Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! It's dumping snow here in the Methow.... Pretty sweet! Just got back from a ski with the family. Doesn't get much better then this.

Last week Sadie and I hosted a camp for the local kids. It was very successful, nearly 50 kids between the age of 7 and 13 attended. We worked on some fun drills, waxing skills, mass start racing, and our finishing lunges. The kids seem to have a really fun time and we had a lot of positive feedback. I think we might just have to make this an annual event.

Cascade Challenge Camp

Click here to sign up.

Noram

I raced today at Sovereign Lakes, first Noram for a couple of years. My top result in the past was 32nd place. Today I qualified 7th and was able to ski up into 3rd, for my first Noram podium. Pretty excited!!! Check out this link for a full race report- fasterskier.

Photo credit: Lauren Fritz

Bozeman/Silver Star

Hello readers, I'm now in Silver Star, Canada and it is AMAZING here. The trails are always corduroy and the sun is always shinning. This is the best skiing in North America, well besides the Methow of course. We arrived monday night, so this was our fourth day skiing. Today we did race prep which involves an easy ski warm up with a couple times around the sprint course at near race pace, then a little cool down. I felt pretty strong, still a little sore from strength a couple days ago but I have gotten use to that being on the APU team. Erik Flora, our coach pretty much believes if your not sore your not pushing yourself hard enough.

Last weekend we raced in Bozeman, Montana for the second Super Tour series this season. The first day we had a skate sprint and a skate 10 kilometer race. I started a little slow in the sprint and finished just outside the top ten. I was not super stoked about this result but I still had one more chance that day to put something together. I went out in the skate distance race really hard and ended up finishing 8th, 3 seconds from 6th which happens to be the last position that receives prize money. A pretty good race for myself but that is also some expensive 3 seconds. It's amazing when you are out on a course for close to a half hour and it comes down to just seconds, I guess every second really does count. The second day was a classic 15 kilometer race this ended up being my race of the weekend. It was an interval start race, meaning that each racer starts on their own, in this case the gap between each skier was 30 seconds. I started right around the middle of the pack with Sylvan Ellefson, a podium finisher from the previous weekend starting 30 seconds behind me. Sylvan ended up catching me right around half way through the race and followed me for 3 or 4 kilometers before taking the lead. I then gave it everything to hold on to him for the last 4 kilometers.  We definitely had a good pace going the last half of the course because we ended up finishing the race in first and second position. Sylvan winning by thirty seconds and me beating the third place person by ten seconds.

Yesterday we had a long ski easy and had to stop a couple of times to shoot some pictures of us sailing over the bumps on the fast downhills. Fun stuff!

Super Tour Update

Well, here is little update from the last couple weeks. Sorry I haven't been great about updateing my blog. But, with the combination of finishing up classes at Alaska Pacific University online and having limited internet access it has been a little hard. I am at a coffee shop finally getting a decent internet connection. We are currently in Bozeman, Montana waiting for our second weekend of the Super Tour circuit racing. Last week was the first three races of the circuit in West Yellowstone, Montana. I threw down some decent races posting an 8th place and 13th place in the sprints. In the skate distance race I was 33rd, and finishing with my best for the weekend a 3rd in the classic distance. It was the best Super Tour result I have had and I also posted the best FIS points result of my life, 43 points. Pretty sweet! Might have pre-qualified myself for the Under 23 world championships but I'm not sure about that yet. Either way, pretty exciting way to kick of the season. Now we are hoping to race Saturday and Sunday up at Bohart Ranch but there is only about three inches of snow so we will see if they can pull it off. Here are some pictures from last week thanks to Ian Harvey, head of Toko wax and equipment. Just picked up a new glove sponsorship with Toko. They make some really nice gloves you should definitely check them out here.

Sadie and I are hosting a camp in the Methow Valley when we go back for christmas. If you are a kid that is interested, sign up! It's going to be a blast.