Just got done with an awesome workout here in Zermatt! Had a pretty relaxed schedule today and thought it would be good to get the blood pumping before hitting the snow tomorrow. Time to go get some dinner and make sure everythings squared away before morining!

Zermatt!!!

 The view that greeted me from my hotel room... Not so bad!! Can't wait to get back on snow with my canadian friends Michel Pratte and Matt Kerr!!!

Summer Time is Almost Over!

Well it has been an eventful summer to say the least! I've been working 12-15 hour days seal coating asphalt, Working out as much as possible, and trying to get as much playing around as I can in whatever time is left! (I have really gotten into trail riding on my dirtbike this summer, and have been all over the twenty-some miles of single-track trails that cover the mountain behind my house. It's a pretty good workout and a ton of fun!) All the nagging injuries that I acquired over the course of last season have subsided, allowing me to hit the gym really hard and frequently with no concerns of aggravating any joints or tendons. I'm feeling stronger than ever!  For now the game plan is to stay the course, and try to maximize efficiency for the short amount of time I have left at home before heading to Switzerland later this month. I will be back skiing with my Canadian friends whom I trained with for years before making the Development Team in 2010. I'm looking forward to getting back on snow!! 

The long and winding road!

US Nationals in Winter Park, CO did not go exactly as planned this year. The SL race was first on the schedule and the weather was great, so how could it be anything but a good day right? I started 45th first run and threw it into the flip with a 25th place finish. I was happy with the time, but inflamed my patella tendon about half way down the first pitch and was having trouble putting weight on it in-between runs. That said, there was no way I could pass up a clean course starting 6th! So, I warmed up the knee as best I could at the start line and went with it. Not a bad plan, but about 20 seconds into the run my lower back started to seize up and spasm on every right footer, progressively getting worse with each turn. By the last 15 gates or so I was having trouble breathing and felt it was all I could do to make it down on my feet. I ended up taking third on the run, which I was excited about, and scoring by .12 of a point. Not a huge victory but I guess anything helps! I couldn't bend over past about 60 degrees the following day, and elected to head home early to start therapy and try to get ready for spring series.

Between getting out of the car like an 80 year old man every 20 minutes to stretch a spasming back on the side of the highway and blowing my engine 400 miles from home, the 17 hr drive was quite interesting and slightly longer than I had hoped. Long story short I made it home, got a few days of therapy in at Pneu Thera Rehabilitation, picked up my bro Nick Krause from the airport in Spokane and drove to Wenatchee, WA for spring series! I am skipping the SG race today, but hopefully everything feels good tomorrow morning so I can go shred some SL!

What can I say, it's the East!

Well, it hasn't exactly been a ski racer's dream week up here in Le Massif, Quebec. The first two days of DH training were canceled due to warm weather, poor visibility, and a lovely, early morning lightning storm over the mountains. After that, Mother Nature completely made up for her apathetic view towards the previous days races with perfect weather conditions; blue skys, and 75 degree temperatures. What a mess! We got a training run off, but everything that wasn't salted turned to slush by 8 A.M.

                         This was taken by my long time buddy Andrew Kircher at 7:30 A.M. during inspection. (Note that the sun is already pounding on the entire slope.)

The race day was somewhat of a let-down for me. I was starting 11th, had skied really well in the training run the day before(finishing 5th,) and was really pumped up to be getting another race opportunity in speed. I had a pretty solid run and was in fourth after 16 people came down. Then, after a decently long course hold, they canceled the race due to rocks showing up in the track. Even though there was nothing anybody could have done to avoid this, I was still pretty upset. I haven't scored yet this year in DH, and letting any opportunities slip by in speed is really a waste. Fortunately I get a few more shots at the end of the season, so it's not over yet!

The organizers thought we might be able to run GS on the hill a few days later, but none of us were convinced when we got off the lift the next day...

                                     This was a cat-track the day before. I'll give the coverage an A-.
                                                               (photo by A. Kircher)

Now I have a few days of training before two SL races just down the road at Mt. St. Anne. It is still super warm out, and is supposed to rain tonight, so we'll see what the morning brings! Hopefully it will feel a little more like winter in Canada!

Quebec!

Today the team and I drove up to Quebec, Canada from Stowe, VT. Under normal circumstances, this drive is from 6 to 7 hrs in length. Not too bad, but no small venture to be sure. After 8 hrs crammed into the back seat of a pick-up truck loaded to the brim with gear, I found myself approximately three miles closer to my destination than I had been four hours prior... I can't stand traffic!! I was frustrated for the first few hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway outside of Quebec city, but then realized that wasn't helping the situation in the slightest. So instead I deigned myself to enjoying the wonderful scenery, sounds and aromas of the area in which I was a temporary captive... Tail lights, horns, compression brakes, and diesel exhaust.. Back to being frustrated.

 Long story short we found our way to the quaint little hotel we are to call home for the next 9 days and had a great french dinner before settling in. I went on a run after dinner and hit a 5:09 mile on the way out with a 6 minute average for the whole loop. Feeling pretty good!! (That said, I might have to get back to you on how great I feel tomorrow morning..)

Tomorrow is a free skiing day, but after that it's 5 days of straight DH at low elevation! Pretty excited for that!! (Low elevation might seem like a moot point, but I have to say it is wonderful when you don't feel like passing out at the bottom of a 2 minute course because there is no oxygen in the air. ;) I'll keep you posted on how the week goes!     

First Time For Everything!

The SG race here in Rocarraso, Italy was a very interesting one for me. I knew what I wanted to do in inspection, got in a great warm-up on other parts of the mountain, visualized a ton, was confident going to the start, and ended up making a few stupid mistakes. I wasn't moving into the ski the way I have been recently. The power cultivated in the top of the turn is what seperates the good skiers from the great ones, and without it one cannot hope to compete. That said, at the end of the day I was still 25th out of all the juniors(19 and under) in the world. I know I ski well enough to compete at this level and that I belong here; that is what I am taking home with me.

The evening after the race we all headed into town for the awards ceremony to cheer on the days victors. Good sportmanship is important in these international events, and we were definitely not going to miss a chance to show our good will. OF COURSE we didn't go there to see all the beautiful, blonde-haired Norwegian girls standing in the crowd, not a chance! But somehow after the event was over we found ourselves walking to dinner with 6 girls instead of going back to our hotel with our coaches. I wasn't complaining! We walked around town for an hour looking for a restaurant that opened before 10 pm (it being 7:15 at the time) until we finally came to the agreement that our time was better spent getting take-out pizza and eating it at the girls hotel. You might hear, "take-out" pizza and cringe a little bit, but let me tell you it's a little bit different than Pizza Hut! I think I could live of the stuff if I ever got stranded in an Italian restaurant for a few months.. Not bad at all!

Anyways, after that adventure we headed to a restaurant where all my German, Austrian, and Swiss buddies were celebrating the days success.  Around 11 o'clock the waiters came out and moved all the tables into another room: the DJ got into place around 11:05, and the party got started soon there after. I won't go into details, but lets just say that when we got out of there at around 1:30 am things were still on an upward plane on the dance floor. ;) There had to be a couple hundred people crammed into the space eight tables had taken up earlier in the night and a line out the door of people trying to squeeze their way in. Absolutely nuts!! We got a ride the 5ks home with the Austrian Ski Team, and thank goodness because I was not really looking forward to that walk at two in the morning! I got to my room and started snoring before my head hit the pillow. Pretty sweet first euro-club experience!


Now we have 3 days off before the GS race, and one more before the SL. The GS spot went to my buddy Tanner Farrow after training today, but hopefully I can get the SL nailed down. It would be pretty bumpy, but I would love to see where I stack up! We'll see how it all plays out, but either way I'm getting a lot of good freeskiing in and having a blast with it! But of course, how could I not? ;)    

World Juniors DH

Today was the World Juniors Down Hill race here in Rocarasso, Italy. The last three days of DH training/racing have been awesome weather. 60 degrees and Sunshine all day long. Sure doesn't feel like winter!

Last night was the bib draw for the DH race today. Here's how it works:  The top 15 ranked racers (I was ranked 16th) get to choose any number 1-30.  Then the next 15 are drawn at random and fill in the vacant numbers up to 30. All 30 of us were standing in a group to the side of the stage as we were called up one by one. The top 15 guys picked the top 15 bibs because of the soft snow and the fast deteriorating conditions racer by racer. My name was drawn and I got number 30. Not exactly prime placement, but you take what you get try to make the best of it.

I skied the super-steep top turns like a champ,(I hadn't skied them the way I wanted to up to this point,) went off the jump perfectly on edge with good weighting and landed exactly where I wanted to, then hit the huge bumps that took out a large percentage of the field starting after #20 and got punched low. I fought it and threw it down into the next gate but caught the bumps there as well which put me extremely low and in slush/sluff coming into the compression right footer onto the flats. I almost went to the outside pannel of the second gate of that double, then almost missed the first left gate of the double off the jump.. I had to slide it on the perfectly flat takeoff to get the direction I needed for the gate following, and entered the 35 seconds of flats without speed. Over all I skied great but was still pissed of course when I got to the bottom. I ended up 29th at 2.7 out.. I'm looking forward to SG tomorrow though! Hopefully it holds up!

Roma!!!

Well it sure isn't Atlanta! I flew into Rome at around 7am and found myself back in the Euro land of chaos. No structured lines in the airport, just a free-for-all to get through customs. Gosh I've missed Italy. ;) After getting out of the airport and dropping my stuff off at our hotel, My friend and team-mate Rob Cone and I headed out into the city to tourist it up for a day. What a beautiful city! Everywhere I looked there was another piece of history to catch my eye. Looking at some of the colossal structures it is almost inconcievable they were built 3000 years ago. We walked around downtown Rome for about 7 hrs before catching a train the 30 Kilometers or so back to our hotel. After a sleepless night on an airplane and all that walking I could barely keep my eyes open; I passed out almost instantly upon arrival to the room and slept like a baby for 12 hours. :)

The next day was spent driving up to the mountain where the races are to take place. It is supposedly a 2 hr trip under normal conditions, but extremely high winds forced us to relinquish our time table and sit on a mountain pass for 3 and a half hours waiting for the weather to abate. In the end we made it up to our hotel and got settled in without any further hindrances.

 Today we went up and freeskied the mountain for a few hours in the morning before coming back to the hotel to get ready for the first DH training day tomorrow. Beautiful weather and solid snow up there.. I think it's going to be a great trip!   

Here is a picture of the Colosseum. Its huge!!  (Pic. credit to Tanner Farrow. copyright 2012;)

Taking a Break.

Well, Aspen was an interesting series for me all in all. I skied really well and was happy with my performance, but didn't get the results in DH that I had hoped for. That said my results were still enough to get me a spot for the World Junior Championship in Italy next week, and for that I am very excited!

The day after the last DH race in Aspen, I flew in to Washinton DC for a week of R&R with my family. I basically just hung out the first day, playing tourist, taking in some sights, and visiting friends in the area, then hopped in the rental car and drove out to Bryce Mt. Resort in Western Virginia to visit the local ski team. What a great group of people! I got to ski/train with all the kids one morning, and got to race NASTAR with them both days. It's awesome to see so many youth athletes out racing on a little mountain with 500 ft of vertical. The resort really does a great job of reaching out to families and getting kids on snow young. I wish there were more places like that elsewhere.. The sport sure would be better for it in the long haul! I had a great time and really enjoyed working with all the kids and seeing all my family's old friends.

Now I have a few days back here in DC to get organized and hang out with my big brother before heading over to Italy on the 25th! Pretty excited!!

   

SPEED!!!!

I'm just getting ready to head off to bed after the first DH race day here in Aspen, Colorado. The SG races went off smoothly and despite making mistakes I still managed to pull two scores out of them. I'm skiing really fast right now but in a high level field like this there is no room for error. Today was scheduled to be the second DH training day but due to large amounts of weather on the raidar the race was bumped up and the second training run eliminated. I skied well all in all but definitely have some spots to "clean up" in the DH tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see what I can pull off! 

Oh and I forgot to mention that you may now comment on my posts!! There was something preventing it previously, but no more. :) Feel free to ask any questions or say hey!

Gettin' Back into It!

Well, after two weeks of no training I can definitely say that I felt a little bit rusty coming into these NORAM tech races. The first runs in each event werent exactly things of beauty, but every time I went out the gate things got better and better. The races were held in Vail, CO, so I knew the hill really well from all the Novembers I've spent training there. It's a great one! All in all I was happy with the progress I made durring the week and am SOO excited to be here in Aspen getting ready for some speed!!

Despite the busy, raceday schedule, I did find some time to go have fun with some buds freeskiing. We messed around in the park in speedsuits and shinguards inbetween runs, earning some interesting looks from all the park dudes in their baggy getup. It's been so long since I've done that I almost forgot how much fun it is! Here's a shot my buddy Tucker Marshal got one of the days. Pretty cool!

The College Life

I left home a few days ago for the last time of the season! Pretty exciting, but it does make me feel like the year is flying by and there isn't a lot of time left to accomplish the rest of my goals... which is somewhat depressing, until I consider this is a 3 month adventure at which point I suddenly see all sorts of opportunities popping up.  :) I stopped in to visit my sister at College on the way down here to Vail, CO to experience the REAL college life. You see, every time I have gone to visit her previously it has been over a weekend. From that perspective I could totally see why somebody would pay so much money per year to go to school! However, all my dreams and hopes for the future were shattered by what I found on the weekdays. Up at 5:30 to go to ROTC physical training, then its off to class to study fluid dynamics and other crazy stuff till 1800. Then the day gets pretty easy and consists of relaxing at the dining room table in a foldable deck chair doing homework. =P Sounds great to me!! Anyways, I am moving forward into my ski career with renewed vigor and am very excited to see how the ankle does in the NORAM Tech races here in the next few days!  

Back in time

A few days ago I went up skiing with my Dad and one of the young athletes on our ski team. It was windy, and snowing, but the three of us set up ropes and a GS course on the NASTAR trail reguardless. Dad and I would slip each run trying to keep the course trainable in the soft snow, and she would ski the course, get her feedback from her run, then work on things all the way down to the lift. It took me back to all the days spent training with just Dad and I. Whatever the conditions good or bad we would train and find a way to make it work. I can remember setting Slalom in 12 inches of new on top of soft groomed and training on it all day. It was pretty interesting occasionally but definitely worth every bit of the time and I wouldn't trade those memories for anything! It was fun to see someone else getting the same experience and eating it up! Hopefully in the future this will be as fond of a memory for her as it is for me.

On the move!

Well, I'm home!! I woke up one morning in Solden and was told we were calling it due to weather and we would be hitting the road in a hour and a half. So here I am 29 hrs of traveling later sitting in my living room playing guitar and hanging out with the family. It is always great to come home, and I am so looking forward to skiing at my home area, Schweitzer Mt. Resort, this weekend. I hear its been dumping so we will see if I get any formal training or just have to put up with pow skiing!! Either way I'll take it! The ankle is doing a lot better and hopefully will be back to 100% here in the next few days!

The view from my porch this mornin' :)

Home Away From Home!

Well, I've had two great days of Slalom races in the past week, and one not so great day of GS that took me right back here to the US Ski Team home base in Solden, AUT for a few days off skis. I took a pretty sweet digger a little ways into a GS run in Kirchberg, AUT the day before yesterday and bent my ankle a little bit further than it was designed to. It swelled up a bit, creased the plastic on the cuff of my boot, and kept me from running the night Slalom in Westendorf, Austria that I was very much looking forward to. I was pretty bummed, but what can you do? I am skiing really well in Slalom right now which is something to be happy about, and am stoked to figure out GS before getting home to the NORAMS in Colorado the first week of February!

I went to the gym today and had an awesome workout with my buddy and fellow D-Teamer Brian Mclaughlin! Gettin' huge!! With this all this time in my hands right now I figure it would be a shame not to put it to good use!

This is a photo of Kirchberg, AUT, the site of the GS race.

Racin'!!!

We left Solden and our home base there yesterday for another Oberjoch adventure, and thankfully this time it was a racing one! The last few days of training were invaluable preparation for this block of 5 days straight of racing. The snow was pretty solid and the weather was beautiful if not freezing, windy and somewhat miserable to be lapping in wearing only a speed suit. All in all great stuff!! Tonight was a night SL here in Oberjoch, Germany and my first ever. I threw in some cross country action on the first run and ended up starting DFL second run (if you were wondering that means last.) I skied really well and was over all very pleased with my performance. We just got back to the hostel now and I am so beat!! Can’t wait to get some sleep!  


Jan 15, 2012

Back on course!

Yesterday was the first sunny day we've had since coming over here 10 days ago, so we took full advantage. We had a 30 second course up with timing and got to lap it basically as many times as our legs could take! I was right in there time wise and am excited about my skiing right now. Can't wait to get back into some races!!

                                         Copyright Nick Krause Photography
                                 Here is a shot from the top of the lift taken by my man Nick Krause on his i-phone. Amazing technology in phones these days!!

The Alternate Training Option

Well, after 3 days here in Solden, AUT we still haven't had a day of scheduled training. However, no scheduled training doesn't meant that we aren't getting just as much out of this time as we would be in gates. The coaches decided to employ the "Alternate Training Option" for this week, and I think it is working out wonderfully! The powder skiing has been fantastic and the snow just keeps on coming! I spent all day yesterday skiing awesome lines with my overgrown buddy Bryce Bennet and had a blast! Coming from the land of heavy snow, it was pretty sweet to drop a 20 foot cliff and not even feel the impact upon landing. I could get used to this!! But alas, good times end tomorrow with training up on the glacier. What a hard life... I guess I'll just have to find some way to cope!

Flippin awesome!

Yesterday we had a leisurely morning then got in the vans and traveled from Oberjoch, Germany to Solden, Austria. It was a whiteout blizzard and due to the slick roads, the lack of street signs over here, and our lack of directions, it took an extra hour and a half to cover the last 3 miles.  A large part of that was the golf cart sized drive that leads 300 yards through a field to the hotel. We went from ditch to ditch shoveling and pushing alternately, as the van slid around in the 60 mph winds whipping the snow off the banks next to the road. Once we were settled in, had dinner, and were in warm dry clothes, we looked outside and all thought the same thing. “Lets build a booter on that hill over there and hit it in the dark!” It was pretty awesome! We built it where there was about 50 feet of landing zone before the hill flattened out, plenty of distance, and where the wind had blown in a lot of snow(It had to be 3 or 4 feet deep in spots.)  Tanner, the crazy kid on the D team, threw a double back flip and stomped it which inspired me to give it a whirl. (I’ve never gone inverted before on skis unless by accident, so I thought I would go for trying a single back flip and leave it there for the time being.) I was honestly pretty nervous standing at the top of the run-in looking down at the dark silhouette of the jump, framed by the parking lot lights illuminating the landing. But what does worrying about it do? So I went for it. The first three times weren’t that pretty, ill just say that. Got the wind knocked out of me a little bit, but other than that it was like landing in a foam pit. The fourth time was closer, and the fifth time I crushed it and was so pumped!  I have always wanted to do one, but hadn’t to this point found the right time and place. Who would have thought it would be Austria during a racing trip! Looking forward to more such excitement the next few days!

Back in Europe!

I flew into Munich yesterday morning and then drove to this lovely spot where the team was supposed to have a race today. It was canceled, due to the rain and poor visibility, which leaves me typing this from a comfy chair with a great view of the northern Alps here in Oberjoch, Germany next to a fireplace with a cup of tea while staring out at the rain. Life could be a lot worse! While waiting at the startline for the jury to make a decision I was delighted to see one of my good Austrian buddies that I know from Whistler Cup when I was 14, Christian Juffinger. We ended up freeskiing together for a while and had a great time. Now that I am back at the hostel, I'm about to go work out and grab a bite to eat before going out and exploring the town!