We were up on the hill today in loveland. The race track is the iciest i’ve seen all year. Should be good!

Tomorrow is the last day of MOvember. I’ve done a great job of growing my moe, but a terrible job of raising funds this year. Help me and my team get over $2000 in donations. follow the link here. All donations support prostate cancer research and are tax deductible.

Good news. Because of Robbie Dixon’s stellar breakout result in Solden, Canada was granted another World Cup GS spot at Beaver Creek. To decide the athlete to use this spot, the team ran a race in Panorama a few days ago. I had felt pretty confident the couple of days prior while training GS for the first time in over a month, so I was shooting for the spot. I had a great first run, and a solid second run to finish 7th, enough to take the final position! I look forward to competing in my first world cup GS in 3 years.

Well.. not the ideal start I was hoping for. I can’t say i skied bad, just not spectacular like i needed to to make it in starting from bib 51. I finished 39th, .30 seconds from the cut-off for second run. The course wasn’t quite as icy as we’re used to, probably because they kept in grippier for the girls who raced the day before us. Goal for next race is to stay a little more loose so i can generate more speed, especially on the flats where I lost a good chunk of time. Things were solid, just not quite as fast as training.

I’m heading back to the Rockies now. Focus will be on GS for the next week with the hope of qualifying for the WC GS in Beaver Creek. I’ll try and find some video of the race to put up on Youtube, since it wasn’t covered in Canada.

I just arrived in Finland yesterday. It was a long travel from Calgary through London, Oslo, Alta, then finally to Levi. With a pretty relaxing schedule coming into the race this Sunday, I feel fresh and ready to rock! We were up on the training hill today for a few runs to get back into the rhythm. The snow looks good, and from what we hear it’s the same on the race slope. We will have a chance to check out the race hill tomorrow during an hour free ski window after the woman’s race.

On a side note, I’ve been able to recruit a large contingent of MOvember participants this year. With the entire men’s tech team jumping on board, we’ve been able to attract a fair amount of media. Check out the CTV article here

I’ve just arrived in Calgary for some final training before the first World Cup slalom kicks off in Levi. We’ll be training in the Rockies at Panorama and Nakiska for 6 days, then taking the long flight to Finland.

After some issues with jetlag last year. I’m excited to use the new protocol we worked out with the sleep doctors. Because of the lack of sunlight in Finland this time of year, it makes it very difficult for your body to adjust to the new day/night sleep rhythm. What we now have as an aid is called a lightbook. It’s an artificial light source that is used during specific times of the day to help your brain recognize the appropriate time to wake up.

On Sunday I was able to attend the open house at Camp Fortune. It was great seeing everyone up there I hadn’t seen in a while. Also getting dunked in the frigid water was fun too… well at least it was for a good charity. Above is a photo with Jolanta in front of the new CFSC booth. Pretty Cool! Honored to be a CFSC alum and part of the banner.