for me and I took it. I slotted into 4th place and continued to move back and forth between 3rd and 5th place and did everything I could to make space for myself over the 1.5k course. In the finishing stretch, I really brought as much power as I could and crossed the line in 4th place, less than a second out from the win.

Overall, this brought me to 19th place overall, my first top 20 result on the World Cup. It was a really amazing way to start the Tour and it was so fun to show off in front of my family! I didn't have too much time to celebrate because the next day, we were back at it with a 15k classic mass start. Overall, I was hoping for this race to go a bit better for me, but was feeling the effort from the day before. I gave it everything I could and was ready to move on. The next day was a rest day so we spent some time inspecting the 20k skate course for the following day. This course was something that had never been used in the Tour, it was a point-to-point loop that started and ended in the Toblach stadium but climbed up to the valley to the historical viewpoint of the Tre Cime. 

Alayna surrounded by family - from the left - Anders (Brother), Jill (Mom), and Steve (Dad).

It was a pretty epic individual start course. Unfortunately, it wasn't as spectacular of a day as I was hoping for, just barely missing a draft ride on the trek back down to the stadium. This was probably a sign for me that things weren't quite right for me. I woke up the next morning feeling absolutely exhausted. Of course I should be tired at this point in the Tour, I was expecting that. But this felt like a different type of exhaustion. I went out to test skis for the classic 15k pursuit that day and while skiing, felt fuzzy in the head and slightly feverish. In the moment, it was difficult for me to distinguish these feelings from "Tour tired's" but ultimately made the decision to remove myself from the start list. I went back to the hotel to lay down and quickly realized that the fever was real and my body was fighting off some sort of sickness.

This was a huge bummer and not a fun way to end the Tour. Overall though, it was such an incredible way to START the Tour and I was hanging on to that. I spent the rest of the week in the hotel while the team traveled on to Val di Fiemme. It was hard to watch the races from the TV but I cheered for the team as loud as I could from afar. After about a week of recovery, I started feeling much more like myself and rejoined the team for a training camp in Livigno, Italy.

Right now we are in Les Rousses, France for the next World Cups and I'm looking forward to building on the success from Period 1 and the Tour de Ski for more great racing!

Alayna

Alayna skating to her best race results!!

Team Birkie: Let’s go Alayna!