I woke up this morning to a beautiful day at the Loaf. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, not even a slight breeze, it was a picture perfect day that reminds us all why we love skiing so much.

I started 2nd and put together a solid first run. I did a little sliding in snow bowl, about half way down, and was able to carry great speed off the headwall. All and all, it was a solid run, nothing spectacular. I was sitting in 5th place about seven tenths out.

In the second run, I pushed out of the gate and skied alright up top (I actually had a pretty slow split), but once I hit snow bowl I was able to link up some good turns and carry a lot of speed off the headwall onto the lower course. I slid a turn on the bottom just before a big roll. After second run I moved up two places to 3rd and was on the podium at US Nationals for the first time.

I was really hoping for a win, but as a old coach of mine, Crawford Pierce, always said, “Any day you’re on the podium is a good day.”

Today was a good day and my best finish in this race. Not to mention, third place takes home 750 bucks so all and I was quite satisfied with the performance. It was fun to share it with both my parents.

Now I’m off to dinner and a few beers. Hope you all had a killer day. W

Tim Jitloff ended up winning and Tommy Ford was second. They both put together a solid first run and a great second run to be out in front of the rest of us by quite a bit.

Nationals are back on track. We raced the slalom on Saturday. I made a few good turns up top and blew out just before the finish along with almost half the field. I’m actually thinking about moving my binding back a centimeter to see if that’ll help me get over my skis a bit more… we’ll see.

The SG was yesterday, I started 21 and put together a great top split – I was in third on the top – made a few mistakes on the flat and finished in 14th. All and all, I was happy with the way I skied. I used a new pair of skis that were really easy to turn and I finally felt stable in SG again.

Today was the downhill training and race. Since I haven’t raced any speed all year and haven’t even stepped into a pair of DH skis, I decided not to race and just take a few free run with my Mom and brother in the AM on GS skis.

Tomorrow is the GS so it’s game time. I love this hill, I’m psyched with my skis right now, and it’s time to get after it. I drew bib 2 so things are already looking good.

Bring it on. w

So the past 10 days I’ve been traveling around the east coast of North America racing in Collingwood (just outside of Toronto, Ontario) and Whiteface, New York. I picked up Leif Haugan, a buddy of mine on the Norwegian National Team, in Toronto on March 7th and I just dropped him off at the Manchester Airport yesterday morning. He took over Roger’s spot on Team Maximum Velocity for a good week. It’s always more fun to travel with a buddy.

The slalom races in Collingwood were a couple good opportunities. I’ve been struggling in slalom pretty much all season and nothing changed in Canada. I finished 17th the first day and didn’t finish the second day. Leif ended up putting together a great day of slalom as he finished 4th and scored an 8 point race, the lowest race of his career. From that moment on he was pretty fired up about his decision to skip Europa Cup Finals.

After we left Collingwood we opted to put a couple extra hours onto our trip and hit up Niagara Falls before we were stopped for over an hour at the US Border where Border Control finger printed Leif and made sure he wasn’t a crazy Viking.

Whiteface was another set of good opportunities. The SG’s were fun, but I just wasn’t comfortable on my SG skis (that was day 2 and 3 on them this season). And then came the two final GS races of the Nor-Am series and coming in I was in second in the GS standings, only 5 points behind Zamansky. The first day I drew bib 1 and put together a decent top section and ended up falling on my side just before the final pitch because I was going too straight for the soft sugary snow. The second run, I made some good turns, but lost speed in key sections so I didn’t end up making much ground and finished 8th.

The second day, I came in with a new strategy of giving myself more room at the top of the turn, but the snow was much harder so I ended up skiing a round line and was way off the pace. Second run, I made some good turns, but ended up blowing out of the course and had to push back in.

So all and all, Nor-Am Finals were pretty brutal. I’ve decided to change my program to race two GS races in Canada during the US Nationals downhill training and racing so I’m off to Mont St. Anne tomorrow for 2 days of GS, then off to Sugarloaf for the SG, SL, and GS.

Hope you’re all doing well, w

The Nor-Am World cup spots ended up going to:

Downhill: Jeremy Transue and Patrick Wright
Super G: Kevin Francis and Andrew Weibrecht
Super Combined: Max Hammer and Tim Kelley
Giant Slalom: Jake Zamansky and Julien Cousineau
Slalom: Cody Marshall and Julien Cousineau