I love Colorado during Thanksgiving week!! The whole U.S. ski racing world makes the pilgrimage to Colorado for reliable training because no other region has been able to fill their mountains with snow so early in the season. It's almost like homecoming as college, club, and national teams hit Colorado for early snow and the start to the North American racing season. Not to mention, my brother, mother, Dennis, Jamie, along with a bunch of other friends were here in Colorado for the Thanksgiving fest.

Anyway, after a very productive camp here in Colorado Roger and I have started our ridiculous racing schedule – we’re calling it the world tour – of the next 10 days. We’ll be racing at Keystone for two GS races, Winter Park for two slaloms, then hammer to the Denver airport to catch a flight to Sweden, race two slalom races in Are, Sweden, and finally two GS races in Aal, Norway. It’s 8 races in 10 days in two continents and three countries. It’s a little retarded, but totally worth it. If we’re really tired we’ll take a day off racing in there somewhere.

Today was the first North American race of the season at Keystone, CO. It was a somewhat stacked field of World Cup GS skiers. I started 5th because of last years Nor-Am standings and put together a great run with two mistakes. When I crossed the finish line I was a little bummed out with my performance, but when I reached the scoreboard everyone was looking at me, which is always a good sign. I ended up finishing 2nd, three-tenths behind Kalle Palander, so I was very satisfied with the way the first run ended up.

Then second run, I took a slightly rounder line on one section, felt great all the way to the bottom, crossed the finish line completely psyched, and ended moving all the way back to 12th, I think, and was over two seconds off Palander’s pace.

So all and all, the moral to this story is when you feel great you’re probably way too round and not getting off your skis nearly quick enough. Tomorrow I’m going to put together two runs at full gas right on the edge of out of control.

Have fun (I’m sure I will). w

I’d like to thank Jamie Kingsbury of Stratton Mountain School for being our coach out here in Colorado for the last two weeks. Thanks you’ve been an enormous help.