Euro Update

I'm three and a half weeks into my European trip and time has been blowing by; it seems like just yesterday we were finishing up Nationals. The trip has been really fun so far with some great new experiences. The first two and a half weeks I spent in Liberec, Czech Republic. I raced a World Cup and the Under 23 World Championships there. The U23 race series was at the end of my time in Liberec, which was really nice because I was able to get comfortable and familiar with the area before the big Championships. The World Cup races were two days after I arrived so I had both ends of the spectrum. This was a new area of Europe I had not yet been to. South of Czech Republic is Austria and Slovenia and Germany is to the west; all three countries I have spent time in. Czech Republic reminded me a lot of Slovenia. The population of Liberec is somewhere around 100,000, quite large compared to what I'm use to. I enjoyed being in the city for the first half of the trip as I don't spend much time in areas like that. It was interesting and exciting to have a huge town to explore on my afternoon walks and runs. By the end of the trip I was definitely ready to move on. I would say about 5% of the people could speak English, so it was really hard to talk to any of the locals. I like to try to meet people and learn a little bit about the area, culture, and just to get a sense of the environment.  It was gray and overcast most of my time there, which didn't help with the city vibe.

 View from my hotel room.

 Sophaloaf skiing on the race track.

 My german friend, Lucia Anger stops for a picture on our afternoon run.

 Night running....

always exciting!

The World Cup went pretty good considering I had just raced four times in the U.S. and then hopped on a plane across the pond (with one day to adjust) and then boom, RACE day. I finished 47th in the individual sprint, my third world cup sprint. Then the second day my good friend, Skyler and I teamed up and we got 27th place. It was awesome to get another couple starts against the fastest dudes in the World.

World Cup classic sprint.

The Under 23 World Championships were great. When I sat down this past summer with Erik Flora, my coach, I decided these were the races I wanted to peak for; they were the races I placed a lot of my goals for the year. Guys and gals under the age of 23 from all around the World have to go through a qualification criteria in order to represent their country at World Championships and I've had the privilege to race at the junior and U23 Champs for the last 5 years. Every year I feel like I have learned something from the race experience and every year I feel like I'm getting closer to reaching my goal of being competitive with the best skiers. This year I finished 10th, 15th, and 16th. While this might sound unsatisfactory in domestic races, internationally I felt I raced well and solid. Every race, it was a new personal best for me and in every race I got to ski with the leaders and see what type of pace they were skiing. It was fast, but for the first time I didn't feel like they were in a different league then myself. This year it was a Russian guy that seemed to be the strongest U23 out there. His technique was good and he is obviously really fit, but I think I can catch up to him. I wrote some goals down after I left Liberec that I will look back at this summer. I plan on training hard this next summer and there are somethings I'm definitely going to try and improve on. Next year when I go back to U23 World Championships, it will be my last year that I can qualify for this age group and I REALLY want to win a medal!

 Photo credit: Logan Haneman

  Photo credit: Logan Haneman

 Photo credit: Logan Haneman

Sophie and I had a fun day of racing!

After my last race at U23's I was feeling really tired and that night I had to take a flight to Zurich in order to meet up with the World Cup crew on their way to Russia. I knew this was going to be a really hectic schedule, but I wanted to race the pursuit at U23's and I wanted to race the World Cup in Russia so this was the only way I was going to make it work. I got a shuttle late Saturday night to Prague and then got on the plane to fly to Zurich. For some reason I just couldn't sleep on the plane even though I was super tired. Near the end of the flight I started feeling really awful. I was sitting in my seat wondering if I was just super tired or if I was feeling sick. I decided to pull out the puke bag in the seat pocket in front of me, wondering to myself who ever uses these things anyway. If I really feel like puking, I'm going to just get up and go to the bathroom. All the sudden I got really nauseous and what do you know that bag came in really handy (no time to get to the bathroom). When I landed I took a shuttle to the hotel in Zurich where the World Cup team was and by that time it was morning and the team was just starting to wake up. I talked to coach Matt Whitcomb and told him I threw up on the plane.  Since the flu was going around and many of my teammates at U23's had gotten sick, we decided it was best for the World Cup team and myself that I skip the Sochi World Cup, just in case I started feeling worse. Tad Elliott, US Ski team member, had just gotten the flu so his plans were to skip Sochi and head to Davos, Switzerland. I was having a really hard time with the decision when all the sudden I started getting nauseous again and yes, more vomiting. That sealed the deal and I said adios to the team and Tad and I started our travel to Davos. The next part of the trip was one of the worst experiences of my life. It involved lots of throwing up mixed with trying to haul around all my luggage while we hopped from one train, to another, to another on our way to Davos. My body couldn't hold in any fluids and it wanted everything out of my stomach. Lets just say there was some not so pretty sites on the train station platforms and in the train bathrooms. Luckily my buddy Tad Elliott had my back the whole way there so I survived.

This past week here in Davos, Switzerland has been really nice. I spent the first couple days in bed getting healthy and then it was out to explore the winter wonderland. What a treat this place has been. It makes me feel like I'm in heaven. The people here are unbelievably nice, everybody from the hotel workers to the nice old lady I met on the bus.  Tad and I have been on some amazing skis and have been trying to take it easy. I had a serious block of racing in January, so the order from coach was to find some distractions and train long and easy.

Nice morning view to look at while having breakfast.

No coffee for this guy, I always go for some of that delicious hot chocolate.

Tad and I found some pretty nice trails.

Tad Elliott

Check out that view!

Waiting for the bus, notice the World Cup banners up top. The public bus system here is so nice, it seems like everyone uses it. There are busses that go through the valley every 15 minutes so if you miss one its not to long of wait. Tad and I don't have a vehicle this week but thats no problem.

The Swiss miss has been cooking us some amazing meals!

Skiing with some friends. Jason from the Swiss team (left). PK from the Australian team(middle). Tad(right)

Tad and I have been hitting up the sauna and a little snow bath between. I like to do contrast baths for recovery but don't exactly have access to one right now, thats alright we have been making this work .

 Me and my friend Mr. Snowman.

Next weekend I'm going to race the Switzerland Championships. These races should be a fairly small field but really strong competition. I've made friends with a lot of the Swiss team members so it should be a blast racing with these guys. Unlike the U.S. national championships where the field is over a 150 racers, the Swiss championships will probably have less then 30 but the competition will be a lot tougher. I'm just really excited to get the bib back on. Then after that it is back to World Cup racing, starting here in Davos and then I will be going to Val Di Fiemme, Italy for WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!  I am so honored to be a part of the team and I can't wait.  I know that in the future, I can be one of the best in the World and this is just just another step of some fun and hard work ahead. There are some good things happening in the US and we all hope you are following us. Olympics are just a year away!  Keep watching as it means a lot and we need you to keep us revved up!

Until next time- I hope YOU are all staying healthy and happy! Thanks for your support!!