I got back from Europe Wednesday night, a little worn down and ready for some time away from the ski slopes. Since the New Year I have been hammering from race to race, skiing in 6 countries in a little over three weeks.
The racing in Europe was exactly what I thought it would be, full of good skiers and high on intensity. However, because of warm weather and some unfortunate circumstances with the amount of Americans over in Europe my race schedule was significantly pared down from the original plan. Instead of competing in 10 races I was only able to start 5. On top of that, I did not find out if I was competing in many of the races until the day before, sometimes the afternoon before. This made prepping for each race more hectic than it had to be and to be honest was a bit frustrating, leading Adam Cole and I to name ourselves "Team Shitshow". Nevertheless, those were the cards I was dealt and I still expected myself to show up for each race.
I had some race runs that I was proud of, but I was not able to put together a complete race that did anything significant for me. The training before the Europa Cups at Zuoz, Switzerland, and with the Italian military race (Forestale) team in Cortina were great opportunities and confirmed that my skiing was on par with anyone else. I think I'm in a solid position for the rest of the season and looking forward to racing back here in the States.
The night before heading home Adam and I decided to head to Schladming, AUT and watch the World Cup night slalom. I had never been there before, and had high expectations of watching a night race with 50,000 crazy Austrians. Just like last year at the Hahnenkamm, Schladming lived up to everything I thought it would be. My favorite moment was Nolan Kasper's post-run celebration after smoking the second run. He came through the finish line with a lead of almost a second, caught an American football from Will Brandenburg in the crowd and slid to a stop doing his best Heisman move before windmill spiking the ball. T.O. would have been proud. I heard from Warner Nickerson that FIS was none too pleased about this move and most people in the crowd had no idea what he was doing, but Adam and I thought it was amazing and were cheering at the top of our lungs. Sadly no video of it, but I took some video from the rest of the night.
On Friday I headed back to the Boys and Girls Club in DC that I had been working with this fall. It was nice to plug in so easily with the program and was great to see some familiar faces. This is my favorite part of being an ITA athlete, and in my opinion the most important helpful aspect as an athlete. Even though I can be gone for 3 months and only have a week to ten days of free time, I can apply myself in a meaningful way with little or no lag time. Speaking of being gone, apparently while I was away the LA Lakers and Obama both visited my BGC branch, crazy! I guess that's what happens when you take off for months at a time, oh well.
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