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!