Our Home Race

Racing on your home course in an interesting experience where you get the opportunity to see how much support surrounds you. When we travel to our other conference races we get to experience that team comradery of working together to make dinner, and sharing a room with your fellow teammates. While the nights before your home race seem quite the day that follows is the exact opposite. 

At your home race there is the opportunity for spectators. Nordic skiing, particularly Nordic skiing in America, doesn't draw much of a crowd. Sure there are a few parents that take a weekend trip, or the families of citizen racers that stand along the course, but at your home race there are spectators there for you and your team. 

It's always interesting to see the crowd that follows people to their home race. There are the parents proud to see their child racing in college. The dorm roommate that doesn't quite know what's going on, but is sure to cheer loud. Even once there were members of the UW triathlon team yelling as we skied by, because they could sympathize with not being a spectator sport. 

In 2020 our home race drew a whole new crowd. Since the SUS program was created through the Kinesiology and Health Department we had a small showing of faculty and other SUS masters students that found themselves bundled up on Happy Jack's trails to watch a sport they had never seen before. Being in the craziness that came with adding ten brand new skiers to a team often made you blind to what was happening outside of that bubble. It was hard to see what we were creating when we were so deep inside, but that weekend I caught a glimpse. 

The picture above shows our whole family we created. SUS and UW joined together to create a new, one of a kind, team. One of the Kinesiology faculty members took the picture as parents, citizen races, students, UW and SUS alike, cheered for what we had made. Such a hodgepodge of people from all different background yet we all had found this home that connected us together. Seeing the team and the support system that surrounds us is sometimes hard to do, but it becomes so highlighted at a home race. 

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Author

Madison Tinker