Home Life 05/09/2012
I'm half way through my trip back home. So far, I've had a great time with my family and have managed to stay pretty busy. Last weekend I went out waterskiing for the first time in two years. I seem to only get to ski in May now. The weather wasn't exactly ideal, but it was calm, so I can't complain.    Ben and I going double.  My brother is a lot better at skiing since the last time I saw him. And between his GoPro ski mount and my mom in the boat, I think we had about 200 pictures per session (literally).  Trying to stay dry!  Ben tearing it up. Tuesday I met with my high school coach, Ted Theyerl, and Chippewa Valley Nordic (CVN) for a little dryland and story time. I'm not much of a speaker but I did try to show the kids that I was right where they were a few years ago. CVN was actually just getting started when I was in high school. At the beginning it was just three other guys, myself, and one girl. I was blown away at how quickly the CVN team has grown. On a busy spring night, it was hard to know how many would make it, but we had a good dozen middle and high school age kids and another 6 or 8 of their parents. That's just to say that the group has grown exponentially in a few short years. It was pretty cool to see all those kids so gun - ho about Nordic!   1 Comment Last Week Living in the 'Boat 04/22/2012
Of course I'll be back, but this is my last week that I'll call Steamboat my home. Then it's back "home" home to visit my family for two weeks. After that I'll move into a condo in Park City, UT with Michael Ward and Taylor Fletcher. That will be the start of my Ski Team days. The season wrapped up in Whistler, B.C at the very end of March. I came away as Canadian National Champion, an awesome way to end the year. Since then, it's been a busy few weeks.  Canadian Nationals podium. From left, Wes Savill (CAN), me and Cliff Field (USA) The day after returning Michael and Cliff and I hopped in my car headed off to Park City for two days of testing. All went well there with two rollerski treadmill tests as well as body composition and hemoglobin tests. Michael and I also looked around at places to rent. We actually haven't seen the exact one that we're going to live in, but Taylor has and thought it was our best option. Move in date is May 15th! Since testing, I've been working almost every day at Ciao Gelato. On the training side of thing, right now is all about building the base for next year. I have a program for strength twice a week, and try to work on flexibility quite a bit this time of year. The most important thing right now is to get a lot of hours in the Level 1 zone - basically the easiest aerobic pace. One of the best ways to do this is on a road bike, where you can go out for three or four hours without the wear and tear on your body that you would have running. (And it's a bit too early to get out the rollerskis). Last weekend, I put in some serious hours and fun time in Moab, Utah. I went down with a couple two nordic skiers, one NC skier, Ben Berend, and their Dads for a long weekend of riding. One of the the Czech athletes that we've gotten to know, Ales Vodsedalek, is training in Steamboat this year, and since he's staying with the Berends, he came as well. Moab is probably the top destination for Steamboatians to get away for the nice weather and a change of scenery as spring fever hits. Last year I was close by when I rafted a stretch of the Colorado, but I'd never actually been to Moab or any of the surrounding parks. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera charger and didn't discover until the first ride that my camera battery was dead. Luckily Ales took pictures.  The boys. From left, Lars, Evan, Ben, me and Ales.    Overlooking the Colorado River.  The epitome of Slickrock: steep, smooth hills, bikes, ATV's and a Hummer. The pictures above are all from Slickrock, which was our adventure for Friday. Saturday we got on our road bikes and went into Canyonlands National Park. Although Moab is known for mountain biking, the bike paths and roads are also incredible. It was super windy for this ride, but fun to cover some ground and see some more sights. Sunday, we mountain biked again, and did a totally different trail from Slickrock. It was hardpacked sand, rocky and super technical stuff. At the beginning of the trail, a sign was describing the perfect ride, which is when one goes the length of the trail without ever having to touch a foot down. I was only about 20 touchdowns and a handful of complete stops away from that! I had a blast mountain biking, but it's so stop and go and physically challenging that it's nearly impossible to stay in Level 1. Which is why I'll mostly stick to running and road biking training right now. But it sure was fun! Now, when I'm not working or training, I'm sending out letters in search of a headwear sponsor. If anyone has any ideas, let me know! A Wintery Rainforest 03/28/2012
After the winter that the majority of the US has had, the amount of snow up here in Whistler, British Columbia is pretty unbelievable. We flew up to Seattle on Monday, then drove the rest of the way up past Vancouver to Whistler. The drive and crossing the border was a bit of a hassle, but it was also a beautiful drive along the coast. I've never been to this part of the continent, and can really see the appeal of this place. 
It's going to be a pretty short trip - training through Friday, then we compete Saturday and fly back home Monday. So far it's been fun and relaxed though, traveling with the guys I went to World Juniors with, as well as some of the younger guys from the Winter Sports Club. Martin's here with Todd Wilson, another coach from the club. I'm having fun traveling with some younger guys. I better enjoy this while I can, because, by the way, I made the US Ski Team (along with Michael Ward and Erik Lynch) and won't necessarily have seniority next year! 
The temperature hovers right around freezing up at the Olympic park, so when it's not snowing, it's raining, or we're in a short break between the next bout. Although we've only been here for two days, I'm starting to appreciate how lucky they were with the weather during the Olympics here. 
The Day Lodge, where we change for jumping - and skiing, since the XC stadiums right here as well.
Despite these "rainforest" conditions, we've been able to jump the large hill both yesterday and this morning. This is the first time the hills have been opened since the Winter Games. It's a shame, because the hill's definitely one of the coolest and most fun that I've ever jumped. Fortunately the inrun is refrigerated, which helps keep it a little less sticky when slush is coming down. There's a pretty solid hill crew that did all they could to keep the track cleared out, but it was snowing too hard for them to be able to do anything for a couple of our jumps today. A few of the German special jumpers came over for the training camp, and I watched Martin Schmidt, one of their bests jumpers, go no farther than 75 meters one jump. That's how it goes sometimes though, especially when it's dumping snow. Like I said, they were pretty lucky with the weather during the Olympics. 
Snowbanks. Big ones.
Todd Wilson took some cool pictures of the technology at the jump. Check them out on the slideshow. 
680 days until the Sochi Games.
Italy - Last COC 03/08/2012
Despite 70 degree temperatures and a day of rain, we were able to get one more weekend of competition in before heading back home. This was definitely the toughest Continental Cup we've done this year! The competition was our first big hill comp of the year - and first time on a big hill all winter. As usual we only had three training jumps before getting right into competition. Too bad - because it was a fun hill that I would have liked to train on more. 
The Dolomites above Predazzo, Italy.
Beautiful Italy.
Very, very warm skiing.
I ended up jumping to 39th both days and skied to 26th on Saturday and 34th on Sunday. It was a really tough field and I didn't have my best competitions, but it still was not a bad way to round up the season. We flew home Tuesday and have a small competition this weekend in Steamboat. Then at the end of the month we'll go to Whistler for a training camp as well as Canadian Nationals. World Juniors Recap 02/28/2012
It's a bit strange to be sitting here and writing a recap for World Juniors. For one thing, that means the season is nearly over, and for another, it's fairly difficult to sum up the whole week in one entry. In short, it was an awesome week. A few things didn't go as planned, but the experiences where awesome and I had one day in particular to be very proud of. The week kicked off with a bang Monday night at an impressive opening ceremonies. All the teams were bused down to the hockey rink from last year's University Games. After a cool presentation of all the countries flags and a couple speeches, they brought in the Atatürk University Dance team for an epic performance. The "dance" lasted over an hour and included (from what I interpreted) a wide variety of Turkish dances, a planned marriage, a shocking unveiling of women in soldier uniforms, and some incredible drumming at the end. The organizers and city of Erzurum made it quite clear that they were incredibly proud to be hosting these championships and would do all they could to ensure the athletes had a great time. Before our first competition we had a couple days of official jump training and some time to ski the course, although our whole team had already been here and knew what to expect. In the evenings, we had down time to hang out with the rest of the US team - jumpers and XC skiers, as well as some of the foreign athletes that I've gotten to know.  Opening ceremonies.   America. First Competition Our first event was the individual comp with a 10km race. I wasn't completely satisfied with my jump, which put my in 36th place, the points spread was pretty close, so I really wasn't that far out. I moved up steadily throughout the race, constantly fighting through spastic packs of skiers. I ended up going over the last big climb in 10th, but really had nothing left in my tank and finished the race in 12th. No matter what, I was really happy with my race and am quite satisfied with a 12th at my first ever World Championship event. Mattia Runggaldier, an Italian, took home the gold, after skiing a really impressive race and putting down the fast time. I was the third fastest skier of the day, which I was also pretty happy about.  Jumping in official training. Thanks to my Dad for the pic! Team Competition We've known all winter that we had a real chance at getting on the podium in the team event if we were all on our game. Unfortunately, we weren't quite there. We put down solid jumps - Erik especially, and started the 4 x 5km race in 7th, just 32 seconds out of the podium. Michael "scrambled," or lead off, and skied a hellova leg to put us in 3rd, right ahead of Finland. We hung on for a while, but there's a lot of fast skiers out there and we were a little handicapped with Erik being sick and at this point I was pretty congested as well. I anchored, but the combination of skiing alone and being sick didn't work out - not to make excuses - but I didn't ski a great race and started and finished in 8th. Second Individual Saturday, the last day of competition wasn't really my day. I was congested and coughing a lot, so I didn't have the usual confidence in my racing. As a result, I put a lot of pressure on my jumping and tried way too hard to go far. I should know this by now, but trying harder just doesn't work in ski jumping. So I jumped myself out of the race, especially because it was a 5km. I started in 42nd, over 2 minutes out of the lead. I was a little discouraged and frustrated at the start, but I skied the hardest race I could. I ended up 34th, and had the 18th race time. One of the pluses of the race was I had a strong finish and won a photo finish. I always like to practice my lunges to the line and that may have been the first time I was actually in a photo finish.  Erzurum! On Thursday, we went and watched girls jumping competition. Sarah Hendrickson threw down two deep jumps to win a silver medal. She's been lighting up the World Cup this year and really deserved the medal! It was the second silver for the US, we soon found out, as Noah Hoffman had just finished 2nd in the U23 15km classic race for cross country. Friday and Saturday we also got to watch the men's skate portion of the "skiatholon" event before our races started. The junior's raced a 20km (half classic, half skate) and the U23's a brutal 8 lap 30km. I was absolutely blown away at the level of skiing in these races. The winning time for the 20km was under 50 minutes and 30 seconds. My 10km time, to give some perspective, was 25:58, and that wasn't after classic skiing and switching poles and skis mid-race! On Sunday, I spent some time resting my lungs and body, and then had an awesome day in the city getting a bit of a feel for the Turkish culture with my parents. I'll put more up on that tomorrow, but that's it for now! Back in Turkey! 02/19/2012
Killing time - at the wrong airport.
As to be expected, we encountered a few hiccups along the road, but made it into Erzurum with all our gear last night. No matter how you do it it's a long journey to get here. We flew to Munich on Thursday/ Thursday night and spent the day in Munich. (Actually in the Munich airport hotel, the Moevenpick). The highlights of Friday included the epic breakfast buffet at the hotel, and continuing the traditional of always seeming to get lost when we're in Munich while going for a run from the Moevenpick. Yesterday we flew to Istanbul and then to Erzurum. We had almost 5 hours between flights, but needed most of it when we realized that our second flight was out of a different airport! Apparently there aren't any direct flights from the main Istanbul airport to Erzurum, which our coach didn't realize that when he booked our tickets. Anyways, it worked out just fine. The airlines arranged for a van and a driver for us to pile into, and we got a bit of a tour of the city on the hour long drive to other airport. However, it would have been nice if we had known this ahead of time. The Swedish Ski Team was on the same flights as us, and after getting their bags, took a bus from the airport, rode on a ferry to an island for lunch, drove around the city a bit more, and then arrived at the next airport. Someone on their team is organized. 
Our itinerary. They say you should read the fine print...
It was a bright sunny day in Erzurum today. They have a lot more snow since we were here at the beginning of the year, so the cross course is awesome. We're staying at a different hotel than last time, but I'd say it's even nicer. About half the teams are staying here - which is a lot of people between Jumping, Combined and Cross Country. It's fun to be able to hang out with the cross country team and see some of the other athletes from around the world. Tomorrow things get going with official training in the morning and opening ceremonies at night. 
About Time to Head Out Again! 02/13/2012
We've been in Steamboat for almost a month now, which feels like forever, with as often as I'm used to being on the road. The first thing I did since getting back was the DU Invite, a nordic race at Devils Thumb Ranch, CO. Cliff, Michael and I drove over for the day to get some experience in a mass start against some tough college racers. In the chaos of the start I ended up breaking the basket of both my poles - but no the tip itself. Fortunately, the trail was so hard-packed that it really didn't matter at all, but I was pretty lucky not to break a pole instead. The so-called "15km" race ended up being a brutal 17 km that took over 50 minutes, which is about twice the time it typically takes to do a 10km. It was really important to work my way up towards the front at the beginning of the race, and although I would have liked to get farther up sooner in the race, I was pretty happy with my performance and ended up 12th. After the race, I talked with a Norwegian who had just got over to attend and race for DU second semester. He was from the city of Trondheim, which has a major jumping complex and program. It turned out that he was friends with a lot of the Norwegian Combined skiers that I've gotten to know while competing. I thought it was pretty wild to run into somebody who knew people that I know from across the world!  Cliff and Michael, checking out the scenery at Devils Thumb Ranch.  I also got the chance to get up on the mountain for a day with Spencer and Tyler. Although the mountain was a little bare by most standards, it's still a blast to be up there on a bluebird day. I learned to tele ski last year, and can lay down some decent turns, but the next day is always a bit of a struggle getting out of bed.   Photo credit Rosanne Iversen. Here I'm racing in the Junior National Qualifier the weekend before last. It was a warm day so I decided to bring out my one-piece lycra suit that I where under my jumping suit. This last weekend was Winter Carnival, which is Steamboat's excuse to celebrate winter for a week. To an out- of-towner, it feels like New Year's or 4th of July, with parades, a light show and fireworks at Howelson. But to locals, it's as natural as any other holiday on the calender. Saturday we participated in the 100m downtown nordic sprint races and some of the younger skiers stuck around to do the skijoring behind horses next. Later that night, we jumped at Howelsen and put on a show for a crowd. After us, a procession of glow-stick lit alpine skiers ski in unison down Howelsen Hill, and then comes the "lighted man." This is another crazy tradition where somebody skis down the face while fireworks shoot of from his body. Now we have a few more training sessions before we make the trip back to Turkey for World Juniors. Tomorrow we'll do one more race to keep our body going fast. We head out Thursday, spend one night in Munich, and will be in Erzurum by Saturday night. The week after that should be a fun one! Back in Steamboat - No Go in Poland 01/20/2012
Sorry for the delay on getting this up. As many of you may know, we were not able to compete in Szczyrk, PL. They tried both days to pull off a good round of competition, but the continual blizzard conditions and high winds proved to be too much. It was fairly disappointing to miss out on the chance to compete, but there's nothing we can do about it -except for train harder and be ready for the next time around.  Needlessly waxing my skis.  Wind-flags going berserk over the knoll.  Cliff, braving the elements. I'll be in training Steamboat until we head back over to Turkey for World Juniors in under a month. Tomorrow Michael, Cliff and myself will be racing against some of the high school and college racers from around the state in a 15km mass start in Winter Park, CO. Harrachov, CZ 01/11/2012
On Monday we flew from Erzurum to Prague and then drove 2 hours to Harrachov. In the last 40km we went from rain and no snow to a winter wonderland. We get food and lodging at the military sponsored athlete housing here and just walk to the jumps and ski trails to train. I wish we were staying here longer. The town is simple and nice, the jump is good, and the cross country trails seem to go on forever. However, we're only here til tomorrow (Thursday) morning, and then it's off to Poland for competition.    
A Successful First Go-around in Erzurum 01/11/2012
 The jumps in Erzurum - lit up as always. The light on the top changes from blue to red and purple as well. The main goal for our trip to Turkey was to get a good feel for the jumps and ski trails, and be ready to be 100% on our game when we come back for World Juniors. I would say as a team we all did that. I'm excited to be coming be in month and a half! Erzurum was the next stop on the Continental Cup circuit. I kept the good results coming both days. Saturday especially, I had a good jump, which put me in 23rd, and I skied up to 5th place, just a handful of seconds off the podium. Sunday I didn't have as great of a jump, but I skied another strong race. Michael Ward jumped to 29th, so we skied together a lot of the race, and I ended up 11th and Michael 13th. I was pretty stoked about my ski times with the 2nd time rank both days. Sunday I was only 5 seconds off of the fastest time, so I guess I've got a new goal to shoot for.  Looking out my hotel room window.  The view from behind the ski jumps on a nice smog free day. Some things were definitely a challenge, like not having a van and relying on the organizers to bus us around. The cross country course was almost an hour away so that bus ride was always a bit of a drag. On the other hand, they definitely made a big deal out of the competition. Typically the awards are just a quick ceremony for the top 6 after the race with medals for the podium, but in Erzurum they held a flower ceremony each day and a final awards ceremony in the city center the last night.  After the flower ceremony for the top 6 on Saturday.  Myself, far left, at the downtown ceremony. | Where am I right now?
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