1st Houghton update

We arrived safely (and almost as importantly) with all of our stuff in Houghton early this afternoon. There was some concern that we wouldn't all make it here because they were cutting people from the flight (something about being limited on weight). Luckily we didn't get cut. The next concern was that they would be able to fit everybody's gear into the cargo area. It was a small plane and it took them quite a long time to get the skibags on there. The flight went well though. pretty uneventful. I read through the latest issues of Masterskier.

It's not as cold here as I had expected. I think that it has potential to be really cold though. it is supposed to snow everyday we are here, although never anything substantial. Something like 1-2 inches each day. Wilson, Bill, and I took an easy skate ski around the 5k today. I love the course. It is a lot more rolling than anything I have ever skied before. lots of transitions and fun curves. Snow coverage is pretty good too. After our ski, we stopped by the Subway for dinner. It was buy 2 get 1 free, so there is a good possibility that we'll be eating subway for dinner every night. at least that is what I am hoping for.

We've got internet in our hotel room. Either Bill, Wilson, or I will try to keep you informed.
-Gus

Duncan called me today. it has been a long time since I have talked with him, and it was good to hear him speak for himself rather than getting second hand news from people who may or may not have actual contact with him. it totally made the stress of packing up for nationals melt away. I feel as though a weight has been lifted. Now I am torn between excitement about Houghton and the excitement of having Duncan back on the team (or at least "in the loop" as bill says)

money troubles

After this trip to nationals. it will be official. I will be broke. not just "okay i need to slow down my spending for a while. no more eating out and seeing the occasional movie." no, this is the "absolutely no spending! lets get a job soon or else you will be in serious debt" kind of broke. How could this have happened? Christmas and racing have killed me.

Well, at least nationals will be fun

I am feeling pretty good. Those couple days of rest were good for me. Now all I have to do is get going on waxing skis for Houghton. I've got to do it tonight and tomorrow! no excuses.

Merry Christmas

I had a pretty relaxing christmas. I was woken up by my little brother who could not stand to wait any longer to open the presents. I got some pretty sweet ski clothes, and a nice bath robe. the gift that I am most excited about is my puffy Marmot coat. This will come in handy in Houghton in a few days. After presents, I pretty much slept the rest of the day. well that and listening to The Fountainhead on audiobook. I can only listen for a couple hours at a time because it is a very frustrating book. It is well written I guess. But, I get so angry listening to it that I have to stop and do something else for a while. The picture was taken today before my distance ski. another great day at mtn. dell. It was also taken so that I could see how I would look in it while resting up for sprint heats. I think it is pretty good.

Resting Up

I am kind of freaking myself out. I am taking a rest day today in light of what happened yesterday. Obviously something is wrong. I should have been able to ski with those guys quite easily. Whether it is nutrition, illness, or overtraining I am not sure yet. Bill thinks it might be nutrition, but I don't think so. I've been eating the same since I started training, and have never felt this way before. It is either illness or I am just run down from racing and training last week. Without training to look foreword to, I just kind of sit at my computer and think bad thoughts. Ben Page from Sun Valley was just diagnosed with Mono. I hung out with him at the supertour for a while. I keep thinking that I might have contracted it from him or Ian on my team. Ian had it during the summer. So obviously I have been exposed to it. It may just now be getting to me after a tough couple of weeks. This isn't really feasible though. I was never in close contact with either of them. I've become sort of a germ-o-phobe lately. All I can do now is take it easy, listen to my book on tape, and get better for nationals in less than a week.

Last TT before Nationals

I was in such a hurry today that I mistook my classic boots for skate boots. We had planned to go classic skiing after our skate TT with NSF. On my way out the door I grabbed another older pair of atomic classic boots thinking that I should save my new ones some use (little did I know that I had already mistakenly packed the new ones as skate boots). I got up there started putting on my boots and realized my mistake. I was devastated. There was some time there where I thought I would just classic the TT while everybody else skated. I was even testing my classic skis, but the wax was shearing so I decided to just sinch up my classic boots as tight as I could and just gut it out on skate skis. Lucky for me, Atomic uses a pilot binding for both classic and skate.

I am not going to lie to you, I was already making excuses in my mind for the a poor performance when I skied down to the stadium. but after 5 minutes of skiing on them I was totally comfortable on them, and was almost ready to race. I didn't get nearly enough warm up. While everybody else was out on the course warming up I was testing classic waxes. not a good call. and to make matters worse it was dumping snow. There was a good 3 inches of fresh powder. It was not the sunny SoHo I have come to know and love. we were a little worried that we might get lost on a long lap around the olympic 5k. so we opted to do 6 laps of the sprint course.

Now for the actual race. I started out pretty well. I was right up there with the leaders for the first lap. Wilson (TUNA) and Nick Hendrixson (NSF) broke away during the 2nd lap, but they were only 15 meter or so ahead. I continued to ski with Tanner Putt (really fast J2 from NSF) for the third lap. but that's when the wheels came off. Tanner faded away off the front in the 4th lap. Danny Guiney (NSF) caught and passed me at the end of the 4th or 5th (i can't remember, but that was dissapointing because I had beaten him earlier in the season.) Andrew Putt (NSF and Tanner's older brother) passed me like I was standing still on the 6th. Pretty dissapointing considering I had hopes of winning or at least being in contention for this race based on early season races. My legs just would not go. I tried to keep my technigue together, but I didn't have any pop. Maybe it was a little bit the fault of the classic boots, but I cannot put any blame there no matter how much I want to. boots don't make up the difference. skiers do

I saw two porcupines on our easy distance ski at mountain dell. there was also a very impressive snow storm that delayed my commute home.

the team did sprints at SoHo today. the grooming wasn't great but it was okay anyways. I won each of the sprints pretty easily until the very last one where bill staggered our starts to make it more exciting. By this one I was exhausted, and I didn't race. Wilson won that one. There is no doubt in my mind that wilson was going all out. He does not want to be beaten by me!

Peter came home from st. olaf today and skied with us. He wasn't used to the altitude so he took it easy (he looked really pale when he went hard). it was great to see him again. he's just so ridiculous that you can't help but laugh.

be prepared!

I gave Bill two pairs of skis (one skate & one classic) to be sent to Houghton early just in case something gets messed up when we are traveling as a team a couple days before the races. It feels weird not to have any races between now and nationals.

Training Log

I've noticed that this blog has become more of a training log than a person online journal. I am fine with that for right now, but I will try to put down some stuff other than skiing every once in a while.

Today, I did an hour of strength training at my local recreation center (which is a really good rec. center. it's got everything). then later today I went to TUNA training and did some easy distance.

15k skate

Not my best day. you can blame it on fatigue, or a whole host of other reasons, but I wasn't at my best today. I was skiing pretty well for the first lap. leading a pack of about twenty people, and skiing around the high 30s low 40s in terms of place. on the second lap I completely fell apart. I wasn't even that tired aerobically. I just kept thinking about how far I still had to go, and wondered whether my legs could make it with how bad they hurt. I got passed by the entire pack that I was leading by the third lap, and kept right where I was. I probably lost a minute on the second lap and then just stayed in that position for the rest of the race. I ended up 59th, which is not where I was hoping to be considering yesterday I was 48th, but it's all part of the process.

SoHo supertour sprint classic

I had a pretty good day today. I qualified for the junior heats, but just barely. I've never really been in the heats of a classic sprint race. it was a really fun experience. I was a little disappointed about my placing though. in the first heat I was racing in third place all the way past the hill under the bridge. I thought I was golden until i almost fell on the downhill. I had to get out of the track and that killed my speed. I kind of gave up after that and placed at the bottom of the heat. in the B-finals, I started out in a really fast double pole. when the number of tracks narrowed down to three the guy next to me wouldn't let me in. I don't blame him, he got there first. so, i just punched it on the double pole and sprinted ahead of him and took the lane. I was leading the heat by about two ski lengths until the hill under the bridge. I slipped a couple times and got passed by three people. It wasn't great, but I felt good that I am able to ski with these guys. I was just a little unlucky today.

Rest Day

I took it super easy today to rest up for the supertour and finish my ten page research paper. I am not going to lie, I had a hard time filling those ten pages. everybody I asked to read it was equally discouraging. My mom and dad always say that it's perfect and Kevin only corrects spelling and grammar. I needed somebody to judge the overall effect and flow of the paper, to give insightful comments about structure and content. oh well, I've already turned it in. Tomorrow I am going to wax skis and go take my calculus final. I will do well on everything through chapter 4, but who knows about chapter 5?

SoHo

SoHo today was world class. the stadium area was still closed for snow making, but the pony express trail was supreme. We did 4x5min intervals on classic skis. we had originally planned on doing a mock sprint to get ready for the Supertour but (once again) the stadium was closed. I wore one of John Aalberg's old USST uniforms from 1998. I really love that uniform, but I am afraid to wear it because I am afraid I will ruin it. There may only be eight-or-so of those things in existence.

It has got the preamble to the constitution of the United States of America printed on the right leg. notice how I said the entire name of our country instead of just saying, "it has got the preamble to the constitution." Wilson (teammate) and I decided that "constitution" is too vague. for all we know, it might be the constitution of Nicaragua. The picture you see is of me racing in Sun Valley last year during a sprint heat (but that is the uni). I brought my camera today but totally forgot to take pictures. There were also some of the top teams in town today gearing up for the Supertour. I saw a couple of APU guys as well as a Rossignol guy. I wish I had the time and gas money to ski at SoHo everyday. That would be the life.

White Pine

Skate Distance at White Pine (park city municipal golf course) today. it was really cold. I had to bring out the lobster gloves. White Pine has changed a little bit from last year. I guess they moved a lot of dirt during the summer for the golf course. All in all I think it is an improvement. there are more twisty-turns and it's not so flat anymore. I am looking foreword to going to SoHo tomorrow and gearing up for the SuperTour.

Yesterday, was a good training day but a not so good fun day. We did 3k intervals. 1 with poles, 1 without poles, and 1 poles only. suprisingly, I was just as fast double polling (spelling?) as I was without poles. They were tough intervals but also just a good workout. on the downside, I am missing one of my best friends and training partners Duncan. He seems to have dropped off the face of the earth and I miss him.

Soho WCS!

this is a slightly delayed recount of the wasatch citizens series race at soldier hollow on Saturday the 10th of december. We had pretty good skis, not the best but better than most. I think that the utes went with hairies, which may have been the best choice. They had the best glide and probably mediocre kick. We went with a layer of klister (which was good originally) and then covered it with some Swix red hardwax at the last second because the temps were dropping (it was ok). it was a 10k classic mass start. Bill had told me try hang in the middle pack for a while, before trying to move up. but it was obvious within the first kilometer that a lot of the people I was skiing with had slow skis, so I moved up. I ended up skiing right behind casey simons from the u of u for the majority of the first 5 k. It was obvious that I had faster skis than him on the downhills, so I thought to myself that I had a good chance of staying with him and possibly beating him through the finish. I did get a little discouraged when half of the Ute womens team passed us though. I thought that they might be only going 5k and were already sprinting through the finish, but I guess they just had faster skis than me cause I saw them again on the second lap. by this time Ian Anderson had caught up to me (he had the best race of his life). We (me, Ian, and twenty ft. ahead Casey Simons) were catching this guy who had gone really hard from the beginning. On the flat section (right before a huge downhill) I was planning on loosing Ian and the guy who had punched it from the beginning, but me and Ian seemed to be loosing that guy anyways so I still played it conservatively. I noticed that Casey Simons was fading into the distance, but I was thinking even if he looses us, Ian and I are still racing for third overall. So I let him go (big mistake). By skiing hard but not super hard with only 2 or 3k left I left the door open for others to catch me. with less than 1k left, I look over my shoulder and Barry Mackerawitz (spelling?) is right next to me. I was absolutely flabbergasted! I mean I left him within the first 2k of the race because of his slow skis. maybe the conditions had changed considerably since the start of the race. Obviously, he didn't have slow skis anymore because he was gliding by me with very little effort. I sprinted through the finish, trying my best to pass him back, and ended up 4th in the mens race (2 seconds out of 3rd).

I want it so bad

This is the last week of fall semester and things are starting to get stressful. I intend to get my homework done right after the evening training session, but it never ends up happening until around 11p.m. I really need to start going to bed sooner/get more sleep. I wake up so tired sometimes that I can't even possibly fathom getting out of bed to train. I want be be fast, and I know that in order to do it I have got to train more hours, and this means twice a day, but it is also not healthy be in constant sleep deprivation.

I know what you're thinking. You are thinking that I couldn't possibly want it bad enough, or else I would just drag myself out of bed and do it. And, to an extent, you are right (that can't be the correct way to punctuate that sentence, but I think you get the idea). I do want it though! It pains me to think about how much I want it because there is the possibility that I might not make it even if I give it 100%. I get this unbearable agitation. It's in my throat, and my chest, and my biceps, and back. My head feels dull like if i don't do something soon I might slip into unconsciousness. This is the reason I think I slack off some times. I think I would rather blame my failures on lack of effort than...oh shit, I have training in 30mins I will finish this later.

Okay, I am back from 4x7min intervals at Mtn. Dell. I was saying that some part of my subconscious would rather not try than fail, and that is a big problem. Tonight I am going to finish my calculus homework, brainstorm for my research paper, and go to bed as early as possible. no ifs, ands, or buts (that also looks very funny to me)

Well, those are the celebrities that I supposedly look like. Also, I went on a distance ski this morning after waking up really late. Bill called me and said that the utes were up at mtn. dell soI hurried myself up there to ski. I didn't have time to eat so I skipped breakfast which was a mistake. I got really hungry and that just makes skiing uncomfortable.

it is so cold

Yesterday I was supposed to go do some distance training on skis up at mtn. dell, but I left my skis at my parents house. I decided to go for an easy run instead. I left my dorm room with what I thought was enough clothes for a long run. I also wanted to do a couple of hours of solid training before I was done. For some reason, I decided to see how far I could run up emmigration canyon in one hour. The run there was great but the run/walk back was not. It was freezing. I will be more prepared next time.

One More thing

I forgot to tell you (I don't know why I say "you", nobody reads this) about the classic supertour. It was a 16k race. the course was pretty flat except for one hill so there was a lot of double pole. I woke up around 7:30 much more nervous than I was for the sprint the day before. it's funny though, in the lobby in my pijamas I can't eat before races and my stomach gets all funny, but once I put on my race suit I become a different person. it's a kind of reverse superman thing. Superman's outfit is indestrucible when it is touching his skin, but I am indestructible when my suit touches my skin. I grab my skis from the basement and walk over to the trailhead.

I ski over on my klister skis (Rick Halling/Sandy Brown picked out my new atomic skis for me last year but unfortunately they are too stiff) without wax so I skate. I show up early enough that bill wants me to help him test waxes. I set aside my race skis, and start testing other skis. I will be racing on an older pair of atomic skis that are much softer than my new ones. I get warmed up, shed some layers, and head over to my start.

out of the start I do a couple of quick diagonal strides and cruise into a fast-but-not-too-fast double pole. I haven't previously skied the course, so I go a little conservatively through the first lap. This is a good call on my part because I have a tendency to go all out in the first kilometer and burn out halfway through the race. as I approach the only real hill, I can see the person who started 30 seconds before me. I think to myself, "keep him in check. If you catch him on the second or third lap you will be having a good race because he went to Scando Cup last year." I never caught him though.

The second and third lap went about the same as the first. I got passed by a 3 or 4 of college guys, but it wasn't nearly as many as last year. the "Scando Cup"guy faded into the distance in front of me, and I never saw him again until the finish when he was already across the line and getting his warm ups back on. I passed a couple of people though, but they didn't ski technically as well as I do.

As the fourth lap came around, I finally decided it was time to go all out. sure I had been going hard before, but I guess I wasn't racing. I hurt plenty but, once again I felt like I was conserving something for the end. on the steep hill I came across my old teammate Ben Page. He was yelling from the sidelines. He really motivated me over the top. and I started really going from there. It was a long sprint, but almost all downhill back to the finish. I came across the line feeling like I raced hard but not given it my all. I hate that feeling, but realistically, I have better races more often when I start out slow and speed up along the way than when I go all out from the beginning. If I go all out, I either have the best race of my life, or I go under and feel like quitting ski racing. With more training volume, I think that I will be able go hard pretty much the whole race.

STRENGTH

Wow today has been great. I slept in because I was too tired to get out of bed and do the strength work I was scheduled to do on my own. So, I finally roll out of bed around 9 only to find that my class has been cancelled and I think to myself, "now I can go do the strength I missed." I grab a quick bite to eat at the HC and then get into training clothes and do the workout. I realized while in west that strength training can make a big difference. I must admit that I have been slacking when it comes to strength training. Today is the start of a new Gus. The New Gus will be so strong that double poling won't make his arms tired at all. It is going to be sweet.

All right,

I am back at home now after a great trip up to west yellowstone for a ski camp/supertour race. I learnt a lot about where I am compared to the guys I will be racing against this year. As it turns out, people who train more go faster. who would have thought? it was a good wake up call. I will be remembering that every morning when I wake up and feel like staying in bed rather than getting up and training.

Supertour Sprint

So,
the first race of the year is over. I did the supertour sprint race at west yellowstone. I don't think I had my best showing but, I felt I raced as hard as I could. I finished 67th (which was much better than last year, but not quite what I was hoping for.) The field was pretty tough. Not as many college teams showed up, but all of the top industry teams were here. I may have placed a little better if I had had more time on snow before I raced. It was a little hard to coordinate the movements at a fast tempo, but who knows, maybe everybody else was rusty too.

Anyway you slice it, I proved that I am faster than last year (though not fast enough yet), and I am happy about that. it is just the beginning and I hope I can continue to improve throughout the rest of the season.

tomorrow, we are going to go in search of snow. I think we are heading up to one of the alpine resorts and skiing under the lifts. It should be fun, but I need to get out my skis and prepare them for snow. I have a lot of work to do.

I am super stressed about race season this year. not really about whether I am physically ready, because everything seems to be going according to plan, but rather about how I am going to balance school, training, and money. anyone who says that this a sport for everyone is flat out lying. Lets face it, cross country skiing is a sport for affluent members of our society. I know this is going to sound like I am complaining, but I am a little bit. Racing is expensive. You have gear, race fees, as well as traveling costs. There is no way around it. I am the poorest athlete on my team. We are making our plans for US nationals this year, and It is seriously going to bankrupt me. As I said in the last post I am working odd jobs around town so that I can barely make it, but it is totally stressing me out. I guess this is my welcome to the real world.

We are still holding our breath. Hopefully West Yellowstone gets tons of snow. I haven't yet signed up for the supertour races, but I want to. I think I am waiting until I know that we will be skiing before I lay down the money (poor college student that I am). Speaking of finances, I am working random od jobs for the parents of a couple of the kids on the team so I can afford to travel to houghton for senior nationals. I must admit that I almost think that houghton wouldn't be worth it for me. Bill seems to think that I have a chance (long-shot as it is) to prequalify for JO's if I go. So, I am sure it will be a lot of fun, and I will enjoy myself no matter how well I ski.

SoHo Recap

Had to wake up early so that I could make it to the Kmart parking lot for the shuttle with Bill up to Soldier Hollow. When we got up there Ian, Wilson, and Duncan were sleeping in their car. One of the highlights of the day was seeing Ian trying to ski in 35 pound hand crafted chain mail. He looked ridiculous. I really need to start bringing my camera everywhere I go. I ended skiing about 30k and got a solid 2hrs and 45 mins of training in.

okay, So you know how I said I would blog later when I felt like it. Well, I still don't feel like it, but I also do not feel like doing my calculus homework. I should have taken Calculus 2 this year, but I decided that I needed a refresher in Calc 1. This was a mistake. It's a little too easy since I took AP Calculus BC last year. I passed the AP test but didn't feel very comfortable with my score. Right now we are working on the definite integral and also approximating the area with Reimann sums as well as Simpson's method.

Speaking of school, I still don't have a major. I hate not knowing what to go into. Seriously, Everything I have studied in school seems interesting to me. last week i was wavering between english and math. two weeks ago it was english and physics. What to do?

Back to training: This morning I got up a 6 to rollerski around sugarhouse park and this afternoon we did Vo2 max intervals at terrace hills. these intervals are super tough. We usually do 9 x 2 minutes on classic rollerskis.

to do

I've decided that I need to start bringing my camera to practices. The problem is that I have a brick camera and it doesn't like to fit inside my thermobelt water bottle. it fits by itself, but when I try to smash in my phone and wallet and car keys as well, it doesn't like it.

To tell you the truth my mind isn't really into blogging right now. maybe I'll try again later.

Gross Air

I went for a run up in the foothills above my dorm today. I knew that there was an inversion looming over the valley, but after I reached the summit of agony hill I realized how bad it was. It was really gross. you couldn't even see the valley floor. We need a good storm to blow all of this crap out of here. Or, we just need to be a little more enviromentally aware of our surroundings. There you have it, my little liberal rant for the day.

2nd post today

I must correct the previous statement. I am not just an english nerd. English does not have exclusive rights to my nerdyness. I am an equal opportunity nerd. Just yesterday, I was in calculus and my professor was plugging a math contest that we could get extra credit for going to. There was this wise guy in the back that asked the professor if there was going to be an open bar (I guess he planned on getting drunk that evening instead of going to "Math Fest 2007"). and without pause or thought about how nerdy it was, I yelled back to him, "Dude, it's never a good idea to drink and derive." I got a few laughs, but mostly I felt like the biggest dope ever.

convalescence

I still have a few sniffles, but I think I am beginning to kick this cold to the curb (how's that for alliteration? or is it consonance? maybe it's both. God I am such an english nerd. But, that doesn't mean I have proper grammar. I am sure that this post is riddled with mistakes.). Anyways, today I did some classic distance rollerskiing with some speed thrown in intermittently. I started out pretty easy because I felt that I should be wary of going to hard right after an illness. It was pretty miserable. I kept thinking to myself, "is this good for me? shouldn't I be resting for one more day?". But as I started doing the speed drills, I found that I was having way too much fun to worry about relapse. Something about going fast makes everything worthwhile. It was like waking up in the morning with the warmth of the sun on your shoulders, stretching and yawning but not being tired, and knowing that the rest of the day is going to be a good one. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. For me, this light is that I am getting better and the first race of the season is coming up soon.

I can't wait for West! (How about that alliteration, huh?)

ugh!

I must have really pushed myself yesterday because today I am sick. I have a cold, and am resting right now. bored out of my mind. you see from that last sentance that I can't even form full sentences. There is no subject. oh well.

Sprint Relay at SoHo

I dragged myself out of bed this morning to do a team sprint relay with duncan. The Utes as well as the US Nordic Combined Team were there. I must admit that I underestimated the nordic combined guys. When I think nordic combined I think mediocre skiers that focus more on jumping than actual training. But, Bill Demong showed up. He is an amazing skier and won the world championships last year in nordic combined. I was totally psyched to have him there.

It was freaking cold. As I passed through park city, I looked at the car thermometer and it read 23C. Luckily, I had thought ahead. I was totally decked out in my crazy tights even though it wasn't Tuesday (TUNA has a tradition that states, "if an athlete has crazy tights to wear, they will be worn on Tuesday's practice). I roll into the SoHo parking lot and Bill, Duncan, Ian, and Wilson are already there. I say high to Wendy, put on my skis, and Duncan and I start warming up. SoHo, apart from being the sight of the 2002 winter olympics, might just be the best rollerskiing in the world. Duncan and I are only skiing the sprint course today, but SoHo has another 6 or so Ks of paved trials with wicked ups and downs that make even seasoned athletes a little nervous. It is exhilarating.

Wendy calls everyone together to give us a little race prep information. We are going to do a team sprint relay which means I will ski a lap and tag off to duncan who will ski tag back to me again. we will do this until each of us has raced three laps. but, thats only one heat. we will end up doing another one after we have had 20 mins rest.

I take my place on the start line, and we are off. my first lap feels great. I feel as though I am not even really skiing that hard. I keep pretty close to Ian Havlick (who won the junior national sprint last year at this very course, but on snow). I tag off to duncan who ended up having a decent race at the start, but ramped it up and finished extraordinarily well. Bill sharpens my poles in between the time I finished my lap and the time Duncan comes back into the stadium to tag back. My second lap isn't so great. my legs are a little fatigued, but I manage to hang on to ian once again. My third lap is just agony. I think I ended up being 10 seconds slower than my previous laps times (which is a lot in a 1.3k per lap sprint).

Both Duncan and I really pulled it together for the second heat, and improved our times. we ended up beating the previous heat by a whopping 30 seconds. I contribute it mostly to better hand offs between laps. Bill was really proud.

gearing up

yesterday I skied with the Utes on a distance rollerski around sugarhouse park. It was a whole lot of fun because I don't usually get to ski with people who are faster than me. that's the catch of not being on a college ski team and skiing with juniors. the kids on the TUNA team are all really fast, but I am 2-3 years older than most of them, and they haven't been training as long as I have. It was an amazing opportunity to ski with the Utes. I am thankful that Wendy gave me the chance. On Thursdays, their team is somewhat split so there weren't many people there. I was lucky enough, though, to ski right behind last years NCAA champ Snorri Einarsson. We skied easy all the way around the park until we came upon the hill right after the pond. We sprinted up that it, and then skied easy again. We did this for almost two hours and then went our separate ways.

Who knows? maybe if I ski with them enough, they'll give me a shot to ski for them next year. If not, I think I am going to transfer to a school that will have me. I don't really know what I want to do in school, but I do know that I want to ski for a school.

I slept through training this morning because I was awoken by my suitemates coming home drunk and being really loud. I can't stand it. I even went to bed early so I could get enough sleep.

p.s. I ended up training later that evening, but you can never make up workouts once they have been missed.

Can I Do This?

I am a nineteen year old college student. I spend most of my time going to class, coaching, training, and dreaming. Right now, I am thinking about the dreaming part. Do I have the right? As I said, I am nineteen years old. I have been racing for about two years, but not really seriously. this year I have dedicated a considerable amount to training, but I wonder if it is enough. I know of people who have decided not to go to college in order to ski full-time, and I can't help but think that they are getting an edge on me. I am faster now than ever before, but I think that everyone else is as well. The U.S. is finally at a point where they can compete internationally, and the juniors are following suit. Sure, I can ski with Duncan (who is really fit and skies well), but he is much younger than I am. Does that mean he has more potential? Something he said today made me question my own.

I roll into the dirt parking lot just off of I-80 past mountain dell golf course. I am kind of nervous about our skate rollerski time trial. Bill says that there is ice on the road further up. this is a good sign that winter will indeed come to Utah this year even though it doesn't seem like it with all the hot weather we've had lately. So, we are going to bag the TT and make it a pace session for safety's sake. We will ski hard until we reach the spot where it is no longer rollerskiable and then shuttle down and do it again.

With my rollerskis strapped on, I head up the wooded stretch of pine needle littered road towards the spot where we usually stretch. Duncan is with me, and we lament the fact that we are the only older skiers that showed up for this workout. It is always more fun when the whole team is there, and we haven't had the whole team for quite some time because of high school cross country running conflicts. With or without the runners, Duncan is fast enough to keep me going to it with all that I can muster. stretching is done and now we head to our homemade start line, which consists of a dead end sign and a crack in the road.

The younger juniors start out before us. I am not quite sure why. I think that bill wants us to ski by them and try to have them hold on to us for as long as they can. I know that this is an effective way to motivate people to go as hard as they can, but I also know from experience that getting dropped works negatively on the ego. You have to believe that you are fast in order to go fast. Anyway, a minute later Duncan and I start together and feed off each other's speed to dictate how hard this interval is going to be. I push it first by moving quickly into a speedy v2 alternate. Duncan returns in kind by quickening his pace and staying right on my heals. We pass the juniors about two minutes in and bill yells some encouragement as we fly by him. Shortly after this, the hill gets to steep to v2 and I have to switch to the v1 technique. Duncan is a freight train and can v2 anything. he edges past me, and I do my best to keep up. I think to myself that I can't let him slip away or I'll never catch him again. He is particularly good at keeping leads once he has them. I focus on raising my hands high and keeping my core tight to minimize the energy expended extraneously. Everything needs to be focused on moving the skis. I am going at a pace that I could not sustain if I were to be going to the top. The ice has prevented that, but I am still worried that I might go under if the course is long. I have know clue where the car denoting the finish line is parked, so I just have to barrel on in hopes that I have enough fuel to burn. I am still right on Duncan's heals when we are about to reach the car. I hasten my tempo in order to pull next to Duncan. We are skiing side by side now perfectly synchronized stride for stride. It must have looked pretty cool from the third person point of view, but there was no one. Just Duncan and myself, leaning on our poles, sucking in the cold mountain air like it was the only thing in the world that mattered.

We shuttle down the canyon in Johnathon's mom's minivan. Bill is at the wheel and I am riding shotgun. Somehow we get on the subject of Olympic courses. we fantasize about taking a road trip to Canada to check out the course that John Aalberg is designing. From the back of the minivan Duncan says, "yeah, that would be quality". (quality has become the teams new catch phrase for cool. Bill says, "let's see. . .the next Olympics is in 2010. it would be like a preview for when you are skiing in then." Duncan states that he would only be nineteen, and Bill replies that it wouldn't be unheard of.

"God!" I think to myself. "He will only be nineteen when the next Olympics come around. And at the rate he's going, he will make it too. I am already nineteen, and what have I done."

I really don't have any results to quote, but this is a list of all the things that I consider accomplished at this point.
*I know that I love this sport, and that I want to see how far I can take myself in it.
*I have some great friends and training partners that are going to be great skiers and I can keep up with them.
*I have received some sponsorship from the ski industry (although I accredit this to connections with a rep instead of deserving it based on skill.)
*I ski technically well. I would even call it national class.
*I have improved my fitness significantly this year, and I seem to be coping well.

So after all that, Can I do this? it is unsure, but I sure as hell am going to try!

I was supposed to go rollerskiing this morning at 6 at sugarhouse, but I have been feeling a little tired and I needed to finish my paper outline for honors writing so I skipped it. I am going to go out and do some plyometircs right now though, to make up for it.

Woke up at 6:30 and then hit the snooze button for 7:00. I quietly dressed and snuck out of my dorm in order not to wake up my roommates or the random people sleeping in the living room. I stopped by the seven eleven for some breakfast. I got pop tarts and an energy bar. I know, I know, breakfast of champions right. But, I needed something. The guy behind the counter was super weird. It wasn't even small talk. it was just crazy shit. He told me that I had dropped my pocket, and I was like, "ok?". I guess it was his kind of a joke or something. Then he started telling me about his girlfriend, but I wasn't really listening. I just kept agreeing with him.

Eventually I made it all the way up to Mt. Dell Golf Course for a classic rollerski up big mountain. None of the older kids were there. Not even Duncan, who is usually there for every workout and very punctual. I ended up skiing up with Todd, who is a J2 but skis very well for his age. All of our J2's are going to have good years this year. I wasn't trying to loose Tod, but I wasn't trying to hold back either. I just skied easy and he skied with me. I think it ended up taking us about 1 hour and 20 mins to make it up to the top. that was a little slow. I usually ski up it in about 1 hour and 10 mins on classic skis.

I feel like I should blog about other things than skiing or practice, but I always seem to find that they are the most fun/interesting parts of my day.

done, Finally

I woke up at 8:30 so I could make it across town by 9:00 for V1 skate intervals. I fell asleep again and woke up around 8:45. I was doomed. I called Bill to tell him I would be late, and as it turned out, he had forgotten about it completely. so, he would be late too. I ended showing up around 9:30, but they hadn't started the intervals yet.
We have had a really tough week this week. I think we've done 4 intensity sessions in the past six days. That seems like a lot to me. After a couple of the intervals it was pretty clear that we weren't going to get through all the intervals at the pace we were going, so we decided to slow down and just work on technique. I need to work on bringing my hands up quick as well as focus on bringing them a little higher.

Rest Days

Today is a rest day. I have had several interval sessions this week already and I have one more tomorrow. I really need the rest, It feels good to be sitting here writing this and not feel that I should be training instead. I will probably spend the rest of the day reading books and then head over to Bill's to watch some ski videos.

With that said, I will move on to what happened yesterday. As I posted before, I skied with Barry Mackerawitz ( i think that's how you spell it) and Jason Travis. Both of whom are very fast master skiers. I kept up better than I had expected, even beating Barry on an interval and keeping a respectable lead over Jason. Granted, I think my skis may have been slightly faster because they were on Marwe's.

Later that day, I attended the TUNA Big Mountain TT. Usually, it is not advisable to do two interval sessions in a day, so I ended up jogging it. I kept my heart rate around 161, and still beat most of the older guys. I think they probably thought I was showing them up or something. I found it hard not to go hard, when everybody else was. I really had to focus on not just sprinting by people, and keeping my pace slow. anyways, it is encouraging that even when I am going slow, I can beat some relatively fit old people.

Intervals in park city

At 10 this morning, I went for a skate rollerski with Barry and Jason Travis. I had a lot of fun. It is great to ski with different people every once in a while. We started out on a ski adventure around the highway. I have never felt how weird rollerskiing was until I skied through a traffic light and under a low overhang across a wooden bridge. We did 5x5min intervals up the hill leading to the ski jumps. It was tough. I stayed with barry for the first interval, beat him in the second, and from then on he was gone. I was proud that I kept ahead of Jason though. Last year I don't think I would have even been close to those guys.

been gone a while

I haven't blogged for a while, but I will start doing it more often. Right now I am learning as much as I can about starting my own website. As of right now, I have parked the domain gustavojohnson.com and I am learning the basics of html. I may even try to find a course offered at the U about webpage design. I think that it would be cool to have my own.

first post

First post! woo, I am ready.

I went to brian's class today. I really love that class. I need to go get a Hitchcock movie to anaylze over the weekend. so, that should really be fun