A Wild Ride

Over the last two weeks I’ve had one of the craziest rides in my ski racing career. Here is a brief recap:

- Blow my back out on Thanksgiving, crawl into Howard Head Sports Medicine and Alpine Chiropractic
- Receive the Hail Mary of treatment from both places, able to ski 48 hours later in opening NorAms of the season with a back brace and mainlining Advil
- Write Sasha Rearick, Men's Head Coach USST, about using the nation spot for upcoming World Cup based on NorAm performance
- Sasha agrees, puts me in my first World Cup. I officially get inducted into the White Circus with my new haircut
- Ski well first day but not fast enough, get the nod for racing another WC
- Ski not quite as well second day, end up 40th position, was still lots of fun and totally awesome
- Put together a tentative plan with the USST for traveling to Europe in January to race Europa Cups and possibly more World Cups.
- Travel to Panorama like I planned to two weeks ago before any of this happened, except that my head is cold inside my helmet without any hair.

After the second race at Beaver Creek I spoke with Mike Day, Men’s Head WC Tech Coach, and we decided to continue to make the NorAm circuit the priority of the season and to fit in Europa Cups and hopefully more World Cups accordingly. I wasn’t jumping out of my chair to agree with him but I knew he was right; NorAms are the best way to get a better start position for any WCups later this year, which will only help my chances in qualifying for a second run.

Mike also told me that I am invited to travel to Europe with the USST team for the month of January to race in Europa Cups and whatever else. This is great news for me for a couple of different reasons. Most importantly, it alleviates the issue of getting into races while over there (USA is allowed up to 10 spots per race in a foreign country and especially in Europa Cups, which can be an issue when the entire USST is trying to compete in the same race. I will now have the maximum amount of opportunities to fit in these 10 spots).

Traveling with the Team also means that I don’t have to plan the logistics of the trip, allowing me to focus on skiing instead of lining up housing/training/meals while over there. The last couple of years I have battled both of these issues, and while I found it rewarding to overcome certain obstacles, there is no question that the experiences detracted from my focus on the racing component of my trip. I think it was in Europe last year where Adam Cole, my traveling buddy, and I unofficially changed our team name from Dream Team to Team Shitshow. I will miss not traveling with Adam, but will not miss yelling at my GPS to find a McDonalds to score free Internet to respond to emails abut training for the next day and to line up housing for the night.

About to head out to the race hill here at Panorama for some free skiing on the race hill. The snow looks good and the weather isn't sub-arctic so I'm pretty happy with things at the moment. Looking forward to an intense week of racing!

Show Time

Wow, what a weekend. Racing World Cups is fun. Lots of fun.

Since I got the call on Friday afternoon I didn't really sit down and relax until well after the race last night. From getting medical clearance (endless paperwork, a couple rounds of ImPACT baseline testing, a physical at the hospital, more paperwork) to getting my rookie hair cut (detailed by one of my perpetrators here), things seemed to be eating up any free time in my day. However, I'd been preparing for a moment like this for quite some time so there weren't a lot of complaints coming out of my mouth (except for the haircut design) and I was still able to find the time to focus on what mattered the most, skiing fast.

Once I got on the race hill things really zeroed in and it was exciting to be around such a high level of focus. During inspection the USST coaches gave me some great pointers on the course (pretty much to not back dow and pin the hell out everything). Because of a scheduling change inspection got moved and shortened so I didn't have as much time as I wanted to look at the course, but I still brought away a great game plan for how I wanted to ski.

During warmup Peter Lange cycled around with me on the training courses and put me in a great mental state for the race. It's funny how good Peter is at doing this because he doesn't say a whole lot. We have simple conversations and keep the focus on the skiing. The guy is a freaking horse whisperer.

The start was pretty intense as well. For some reason my skis were measuring about one-half a millimeter over the legal stand height (50mm), meaning I had to remove some height or risk getting disqualified. The Nordica guys took care of the whole thing and allowed me to continue to warmup, so this wasn't too much of an issue for me (I told you WCs were sweet!). However, when I was taking my jacket and pants off I had more drama as one of my arm guards fell out of my new USST jacket on the chairlift ride up to the start, meaning my arms were gonna hurt like hell when I got to the finish. This actually stressed me out a little bit, until Mr. Horse Whisperer himself pulled out what has to be one of the greatest audibles of my ski racing career. Cut from a 5-gallon bucket were two plastics shims that he had made for his 12-year old son, Colby Lange, to use as arm guards. Peter turned what could have been a derailing moment into a hilarious one as we were reading the hazardous waste warnings on my new arm guards as I was fitting them under my suit. None of that stuff ended up detracting from focusing on the race, and I credit the great crew I had around me for making that happen.

The organizers had the racers starting at 40 second intervals with no stops after bib 30 so there wasn't much time to get nervous or worry about anything but the skiing. I came out of the gate charging and after making it past the second gate (which I thought was one of the hardest on the course) I relaxed and tried to let it run as best I could. I largely stuck to the game plan except on the last pitch where I was having a hard time getting off my ski at the end of the turn and ended up scrubbing some speed to get to the next gate. I came through the finish pretty happy with my run but had no idea how it would stack up against the field.

I found out immediately when I heard a huge cheer/groan from the crowd as I was coming to a stop. That can really only mean one thing, that I went fast but not fast enough. Sure enough I finished the run in 31st, one spot out of qualifying for the second run. From starting bib 58 that is something to be proud of but it was also painfully disappointing to be one spot away from accomplishing a huge career goal of mine. The splits confirmed what I had felt on the course, that I skied well up top and that most the time I gave up was on the bottom of the course.

The disapointment never really left all day but it certainly got distracted as I got a lot of congratulations for my performance from a lot of friends who were at the race. A big shout out goes out to Tavis Moonan, a teammate from the Williams Ski Team and good friend, who was on hand at the race after buying a ticket from NYC on Friday to come out to the race once he saw that I was competing. That's the kinds of support that one dreams of having, and I can honestly say it gave me the confidence to ski as fast as I could.

Also, a big congrats to Leif Kristian Haugen, Team Leever member, and Super Wiking. The guy crushed it in the race yesterday, coming down the first run into 3rd position from bib 27 before finishing 13th. That kind of performance is nothing short of inspiring, nice job Leif!

After the race ended Mike Day, the USST Men's SL/GS Head Coach, told me he was impressed with my performance and that I have a start for the next World Cup race happening back at Beaver Creek (a makeup race for Val D'Isere) on Tuesday. I am really excited to be getting another chance on the race hill and know that with a couple of adjustments that I can crack the top thirty. I'm much more at ease with the situation and don't have the first-time distractions to deal with, my head is fully shaved now and devoid of any artistic creations, and I'm ready to barrel down that course again. Thanks to everyone for all the support, it's unbelievable hearing from so many people. Let's hope the ride continues!