Progress Report, Sponsorship Envy

Heading back to Vail for my 12-week post-op trip to the doctor’s office was a little bittersweet, as I could feel the early beginnings of the fall season in the mountains. The fall is always a great time to be in ski country, as each passing day brings a greater chance of the first snow. Knowing that I'll be missing any early tracks this fall bummed me out, but the mood quickly passed. I try to never dwell on things out of my control. Instead, I focused on getting my newest slate of rehab exercises from Thomas at Howard Head and continuing the healing process.

I was pleased to learn from my fitness testing that my recovering quad, while still measuring slightly smaller, is within 5% max strength of my non-recovering quad, as is my hamstring and hip flexors. I need to work on my gluteal, so I‘ll be doing one-legged butt blaster exercises to get my posterior nice and firm. 

This is the time in my recovery process when I can really start to focus on building muscle in a controlled situation, as the ligaments are structurally sound enough to withstand most non-lateral movement. If things go well then I will be cleared to ski in 12 more weeks, so hopefully rehab continues on its positive arc.

Finally, the hands down best place to eat in Vail is the Westside Cafe in West Vail. With a 24-hour breakfast menu serving the best huevos rancheros in the valley, it is a frequent post-training eating establishment for the ski racing community. Between double sessions of rehab I met up with my head coach, Peter Lange, to catch up on how things were going on both ends. This time, while waiting for a table, I happened to look over and see hanging on the wall a picture of ITA’s very own Sylvan Ellefson! Apparently Nordic skiers need to be fed too.

Almost every athlete at some time in his career has experienced some form of sponsorship envy and I’m no different, but this was different. I couldn't help picturing how sweet it must be to be hooked up by a restaurant, and a good one at that. Sylvan probably gets extra everything on his breakfast order. It probably comes out in 5 minutes or less. I bet the cooks come out to say hi. Maybe he even eats in the kitchen......there I go again. In all seriousness, it was very cool to see another ITA athlete getting support for what he/she is doing, and especially to Sylvan after working out with him last fall at Ski Club Vail, getting to know him, and then keeping in touch throughout the season as we both broke onto the World Cup scene. Must be the breakfast.