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