Last week at Nor-Ams were a disaster. I showed up with far too high expectations without enough training or time on snow. I wasn't able to put together any GS turns until my final run on the second day and the slaloms didn't go much better.

On a positive note, my knee held up really well. I took the least amount of runs as possible, iced after each race run, did e-stem every afternoon (thanks to Abbi Lathrop), and pounded between 2000-3000 mg of ibuprofen (depending on the day).

After a tough week in Panorama, we drove to Whistler for Canadian Nationals. On the long drive, I decided it was time to stop worrying about skiing fast. It was time to stop caring and just go have fun.

Last night, the race organizers opted to run the nationals slalom today rather than the scheduled downhill because of too much snow on the downhill track. I started 4th and had a solid first run, not pinning it too hard, just making good decisions the whole way down, and finished in 7th on the run. The second run, the snow was pretty hard, but inconsistent as the organizers salted the hill. The course was turnier than the first run so I jumped out of the gate charging, bringing shape to top of the turn, and fighting to stay ahead of the course the whole way down. I crossed the line with a solid run and ended up finishing 3rd just under .5 off the leader.

It turned out to be a great day as I scored the second best slalom result of my year (an 11.6).

So we're finally back after a two month hiatus. It's a real treat to have the snow under my feet again. Tomorrow we're hoping to run a downhill training run. I hope all of you are doing well. It's great to be back. w