Struggles

So I realize that I haven't been posting at all for about a month and it's primarily because I haven't been in the mood after races to write about the tough day that I had. The series in Park City at the beginning of January was extremely rough, with some crashes, mistakes, and lots of disappointments. There were a few days especially when I seriously questioned my desire to remain in this sport, days when I didn't feel like I loved what I was doing enough to push on. Then we got home, trained some slalom, and had two Far West Slalom races at Sugar Bowl. I felt like I skied well for the most part, but came away with a 54 point result (not too close to my goals) and an extremely lame DNF. We then took two days off, and most of the PG group drove down to San Francisco to relax and surf, or in my case, play a few rounds of golf. I thought getting back on the golf course would put my mind at ease and help me to get my priorities back in place, but instead made me realize that I'm very black and white in my view of success and failure, and many times fail to take the positives out of a performance that wasn't my best, no matter what sport it is. This not only at some points makes me unable to perform in future competition, but makes me extremely miserable most of the time. So I've been wondering, is it just Ski Racing, with it's ridiculous ups and downs, that makes me so upset? Or is it my personality and competitiveness that comes out primarily in Ski Racing, because I do put so much time and effort into it? Certainly I get upset when I hit a bad shot in golf, but I'm not nearly as serious when I play golf as I am when I race. And I get mad when I play baseball; after a bad strikeout or a botched defensive play in the field, but that mostly comes down to whether you won or lost the game, which is extremely dependent on the performance of your teammates. So when things aren't going well during a race series, I question whether or not my personality and mental toughness are suited to this sport, but when things are going well, I can't imagine why I ever felt that way. I enjoy the adrenaline rush that I experience during the few seconds from the start gate to the finish line, and often find much of the other work involved with the sport boring and tedious. I had an extremely good training session over the past week. I ripped a few days of Super-G, got some Slalom in at Snow King and Donner Ski Ranch, and figured a lot of things out with our GS mini-camp here in Wyoming. For the most part, I was on cloud nine, without a doubt or care in the world. I came into today with a solid sense of confidence, and put a fast time on the board going into the second run. But it seems like the theme of this season is becoming blown opportunities, because once again, I was unable to repeat the same performance that had put me into 6th first run. These disappointments leave me beating up on myself over my inability to make it happen when I need to, something that helps nothing and makes those around me embarrassed for the way that I act. Ski Racing is an incredibly difficult sport where failure is a regular occurrence, and when it's difficult to find a reason that you even got out of bed in the morning or why you should go back out tomorrow, then success becomes like a drug that is always out of your reach. When you have it, there's nothing wrong in the world. When you don't, then you have the opposite of confidence, a belief that you are, to the core, inadequate to perform at any stage, in any venue of your life. Ski Racing has become too much of this for me, and if I don't start experiencing more success then I'm not sure that I can push on being miserable like this. In baseball, it's 9v9, and if one of the players doesn't perform, then it's likely that another will have an exceptional performance, making up the loss. But in Ski Racing, it's 1v139, and if you don't perform, then no one is there to pick you up or make you feel better. Which is sometimes just what I need.

A Few College Races

So the last few days were my first collegiate races, here in Park City, Utah. Let's just say they didn't go as wel as I had hoped. The fields were extremely stacked, (bib numbers of 54 and 73) the snow in the GS was horrible, and the Slalom hill was extremely tough. Besides all that, it was certainly good experience for the FIS Elite series here the next four days. I had some good sections in the GS, especially in the second run before I lost a ski in a gnarly hole. In the Slalom today I struggled on the pitch, but got some good turns going on the flat section before missing a gate over a bit of terrain. Tomorrow was supposed to be Slalom, but due to a bad surface at Snowbird, we may run GS at Park City. The fields should be weaker the next few days, which means better start numbers and more charging, which I prefer. So hopefully I'll have some better news tomorrow or the next day, but I probably won't be in the mood if the news is bad. Good night!

Sweet Training at Sugar Bowl

The weather the last few days has been unbelievable, with moderate temperatures and unrelenting sunshine. Because of this, the training has been great. Yesterday we had an early morning GS session, which went ok considering I was on a new pair of skis, a new cant setup, and hadn't been skiing very well at all while at home. We finished with a little bit of fun (but really competitive) start timing, which was a nice change from the same old stuff. After a little workout and some treatment for my back, I came back and tried to rest in the afternoon. This morning we trained some slalom on a watered surface, which turned out great after a cold night. I skied the best slalom I've ever skied, and feel really confident now about where my slalom skiing is, especially compared to the GS. We did another light workout and then came back to work on some skis, and once again, try to rest my tired body. The sun definitely takes it out of me, which I've learned can be remedied with an extreme amount of water. But I'm confident that after a good day tomorrow and then a rest day traveling I'll feel better. So I'm going to go and cook some dinner (or try to) and then probably pass out. Later!

Heading West.

If there is one thing that I hate in the world, it is packing. I'm constantly double checking and doubting whether or not I have everything and put everything in the right place, so I figured posting really quickly would give me a nice break. I've had a good time at home, but I'm definitely ready to get back to California and get back into the more intensive training on the sweet surface they've got at Sugar Bowl right now. I'm also excited to get my last (hopefully) cross-country flight done for the season, and try to really settle into wherever I'm staying in Cali. I think its quite ironic that when I leave the east, it gets super warm and starts raining while it's snowing in Truckee. Also the fact that the once again, when the Nor-Am circuit comes east, the weather turns to crap and (hopefully not this time) ruins races. But I should go; although I have most of my stuff in bags already, there is certainly much rearranging to do.

Christmas Break

So I haven't blogged for a while mostly because my break has been really chill. I was a gatekeeper for the 4 Eastern Cups right after I got back to Sugarloaf, which was a different but enjoyable experience. The ankle was good enough to get in a boot for some relaxed skiing but nothing too intense until the week of Christmas when I started to ease back into training. I had a good, quiet Christmas followed by a few days of good training. I've been frustrated by the condition of my ankle just because I haven't been able to quite flex the boot like I usually can. I've got one more day of training tomorrow and then I'll fly out on sunday. Although I'm enjoying being home I'm definitely excited to get back to California and get back into the more intense training. Happy New Year!

Videos

Evidently, the videos were unviewable because of the privacy settings on youtube. I changed the settings this afternoon and it should work well now.

Snow King Crash

I arrived home last night at about 12:30 and crawled into my bed for the first time since October, certainly a welcome comfort after a day of travel. I slept late this morning, then headed down to Farmington for a few doctors appointments. First we saw a physical therapist, who confirmed our suspicion that my left leg was shorter and weaker (for some strange reason) than my right, even with the new injury to the right. We then moved on to a chiropractor who dove deeper into the problem, and found that my back and pelvis are misaligned, which seems to be the root of many technical issues that I've been having. He tweaked a few things and thinks that over a short period of time he can get my legs to be the same length, which would help make everything easier. Unfortunately, due to this work and the state of my leg, it doesn't look like I'll be racing this weekend, despite my confidence in my ability to compete. I have to listen to my coach, the doctors, and most of all my dad, no matter how much I don't want to. So it looks like I'll be gatekeeping tomorrow, which will be great because I can get some ticket vouchers to use later on in christmas vacation. It'll be a much different perspective to a ski race, which I'm pretty excited about. Below is the footage from the crash the other day, it's not graphic at all but you can definitely see how I messed myself up.