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!