Heather Mooney: Minneapolis JOs and Craftsbury Mini Tour

We just got back from Junior Olympics in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and it was a totally different experience from any other JOs I've been to! All of the athletes stayed in one hotel in the city, and each day we took school buses to the venue to ski. There is a really cool system of skyways there, so in our free time we could wander through the city without even going outside! We skied at Theodore Wirth park, which is a golf course that they built ski trails on a couple years ago. The courses were all really fun, and challenging, so we had a great week of racing! Thanks to all of the volunteers who worked so hard to put together such a seamless event!

Our first race was the skate sprint on Monday. Normally, on sprint days we race a prelim in the morning, and then have heats around 12 or 1. But this time, we had our prelim in the afternoon, and then had heats under the lights!! It was really fun to race in the dark! Team New England started off the week well- we won the J2 boys, J1 girls and OJ boys! And to top it off, we swept the J1 girls podium 1-5 with me, Corey, Cam, Tara and Rachel. Next we had a 10k classic mass start, then the skate 5k and finally the 3x3k classic relay. I came in 3rd and 2nd in the two individual races, and our relay team won. I was on a relay with Cam and Corey, which was the same team, and the same result that we had as J2s at JOs in Truckee. New England did well the entire week, and took home the Alaska Cup for the third year in a row! Also, our team made our season goal by winning the Roger Weston Award for boys and girls, and the overall club award!

This past weekend we went to Craftsbury for their spring mini tour. It was beautiful weather the whole weekend, and the skiing was fabulous! We had a classic prologue on Friday, then a 15k pursuit on Saturday, and a 10k skate handicap start on Sunday. There were also night sprints on Saturday night, where we went in heats of two, the winner moving on, until there were only four left in the final. I made it to the final, and raced against Sophie, Ida and Rachel. I came in second, behind Ida, and earned a 10 second time bonus on my start for the next day. It was very fast and icy, but it was really fun! We ended the weekend with a delicious barbecue and sugar on snow at the Outdoor Center. Thanks to Craftsbury for putting on a great weekend! Now we're resting up before we leave for Spring Series in Sun Valley next week!!!

There were a lot of photographers at JOs, so here's a link to see all of their pictures: http://www.jo2011.com/photos-and-video.