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.