Leaving For World Ski Mountaineering Championships

Well, the time has come. On Tuesday morning I will head to the airport to get on a flight that will take me halfway across the world to the Ski Mountaineering World Championships. I am already starting to get pre-race anxiety and I don't actually have my first race until Saturday 6 days from now. During my trip over there I will be trying to post daily on La Sportiva's new Ski Mountaineering Blog: The White Room. Head on over there if you want to get caught up, I also put a post up there today about preparation and packing. I may also be posting a bit here on some more personal feelings about the races and the event. Also another source for info is the World Champs Website.

I want to tell all of you who have helped me to get to this point whether financially or from your support alone, that I am deeply grateful for you!! I would never have been able to do this on my own, and most of all I need to thank my beautiful wife Tanae for her commitment and support through all of this, Tanae you are amazing, there isn't anyone I would rather share my life with than you!

So here we go!!!

Links:

World Championships Website: http://www.claut2011.org/en/

La Sportiva Blog: http://www.lasportivawhiteroom.com/

Bridger Bowl Skin to Win

A couple of weeks after the US champs and Targhee I made the drive north to Montana to race at Bridger Bowl. I had been to Utah the week before and gotten in some pretty good skiing with the SLC Samurai and Andy Sherpa, as well as zone rowdy luging with Karl Meltzer and a crew of some of the best ultrarunners in the US. I think I may have had too much fun and not enough sleep over that weekend. The previous mentioned coupled with lots is handshaking at the OR Retailer trade show was the perfect recipe for a cold. The whole first part of the week I was struggling with a head/chest cold. At one point I felt I should bag the weekend and not make the drive to race, but of course the Thursday night I started to feel better and decided to at least show up. Friday I hopped in the car, put Aron Ralston's Between A Rock and A Hard Place audiobook in the radio and put rubber to the road.

The book made the 4 and half hour drive go by pretty quick and soon enough I found myself in Bozeman with some time to kill before the pre race briefing. I headed out for a short run to loosen the legs up after the drive.

It was great to catch up to some friends I hadn't seen in a while at the race as well a to hang out with some friends I rarely see outside of skimo racing. After the briefing I went to dinner with Brian and Amy then we headed to the hotel Brian and I decided to share instead of sleeping in our cars.








I woke up race morning feeling ok, but not great. During my warmup I felt pretty crappy, which cranked up my nerves. This lead to me attacking very hard at the beginning of the race ( I was unable to hold myself back, which regularly leads to my demise). I held a very hard pace up a little more than half of the first climb, until I had been caught and passed by a couple of racers. Then the head games began. The first part of the first descent traversed the ridgeline and I lost ground on the up/down terrain. Then we dropped into hidden chute which was some great steep skiing. I left the transition in 4th just off of the leaders, but as it turns out I would stay in that spot for the rest of the race.








For all the effort I put in I could not reel anyone in and stayed in no mans land all alone ad I struggled through the ascents and descents of the race. Near the end of the race we traversed the ridge for a long time. I was totally blown up and floundered along the challenge terrain. I was grateful to hit the final descent and decided to let 'er rip all the way down. Very near the bottom I was skiing a bit too fast for my legs and ended up going down in a ball of fire as a ragdolled for a hundred yards or so. I collected myself to finish off the race still in 4th. I finished about 7 minutes behind Brandon who had won, Cary Smith was 2nd, Chris Kroger 3rd.

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed with Joe this race turned out, but I think it was related to having been sick and maybe a touch overtrained. A group of us skied together at Bridger the rest if the afternoon, it was a ton of fun to ski with folks that I frequently only race against and realize how talented of athletes they all are. Not only do they race fast but they ski strong even when just having fun. Even though I was bummed about the race it turned out to be a great weekend with good friends
in the mountains.

Video from the race

http://bridgerbowl.com/mediagallery/dailyvideo/2011/01/29/

Grand Targhee Ski Mountaineering Classic

The day after the US champs nearly all of the same competitors lined up for the 2nd world qualifying race of the year. I had made the decision early to push hard but to listen to my body as I was convinced that yesterdays race had taken it's toll.



While warming up i felt like my legs were a bit heavy, but responded well to a quick pace. When the gun went off I allowed some of the racers to go out ahead of me. I chose to hold back at a pace I could maintain throughout the race. By the top of the first climb I was in 5th or 6th and feeling pretty good. The pack had broken apart on the climb and descent. The transition at the bottom of the descent went well and I headed out in the mix with the usual suspects. A group of three of us formed a chase pack up the second climb as we tried to reel in Brandon and Reiner. I made a move on the bootpack up Peaked trying to give myself a lead for the descent down the cat skiing territory. I did have a small lead but lost it and more on the descent where the deep heavy snow worked me over.





I made a very rough transition and surging from adrenaline charged up the final climb of the race. I reeled in and past a couple of racers and was determined to make up lost ground. Through the haze that had formed from pushing very near max pace I noticed someone right on my tail. It was Travis Scheefer, a very strong racer from Colorado. I told him to hang on and we would try to catch the leaders. We pushed hard passing another racer or two and closing on Brandon and Reiner.

We hit the transition area right on the tails of Brandon, Reiner having left a moment prior. I again flubbed the transition and left right after Travis. I failed to keep pace on the descent but managed to finish 4th. Reiner was 1st, Travis eked out 2nd, Brandon 3rd and I was 4th, with only 52 seconds separating Reiner and I.





All in all I was very happy with how the day went. My body responded well to the back to back races and seemed to handle the workload well.




Equipment:
Boots: La Sportiva Stratos
Skis: Ski Trab World Cup
Fuel: EFS Liquid Shot

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