This pastweekend the BSF squad was able to compete at the CXC Regional Championship races at Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis. As a Minnesota native, I was really excited to have the opportunity to race on my home trails again for the first time in over five years.

The Regional Championship event consisted of three days of racing- the first day being a night SkiX sprint. This wasn’t your typical Nordic sprint, as it included uphill slaloms, sharp turns, jumps, and some fun berms. The race was pretty challenging, as you had to balance your efforts between sprinting reall yhard but also saving enough energy to get through the obstacles. I think that incorporating more events like this into the normal ski racing circuit would be agreat idea. These kinds of events not only entice people to try skiing but are also super fun to spectate and draw great attention to our sport.

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Saturday’s race was a Classic 10k for both men and women. With the warm spring temperatures, it was a full on klister day for all of us which was fun since we don’t get too many of those out west. We had some great results with a full BSF sweep on the men’s side (Finn in 1st, Logan in 2nd, and Graham in 3rd). Lauren finished with a great race in 4th, and I was 6th.

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Our last race of the weekend was a Skate 10k individual start. As the temperatures started to drastically climb throughout the weekend, the race organizers moved Sunday’s race to earlier in the morning. This made for a very early 8:00AM start for our boys. Although the temps were nearing upper 40’s, the snow conditions held up decently and we were all able to get in some solid racing.

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All in all, it was a great weekend of racing and also a great chance to prepare for spring series which are coming up soon! Thanks to the Loppet Foundation and to all of the race organizers for putting on such a great event!

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-Hannah

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