I've been meaning to get an update out sooner, but for the moment, check out Brett Denney's blog on our busy last couple weeks:http://brettdenney.com/2013/11/10/game-time/

Also, NTG member Spencer Knickerbocker just put together a cool video with some brief highlights of their last trip.  We with with them in Planica, but not on the glacier in Ramsau, Austria, where you'll see them skiing. It's under 3 minutes - take the time and check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4pkUZlJPbc&feature=youtu.be

The summer jumping season is over and competition season is almost here! Now we have only 3 weeks left to raise the funds we need for the winter with the National Nordic Foundation! We're doubling down with up to $25,000 to matching grants. Help us hit that mark!  https://www.grouprev.com/adamloomis

That was a whirlwind of a trip!  After Planica we spent four days training in Oberstdorf, Germany with the rest of our team.  We flew home yesterday - which seemed like much longer than two weeks after we left for Lake Placid.  

First, some pictures of Planica - because Slovenia is just cool.

Planica sits right in the upper corner of Slovenia.  Last Friday, we jumped in Planica, raced on the rollerski track in Villach, Austria, and then explored the flea-market in Tarvisio, Italy. 

Off to Oberstdorf, where we were lucky enough to jump an iced track on both the normal and large hill.  Their refrigeration system works pretty well - because it wasn't particularly cold.  

The team was split while we were in Planica, but after we rejoined everyone in Germany, we had the pleasure of seeing Bill Demong live, train and eat as Aquaman.  Remember Captain America from last year?  This year, Bill lost the bet and had the pay up - in the form of spending the entire European portion of the trip as Aquaman.  Check out the video that Brett Denney put together of him.  I think Bill was actually a little sad to take it off when we arrived the states.  Orange spandex and fins just fit him.

All-in-all, we did a great job of putting the finishing touches to our summer training, and now we're eagerly anticipating snow!  

I'm writing this from Planica, Slovenia, but I just spend the weekend competing in Lake Placid, NY.  We flew over the pond Monday for one last summer-jumping camp before the season.

It was great to be back in LP after two years away. With some "retirees" from the years-past who came out of the woodworks and strapped on skis, it was one of the bigger fields we've had in a while.   

Sunday, we had small hill jumping and nordic combined US Nationals.   I was pretty happy with my NC jump - which put in a solid 4th place to start the race.  I didn’t have it in me that day to hang with Brett, Bryan and Taylor as they skied by, but I kept a steady pace to hang on to 6th.   Bill Demong started in 3rd, blew by Todd Lodwick and Aleck Gantick and held off the Fletcher brothers to take the win – his 9th National title. 

All in all a solid and fun weekend in LP, but right back to travel on Monday.

Upon arrival to Munich on Tuesday morning, our team split ways – the A-team to Bischofschofen, Austria, and the B-team to Planica.  We’re here until Saturday, when we’ll meet up with the rest of the guys in Oberstdorf, Germany.  Our team here should be a blast, training in a killer venue and with the NTG crew from Steamboat (aka our younger teammates).  

We didn't waste any time getting after it: right off the plane, to Planica, then into the mountains on a killer rollerski.  

Thanks for reading, more to come! Hopefully when we get home it'll look like it did at the beginning of the month in PC...

As a proud representative of my home ski club, the Eau Claire Flying Eagles, I couldn't resist posting this video.  I think it's pretty much the same thing we ski jumpers see.  

Yep, I think we're all excited to acknowledge that it's fall and winter is just around the corner.   But, we need to do some serious fundraising at the National Nordic Foundation to prepare for the season. That means it's Drive for 25 time!

The goal is to get as many people as possible to donate $25 or more from now until November 15th.  It might sound like a long way off, but we need to get going now to grow our community web.  (And trust me, before you know it it'll be mid-November and we'll be skiing on snow from the east to west coasts... hopefully).

Click here to donate and spread the word!
https://www.grouprev.com/adamloomis

After a week of training in Oberstdorf, we drove through the mountains toward Innsbruck for another concentrated and focused week.  The Innsbruck valley is absolutely spectacular, and it offers excellent training opportunities.  

It’s not that often that we get to jump a new hill, yet that was the case for the whole team asides from Todd Loddwick (but I dare you to count ten ski jumps in the world that he hasn’t jumped…).  Innsbruck is a phenomenal venue – a little tricky to figure out the hill, but a blast nonetheless.  And you can’t beat the views.

Quality rollerskiing is a little harder to find in this area, but there are a few good places.  One day we drove up into Seefeld, in the mountains just above where we were staying.  The 5km rollerski track was just about perfect for a hard interval workout.  Another day we skied intervals up a mountain pass towards a couple of high ski areas.  It was pouring rain, a little cold and extremely slippery – one of those sessions that doesn’t look like any fun but kind of is. 

Monday through Wednesday we jumped in Stams, which is one of the best training hills in the world.  It’s a K105 – technically a “large” hill – but right in that sweet spot of slower, small hill speeds combined with large hill air pressure.  One of the days we jumped alongside some of the Austrian and German National ski jumping team members.  Which is to say, some of the best ski jumpers in the world.  Thomas Morgenstern was extremely cool to watch, and I saw the best ski jumps I’ve ever seen on a K60 from Andreas Kofler.  That’s the hill on the left below.  There’s a lesson to be learned here: no shame in stepping down to a small hill.

Our jump coach, Marc Noelke, used to coach many of those German and Austrian athletes, so I’m sure he was happy to see them again.  Marc got us into the Stams Ski School gym for strength training.  It’s safe to say that it’s a little nicer gym than your high school’s - they take their athletics pretty seriously there.  It was a little strange crashing the gym, I’m sure we’re the only American team to train in there, but that’s just one of the many perks of having a German coach who’s been around the block a few times.    

We wrapped up the trip with a second practice comp on the last day of the camp.  Taylor put it to us, winning both the jumping and skiing the fastest race time.  Watch out for him this season with the way he’s jumping – and we all know that he can ski. 

All in all, this two-week trip has us feeling even more ready and excited for winter.  We’ll keep training hard and expecting nothing but the best.  A huge thanks to all of our supporters who make this possible.  You are the NNF, and the NNF is our lifeline.

Life's not all fun and games.  Except for at Area 47, which is possibly the coolest park of any sort that I've ever experienced.  From water-slides to wake-boarding, climbing and high ropes courses to the blob, they've pretty much got it all here.  I made a quick highlight reel of our afternoon there. We definitely didn't get a chance to try everything out, but we did have some pretty good sends on the blob.  

Now in Stams, Austria, we're halfway through Europe training Camp #2.   We spent the last week in Oberstdorf, Germany, jumped almost every day and explored the mountains when we weren't jumping.  

I flew over with Brett, Michael, Nick and Todd. Getting to Oberstdorf is usually pretty quick, but we had some miscommunications with the rental van company and had to take a series of trains and a bus to get there from Munich.  European train systems are fairly slick, but with 4 ski bags and a half dozen heavy duffels, the transfers were a bit stressful.  We did somehow make it in time to get in some rollerskiing.  

 We met up with Bryan, Bill and Taylor, who were competing in the Summer Grand Prix.  We were training during the first grand prix, but we got to watch the grand prix finale, two jumps and a 15km race.  FIS is testing out a weekend challenge format, similar to the Tour de Ski, with the first two races counting towards the final times of the last one.  Unfortunately, with the large time gaps and 15km race on a 1.7km loop, far too many competitors were "lapped out" on the final race.  Less than 20 racers actually finished the last race, the rest were pulled after being caught by the leaders.  Nonetheless, it was a fun race to watch, and we were happy to see Taylor ski a strong race to the finish.  

Here's some training action.

Down time activities included alpine coasting, spear chucking, rock golf, slacklining and vicious games of spoons.  

A highlight was watching Michael attempt to eat 50 scoops of ice cream for a 100 euros (if he made it).  39 scoops in the toilet was calling, and he kept the streak of Nordic Combined eating challenge failures going.  I think he may have suffered more here than in the rollerski race we did.  

All in all, it was a fun and extremely productive week in Germany.  Oberstdorf is an awesome place for training, and we still have close to a week here in Stams.  

I took a little "vacation" last week back in the Midwest with my family.  We spent the week at our cabin just over the Minnesota border into Canada.  Grandpa Chuck Golden bought it back in the 60's, and it hasn't changed much since.  

I hadn't been up there in over two years and I wish I could get up there a whole lot more often.  July was pretty crazy with travel and competition so I think I picked a good time to get a bit of a mental break.  It's amazing what a week with the computer, car and iPhone off will do.

The weather permitted some good waterskiing, which, I have to say, I'm a little out of practice at.  "Little brother" Ben's turned into a real ripper though.

Of course, training never ends, and I did my best to mirror the training that I was missing back home.  It turned out to be an intensity week, which meant that I had to make an effort to get to shore for running and rollerski intervals.  This wasn't all bad though, as being at sea-level is ideal for intervals (you can go faster and recover harder).   One of the days I tried swimming intervals.  Those hurt.  It's like going hard in any mode of training, but with the sudden inability to breath.  By the end of that session, 10 consecutive freestyle strokes before switching to breaststroke was a struggle.  

Above Ben and my Dad are shooting cans for 20-second time bonuses at the start of our big competition.  After the slingshots, we rowed out and back to the "Tunny," ran laps around the island, swam out to a buoy and back, and canoed around the tunny.  OK, so maybe it wasn't quite as hard as the time trial that I missed out on, but hey, it was fun.  I got the overall, but Ben did win the 90 second time bonus for the closest time prediction to actual time.   Dad fended off Roxy for the podium (unfortunately she was disqualified for skipping the rowing and canoeing legs - but she's the fastest swimmer and runner).

Now, back to the usual for almost two whole weeks.  On another note, we're doing a 3000 likes campaign for the NNF Facebook page.  If you haven't like it yet, do it! Click here:

https://www.facebook.com/NationalNordicFoundation

That's it for the week in Courchevel, France and Summer Europe Camp number one.  Our coaches did an awesome job transitioning the jump camp into the biking to make a really productive trip.  The extra company from the donors this last week was especially great.  And, not to mention, the support from these five guys will make the rest of our season  financially possible.   

We rode everyday in France, Monday through Saturday.  I haven't really crunched the numbers, but I know I put in around 400 miles and 40,000 vertical feet of climbing in those six days.  The donors all put in some impressive days as well.  Sometimes I think they forget that we're training to be world-class athletes and we're still hurting on these rides. 

The highlight of the week was definitely riding to and watching the Tour riders on Alpe d'Huez.  Most of my team, two of the donors and I rode from our hotel over three passes to the stage, then spent four hours up on the mountain getting the Tour experience.  (Fortunately we had vans and didn't have to ride back).  

Almost every cyclist will tell you that Alpe d'Huez is the most iconic of climbs in all of bike racing (for its 21 hairpin turns as much as anything). This year, they paved a connector road over the top, so the riders could ride up it, then down the backside and right back up for an unprecedented double ascent.  Even on this steep climb, the riders go by fast.  Getting to see them a second time made it all that much better.  And watching the pain on these sometimes super-human faces was also extremely satisfying.  Trust me, the sprinters were not having any fun.

Another highlight was hopping in the local time trial up Montee Courchevel with Brett, Michael, Taylor and "Tenacious D" (Dave Strong).  They run this race weekly throughout the summer, six Euros and you get to race up the windy road, 17.5km and 1200 meters of vertical climb.  The French can't resist cheering on a cyclist, so we actually had some crowds pushing us on along the way.  Taylor and I suprised the Frenchies a bit by finishing 1, 2.  Taylor especially dominated, beating me by 2 minutes, whereas I only got the next guy by a few seconds.  This guy, we learned driving down, has dual citizenship and is the national road race champion of Mauritius, a tiny island off of Madagascar.   I can now say I beat a world champion on a bike, but I'm not sure that tiny African island nations have too much competition when it comes to cycling.

 We finished in the pouring rain and were happy to have our coaches at the top with a van.  Sometimes cool-downs can be done without.  

Tomorrow it's back to home.  Springer Tournee's next week, time for some quick recovery... and maybe a little rollerskiing.

After arriving in Courchevel on Sunday afternoon, we finished off the jump camp Monday and Tuesday with two quality sessions on the HS132.  Speaking for the team, I can say that we had a really fun and productive week of jumping with 7 sessions on three different hills.  Marc kept us focused and busy with all kinds of new approaches to jump training.  We spent a lot of time trying different warmups to activate the muscles, focused on imagery and concentration training, and testing some new equipment.  It's great to see the direct result of our efforts on the hill. 

 Now, we've transitioned into the biking part of the trip.  We've already done two 100 plus kilometer rides in the afternoons after jumping, and we have many more K's ahead.  

There are lot of cool aspects of this trip (being in France, watching the Tour, epic climbs and descents) but the fundraising element makes it really special.  This year, we have five NNF supporters who are here to get to know the team, watch us jump, and do all the same rides that we do.  The contribution from these five guys is a huge part of what makes the rest of our season possible.  I'm immensely grateful for their support.  Plus, it's just fun to have them around and get to know our supporters. It's also sweet to have former NC Olympians Carl Van Loan and Jed Hinkley along to guide the group and provide the support that we all need as a big group knocking out huge rides in foreign territory.  

Again, a big shout out to the NNF and Olympian Tours for making this trip possible!

More to come soon!  And watch for us tomorrow, the 18th, on L'Alpe d'Huez, screaming at the Tour de France riders as they do an unprecedented double ascent of the climb in one epic stage.

This is my first time to Hinterzarten, and I have nothing but good things to say about this little village in Southwestern Germany.  We flew over Monday night, drove the short trip up from Zurich, and have already got in some sweet training.  The jumps are good, there's a nice gym nearby, we've found some sweet roads to ride, and the hotels great.  

I'm back from another successful 4th of July week in Steamboat Springs.  This makes it 7 years straight that I've been in Steamboat for this week, starting from the first national junior camp that Bill Demong put on way-back-when.  

We kicked off the week with the usual Fish Creek time trial.  It's a great way to measure our fitness over the years, mostly uphill and we finish close to 1000 feet above the start.  I knew I had a good race, but surprised myself a bit by putting down the fastest time of our team.  Now, a July 1st, time trial is of little consequence, but I'm still pretty excited to be able to show that kind of fitness.  And, being teammates with Bill Demong, Todd Lodwick, Taylor Fletcher and Bryan Fletcher, it's usually not that often that I'm leading the crew. 

That afternoon we (the Ski Team, led by Bill), put on a quick technique session for the younger nordic combiners.  Drills can be fun!  Check out the video clip below from my Dad of Spencer and I going through the Super-G section.

The 4th of July downtown sprint race was as exciting as always.  I didn't jump quite far enough to be in a position to contend, but I still enjoyed the fast pace race and moved up to finish 6th.  Todd Lodwick won the jumping and held off Bill and Taylor's sprint.  I'm not sure Todd's in the best shape of his life right now, but when it comes to sprinting on rollerskis, nobody is as fast.

After the rollerski race we competed in a fun elimination long-standing competition.   I didn't have the magic that I usually have jumping in Steamboat and was eliminated early, but enjoyed spectating some long jumps. The long-standing champ, aka brother Ben Loomis, rose to the occasion again to take the win.  12 year old Decker Dean, from Steamboat, was second, after a week of consistently throwing down long jumps.  Watch out for him.

Rope swinging action below.  Tyler, Spencer and I cooled off here before a big 4th of July dinner at the Andrews.  I think we're pretty graceful but my former-diver sister might disagree.

Tomorrow morning, after 3 whole nights at home, we head off to Germany and France!  We'll be focusing on jumping in Hinterzarten, Germany, and then mostly riding our bikes in Courchevel, France.  Look for us along stages 18 and 19 on the le Tour.  More to come soon!

Since I've been slacking so much on this blog, I decided to make a media page that everyone can easily use to view pictures, tweets, etc from me, USSA Nordic, and the NNF.  Check it out and please give me some feedback if you've got suggestions!  Your comments are always appreciated and keep me extra motivated to stay up to date with this site.

Now, as usual, training is in full swing.  We started jumping two weeks ago with our new coach Marc Noelke - who is awesome!  He's a former ski jumper from Germany and has worked with both the German and Austrian ski jumping national teams.  Marc has a very established background in psychology, physiology and mechanics in addition to coaching and is bringing a wealth of new ideas into our program.  We all are psyched for his fresh, exciting perspective. 

Marc started us off on the K20 and K40 - the small hills, which is similar to what we did last year.  However, we had some sort of different "task" for almost every jump - from eyes closed in the inrun, clapping hands, jumping "old school" or playing a form of PIG with each other on the jump.  So we had no time to get bored and we established a good connection to controlling the fundamental movements.  Now, Marc's back in Germany and we're mostly focusing on endurance training, with a couple jump sessions on the K90 to stay in touch. 

Endurance training this year is a blast and we usually do a great job of keeping the scenery fresh.  Last weekend, Brett, Michael, Tyler and I put in some hours hiking, running and rollerskiing in the desert around Capitol Reef National Park.  I've also been getting back into mountain biking.  Sometimes I forget just how fun it is - especially with on the infinite trail system of the Wasatch.

Also, concerned family members and friends will be happy to read that I'm staying busy outside of training with schoolwork.  Unfortunately the month of May was the only time I had for a "real" class down at Westminster College in Salt Lake City.  For the rest of the time, I'm sticking to online: right now, one Devry University class and one Westminster course.  I'm still a long haul away from a degree, but maybe if I have a long enough career in Nordic Combined I could have an education by the time I'm ready to retire!  

I almost wrote up a 30,000 word post, but instead I'll put up 30 ish pictures and a few words to summarize the highlights of the past few weeks.

For a sobering touch, we'll start with the Dachau Concentration Camp.  That's where I spent my last afternoon in Europe about a month ago.  Makes you appreciate... absolutely everything.

On a lighter note, spring was kind enough to greet me upon return to the states...

After a week of easy training at home in PC, I road-tripped out to Truckee, CA for a final week of racing at Spring Series.  Spring series is the US finals for cross-country skiers - no jumping, so a change of pace and relaxed atmosphere for us NC guys.  Spencer Knickerbocker, Tyler Smith, Aleck Gantick and I compromised the Nordic Combined portion of the field. 

Yep, those strange lines in the picture above are classic tracks. It had been four years since I had raced in a classic race, but I've classic skied more this winter than ever, so I did manage to survive the two classic races.  Barely.

The final race of the series was a pursuit style hill climb up Sugarbowl Ski resort.  The only way to scout the course was on alpine skis.  It was quite a sight watching a whole field of Nordic skiers work there way through the rental line and down the hill in spandex and Rudy's.  

The hill climb treated my team and I pretty well - it helps to be a light and quick guy when you're going up a wall of an alpine hill.  I was psyched to be 25th on the day, out of 100 some guys.

Here's us above Donner Pass and Donner Lake.  At the end of the day, no matter how our races went, at least we didn't have to discuss eating each other.  (That's a bit harsh - we all had a lot of fun and some of our best races of the season.)

After Spring Series, Tyler, Spencer and I drove down to Yosemite National Park to spend five days in paradise with my parents and brother.  I'm not sure if I'd want to go there in the summer, because it must be crazy busy, but Yosemite has some of the most stunning scenery that I've ever seen.

45 miles miles on foot in 4 days was a good way to kick our legs into running/hiking shape.  And in a place like Yosemite, it's pretty impossible not to be out exploring every day.  Here's a handful of pics.

We completed the road trip by looping back home through Vegas.  A couple hours there and one excessive dinner-buffet is about all the time that I needed there.  We got right out of dodge and spent the night camping in Zion before driving the rest of the way to Park City.

Now back in Park City it's been backcountry skiing and road biking time.  And back to work for me - where I've recently been promoted to server.   Next week, school starts at Westminster for Maymester and Devry Online!

Thanks for your time!

This weekend I had my first taste of World Cup action in Lahti, Finland.  Unfortunately, I wasn't at the level I wanted to be.  The results haven't been there for much of this year, but the best thing I can do is step and learn.  So...

1.     A start is a start.  Regardless of the result, anytime I get the opportunity to compete against a word class field is more experience in the bank for the next time.

2.     I’m healthy. That’s always a great thing, and too often I underappreciate the beauty of good health.

3.     Experiencing the excitement at World Cup.  In some ways, World Cups are just another competition, but the vibe from the crowd, competitors and TV cameras bump up the energy in the atmosphere to another level.

4.     I can hang.  In my first world cup start, a team sprint, I was skiing most of the laps with Armin Bauer, an Italian who had the 3rd fastest time the day before.  I hung with him for all but the last two legs, and still stayed within 5 or so seconds a lap.

5.     An observation that I made while watching races: yes, the fastest skiers looked like the fittest, but they were also the gutsiest.  In the individual Nordic Combined race on Saturday, no man was gunning to ski fast than Taylor Fletcher, who was the 2nd fastest skier (.5 seconds behind first) and the fastest on Sunday.  And while watching the girl’s 10km classic race, Therese Johaug of Norway (2nd overall in world rankings), was absolutely in the red zone halfway into the race.  She’s got the fitness to keep up her technique at this rate, but up close, I could also see desire as a defining factor.

6.     Learning from the best.  It was awesome to spend the weekend with Bill Demong, Bryan Fletcher and Taylor Fletcher.  I train with them for most of the year at home, but it was much more valuable to see and learn from the ways that they prepare for and execute in a World Cup.

7.     The chance to do what I’m doing.  In my surreal world of competition, it seems like everybody’s a world champion, Olympic medalist, or has a handful of World Cup podiums to his name.  But if I take a step back, the reality is that just the chance to compete in a World Cup puts me among a pretty small group of highly fortunate individuals.

8.     Glorious distance skis through the woods like I’ve had the last two days, which give me the time to relax and just be grateful.

9.     The supporters that I have.  Again, I’m just truly lucky. To have the support crew around me from my parents to extended family to NNF supporters and coaches, I’ve got quite the team around me.

10.  And most of all, right now, I’m more motivated than ever to work towards my potential, and I truly believe that I can be just as good as any of the guys that seemed so much better than me last weekend.

Competition starts tomorrow here in Hoydalmo, Norway, but it’s already been quite an experience just getting here.  Brett Denney, Nick Hendrickson, Michael Ward and I started the journey up from Austria on Sunday morning.  We missed out on watching Kikkan and Jessie’s gold medal performance, but we did break up our ten-hour drive to watch our boys ski to bronze in the nordic combined team event. Somehow we managed to pull into an Autobahn Rasthof, find a TV and switch to Eurosport within seconds of the race start.  And that was an exciting race to watch!  The lead pack of 6 fighting for the podium on the anchor leg consisted of more world champions and Olympic medalists than a Norwegian ski team reunion and Billy really pulled through to get on that podium.

We spent Sunday night an hour away from Kiel, the German port city on the Baltic Sea.  Monday morning, we pushed off for the 20-hour ferry to Oslo, Norway.  The boat that runs this route is basically a cruise ship, so it’s really a break from travel once you’re on the boat.  Along with the usual German and Norwegian tourists were biatholon and alpine servicemen travelling up to their own races in Norway.  The biatholon circuit had a World Cup in Oslo, Norway this weekend, and the alpine world cup races are in Kvitfjell.  Waiting to drive onto the ferry, we caught up with a couple of the US alpine staff that we know from back in Park City.  It’s weird how often we run into people we know over in Europe.

 Upon arrival to Oslo on Tuesday morning we met up with our coach, Greg Poirier, and our new wax-tech for the trip, Bill Brooker.  They had just flown in from the states and we gave them no time to jetlag.  Rather than head straight for Hoydalsmo and wait around for official training, we spent the night in Oslo and got in some awesome training.   That first night we jumped Holmenkollen – which is the large hill – all by ourselves, under the lights, above the city lights of Oslo.  That was cool.  All too often we take the opportunities for granted in this sport, but we definitely did not let this opportunity go under-appreciated. 

Wednesday morning we jumped Oslo’s K95, Midtstubakken, on a wonderful blue bird day.  (Those of you who watched 2011 World Champs will remember that fog and clouds are the norm in Oslo, and sunshine is a blessing).  We also got a great ski in on the Holmenkollen trails.  I don’t think we made it to the end of the 2000-kilometer trail system there…

Currently we’re in Hoydalsmo.  We took Thursday as our usual rest day but stayed busy watching more world champs.  I had to take a break to complete a final for an online course – but hey that’s the beauty of online classes – you choose the time.

After fueling up on fresh bread and brown cheese, we had a solid official training today and then topped off the day with Norwegian salmon.  Now we’re ready to rock for another great weekend of Continental Cups!  Thanks to all the support from NNF and our community who make this possible!

For more pictures and a video at the race venue check out my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/skiloomis

Well this is a bit late but better late than never.

A brief summary of the comps in Planica:

First, the complex:  Planica is best known for its ski flying hill.  This fall, however, they finished rebuilding and renovating their normal and large hill.  They literally had too much money in the budget and couldn’t spend enough of it on the complex.  Hard to believe, but true.  One example of the extravagance is indoor escalator that runs beneath the K125 inrun and down to the K95. 

The big hill – which we competed on – was so much fun!  Unfortunately results weren’t great this weekend.  None of us were off by too much technically, but on a hill like that small miscues can turn into big issues.   Saturday we did all race really well and Nick led the way in 25th with the 7th fastest race, Michael was 26th with the 5th fastest time, and I was 29th with the 4th fastest time.   Sunday, I led the way but was 33rd – no points for us.

Craig Ward (Michael's dad) took some great photos in Planica.  All of the ones of us racing are from him.

We didn’t have any competitions this weekend, so we stayed and trained in Seefeld, Austria.  Our “rest week” ended up being pretty busy and flew by – mostly because of our trip to Predazzo.  On Friday morning we drove the short 2 hour trip down to watch Nordic World Championships in Predazzo, Italy.  First we watched the normal hill individual combined – where Bryan led the way with a solid 14th place.  

The real highlight of the week was watching Sarah Hendrickson win a World Championship gold!  It really was incredible to be a part of the team cheering her on to the top spot in the world.  

Another highlight from Seefeld was skinning up one of the nearby alpine mountains with one of our Austrian friends who lives nearby.  Trying to carve the steep icy hill coming down was not easy, but it was a whole lot of fun and a pretty great way to get in some training. 

Sunday we started the journey up to Norway.  From Seefeld it’s close to ten hours of driving to Kiel, Germany, on the North Sea.  And then we hop on a ferry for 24 hours and arrive in Oslo.  We did manage to find a Autohof to grab lunch and turn on Eurosport exactly as the Nordic Combined team race started.  Team USA brought in their third medal with a very stellar bronze.  Earlier on Sunday, Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggens won gold in the team sprint.  What a weekend for the US!

It is very much a winter-wonderland here.  No jumping up in Planica yet but we were able to jump down in Kranj today - which is about 30 minutes away and much less snowy.  Here's a few pictures.

Week one of six or seven is in the bag.  We’ve all got a lot ahead of us.  But here’s a quick update of the happenings so far.

The team – consisting of Coach Greg, Michael Ward, Nick Hendrickson and I – flew over last Monday to meet up with Brett Denney in Munich.  We drove straight to Seefeld, Austria for a little pre-camp.  Seefeld – just outside of Innsbruck – is your typical Austrian nordic and alpine ski town consisting of endless trail networks, abundant snow and happy, outdoorsy tourists.  We had two solid jump sessions, a couple sweet afternoon skis, and then it was off to Eisenerz.

Eisenerz is a quiet old mining town that shows a different side of Austria.  The only tourism around seemed to be backcountry skiing.  I have to say, jogging to the hill in the mornings I was a bit jealous of the 50 some alpiners gearing up to shred some limitless pow.  In Eisenerz there seems to be two types of weather – cloudy and snowy or sunny and still snowy.  Anyways, we’re here to compete, not just to hike around and enjoy the vistas.

The biggest news from the weekend is, unfortunately, bad news.  Brett Denney fell on the landing hill on his first competition jump.  He’s a bit banged up and was out for the weekend.  Our team has had pretty decent luck avoiding injuries, but when it happens it’s really sad to see someone sit out.  It makes me appreciate my good health.  We’ll find out soon whether or not he’s able to compete this next weekend. 

In terms of results, I had a 24th and 19th place finish, Nick skied into points the first day to finish 29th, and Michael was just a bit out of points in the 30’s.  Eisenerz’s hill is pretty hit or miss, too put it one way.  Most people don’t love it, but it’d be boring if the hills were all the same.  I had some a couple real good jumps in training and fell a short of my high expectations in the comps, but it was still a solid way to start the trip.

Today we left Eisenerz and drove to Planica, Slovenia, where we’ll compete this weekend.  Along the way we took advantage of the US Ski Team doctors in Schladming, Austria, where Alpine World Champs are currently going on.  (Congrats to Ligety and Mancuso for bringing in some medals – we just got into Planica in time to see Ligety take the gold in the combined).

It sucks to have to go to see doctors anytime, but considering the need, it was pretty lucky that we could see these guys.  Brett took a concussion test and as soon as they compare it to his baseline we’ll find out his return status – cross your fingers.  Nick also got a little work done on a sore knee.

Now for a couple days of great training in Planica and we’ll be ready to rock this weekend. 

Last but not least, a big thanks to everyone supporting us, especially through the NNF, which is picking up a big part of the tab for this trip.  We really couldn’t do it without the support and are extremely grateful to the opportunities that we have. 

This has to be the first January that I've spent every night sleeping in my own bed since that bed was a cradle. It's been a little strange. But that's not to say that it hasn't been a productive month.  Training has been good here in Park City, and after one more practice competition this weekend, I'll be more than ready to leave for Europe on Monday.  

As I mentioned earlier, I head over on Monday morning along with Brett, Nick, Michael and coach Greg.  First we'll compete in Eisenerz, Austria and then Planica, Slovenia.  (Unfortunately, no, we won't be jumping the massive ski flying hill in Planica - we'll be on the HS104).  After Planica we'll spend a week off just outside of Innsbruck, Austria during which World Championships will take place a couple short hours away in Predazzo, Italy.  After that, we head up to Scandinavia for 3 more weeks of competition to complete the season.  5 solid weekends of competitions lay ahead!

It's been a while since I've posted, so I'll try to give a quick summary with lots of photos.

My focus for the first part of the season was on the 3 Continental Cup's (COC) here in Park City.  If any of us did really well at the COC's, we could earn a chance to ski in January World Cups in Europe.  

Unfortunately, I did not meet my expectations and was aways off from earning a World Cup spot.  My teammate Michael Ward, however, had an awesome weekend, with a career best 2nd place the first day, and will be heading to overseas next week to ski in two weekends of World Cups.  

Thanks to my Dad for taking some great pictures at the COC's.  Here's a few below.

I spent Christmas week at home - which was especially nice after being stranded in Steamboat last Christmas.  The best part of the week was just hanging around with my whole family and enjoying far too much good food.  I also got to go one of Chippewa Valley Nordic's practice.  I always enjoy seeing my old coaches and the up-and-comers from back home!

The rest of us B-team'ers will stay in Park City for the rest of the month and prepare to compete in COC's in February and March.  

Last week we had the opportunity to race in US Cross Country Championships - which happened to be right next door in Soldier Hollow this year.  

With over 200 guys racing - basically every serious US cross country racer except for the few that are currently on World Cup - the competition was tough.  I was 64th in the 15km and am fairly satisfied with that day.  Brett was our best NC guy at 37th.  Erik Bjornsen, the winner on the day, was exactly 4 minutes faster than me.  That's a lot of time, but hey, he doesn't ski jump.

The season is finally underway.  It was a short weekend over in Steamboat but a pretty good time nonetheless.  

My first day there I worked with some of the junior Midwest NC'ers on skinny skis.  They got plenty of jumping in that week but the Central coaches tend to forgot that there are two parts to the sport for these guys.  But watch out - we've got some talent coming up!

I stayed at a friends house with my mom and brother.  I'm lucky that Ben travels to the same places as me -otherwise I would almost never see my family.

We raced at night on an 8 lap 10km course.  It made for an exciting race to ski and for the spectators. The trick was keeping track of the laps and staying upright.

Nick stayed in front to get the win, I came in second, and Brett skied a wicked fast race for 3rd.  The juniors from Steamboat showed us up in jumping - luckily we can ski fast, but we'll need some longer jumps in the competitions that really matter.

Now we hope for some cold weather and snow here in Park City.  For the time being just about the only ski is up Park City mountain.  I decided to have some fun and skin up on my tele skis Monday.  

Not a lot of snow - but just my ski tracks and the hoof-print's of the moose that ran away from me here.