SuperDuperTours

With the race season finally in full swing, it’s back to training during the week and racing every weekend. A quick recap of this past week’s SuperTour in Bozeman:

Bohart Ranch did a great job of making what snow they had last the pummeling of hundreds of skiers. I did fairly well in the skate sprint, but lost composure in the heats. Sunday was the classic distance, and it was the poorest, most confusing performance of my career. Look for me at the bottom of the results… I’m still grasping what actually happened, but no one that far down on the results list should be wearing blue and gold. I never gave up though, went my hardest the whole way, and finished. Again, heart isn’t enough at this level, especially against the best in the nation.

Happier post coming soon.

The Week in Review

It’s that time of year where families around the country look longingly at the empty chair across the Thanksgiving dinner table and curse the gods as to why their cross-country skier of the family must be absent from such an occasion. For every Thanksgiving, skiers everywhere make the pilgrimage to the season opener races in West Yellowstone, Montana.

Over the summer, West Yellowstone is a vibrant tourist trap on the north-western fringes of Yellowstone National Park, known for its budget T-shirt shops and sales tax. In the winter however, the town almost shuts down completely, with main street boarded up for the season and only the occasional snow-machines and service vehicles for traffic. During this one week in November, West Yellowstone belongs to the Nordic skiers.

The trailhead. Spirited and busy

This was my third such pilgrimage to West for the Thanksgiving SuperTours, and my first as an official roster member of the Montana State Ski Team. These races hold a special significance this year for me because while I am officially on the MSU team, only 5 out of the current 8 males are permitted to make the travelling NCAA team for the rest of the season.

Day I in West Yellowstone. The view from our room

To make matters complicated, we arrived on Monday to 37 degrees and rain. Soon after it was determined that there was not sufficient snowfall to hold the races in West Yellowstone, and the venue was moved to the ‘South Plateau,’ which is a 30 minute drive on a single-lane forest service road and about 1000 feet higher in elevation from the original venue. Despite the hassle to get to snow every morning and evening to ski, the trails were excellent and spirits were high among the team and the hundreds of other skiers forced to share a single trail with each other. The only downside to the week was that the biathlon race I was to race in was cancelled.

Skiing in the rain with Andrew. Good times.

My brother Andrew was in West this year for the races, and it was great to get out and put some quality skiing in with him. The first race was Friday, and the course was a point-to-point hill-climb style race on a closed trail, which meant no spectators or support staff. I liked the idea of no one on the trail but myself and my ski ability. The course was fast glazed snow and I was able to send it. After deliberating with my brother about strategy and how I would best go about hauling my 200 pound self along an uphill course for 10 kilometers, I was confident and smart about my racing the whole way through. I took a nasty crash into the woods on the ONLY technical turn in the race, but got up as fast as I could and skied even more ferociously after that.

Although it was my best effort and I shaved off minutes compared to my time trial earlier in the week on the same course, I came up short of the ‘top-5’ cutoff for the MSU travelling team. It’s always been a dream of mine to toe up to the line against my brother in a college race, and I still have two more races next week to prove myself worthy of that experience before they make the official team selection. I am confident I can improve.

Andrew did incredibly well, placing 5^th overall, which gives him a great chance of making the U.S. World Cup team in Canmore, Alberta. I’m incredibly proud. We celebrated with pizza.

The booth at the Expo

There was plenty more than ski racing going on at the Ski Festival, including the annual Ski Expo, most known for the ski-brand booths displaying their latest technology and the triumphant teenagers with armfuls of stickers and other miscellaneous swag that would trample a small child in order to be the first person to get a Madschus poster. I would most closely relate it to the ski-equivalent of Black Friday. Biathlon Elite co-hosted a booth at the expo with Altius Firearms, and I got to meet a lot of prospective biathletes and sponsors. It was great publicity, and I have to thank Altius and Jack Hart of Swix/Patagonia for making the booth possible for us.

Climbing to the end of the Plateau

On our last day in West, the team went on a distance ski to the end of the grooming on the Plateau. We climbed and climbed, and the higher we went the better the skiing became. I was in heaven, and once we reached the end of the trail, we overlooked the westernmost part of Montana into Idaho and Wyoming. There were spooky charred trees from a recent forest fire poking out of the snow, and everything was black and white. It was one of the most amazing skis I’ve had in a long while.

The end of the trail. Overlooking three states

And now I’m back in student-mode in Bozeman, eagerly awaiting the next weekend of skiing and ski-racing. Cheers. 

下雪 is Chinese for THERE'S SNOW ON THE GROUND!!

"Winter is not a season, it's an occupation." -Sinclair Lewis

Stoke factor is high today with the first skiable snow in town. With the West Yellowstone Ski Festival right around the corner, it feels great to be in great physical condition.

In other news, I would like to thank The Physical Therapy Place LLC. for being my latest biathlon sponsor for this season! It is through community support like The Physical Therapy Place that I am able to continue my pursuit of Olympic excellence. Look for their logo on my rifle this year! The Physical Therapy Place is a locally owned private practice in Anchorage, Alaska founded in 2000 with a vision to provide the highest quality treatment for a wide variety of conditions within a caring, patient focused environment.

Here are some more pictures from today's ski...........

I got to snow-test my new Rossi  technology. Sammy likes.

Lindley Park was very scenic. At 10am it felt like evening

PSA

From an outside perspective, it’s very easy to see how athletes at this level and higher can be viewed as rather selfish. In order to achieve a professional sports career, an athlete is committing themselves at a very young age to years of self-interest. How can one give back to the greater population when their priorities are to become solely the best they can be? How important is it for one nation to have a faster skier than another nation? At a certain point in our sports careers, we realize that there is as much invested in us athletes by sponsors, organizations, and support staff as we have personally invested in ourselves. It’s a type of “alternative lifestyle” that is very hard to sustain, and even more stressful when salaries are performance-based through sponsorship and charity.

My sporting career is in no way political, and never will be, and I take pride in believing that I maintain a fair amount of perspective, humility, and practicality in my endeavors towards and after my professional sports career. However, I do believe that for the past few years I have been so absorbed in my quest for support and progress that I have been ignorant of those in need around me in the communities I identify closest with.

As my blog has just passed 4,500 views, I would like to use my publicity to plea for the support of two particular Alaskans.

The first individual is Matt Kenney. While Matt probably doesn’t know me, I know him as the tattoo clad man that I have followed up countless mountains over the past couple years in the Alaska Mountain Running Grand Prix races. In every race, he and I have always gone back and forth in results, usually passing and re-passing each other multiple times in a race. We’ve never spoken a word to each other, but as most mountain runners can attest to, racing up a mountain with someone can tell you more about a person than a week of conversation. Matt was severely injured in the very prestigious and dangerous Mt. Marathon Race this year, where he suffered traumatic brain injury, a broken leg, and other wounds after a fall off the final cliff at the base of the mountain. As usual, Matt was just a few seconds ahead of me during that race, and I was one of the first racers to encounter him immediately after his fall. I will never be able to describe the feeling of seeing a fellow mountain runner in that state. Matt was immediately helped by on-call paramedics, and was medevaked to Anchorage. After that incident, I no longer cared about the race, the prestige, or anything about Mt. Marathon. All I cared about was getting off that mountain as fast as possible. The thousands of spectators at the base of the mountain, who are famous for cheering in the racers from the final cliff to the finish, were dead quiet as I ran by. It was incredibly eery, and will forever be in the back of my mind during my decision process of doing the race next year.

Matt is continuing to recover from his injuries at a rehabilitation center in Colorado, and I implore you to help him on his road to recovery so I can race him again one day. Matt’s family and friends have provided a donation avenue at the link below, and I ask that you consider donating any amount possible. 

Matt Kenney Donation Fund

The second individual I would like to publicize is Mary Robicheaux. Again, while I do not know Mary personally, her story has still impacted me greatly. Mary is a promising 15-year-old Nordic skier on the APU ski team. I have many friends on the APU team, and the Alaska Winter Stars (the team I race for) and APU have always been extremely close. While biking home from a friends house this August, Mary was struck by a driver who failed to stop for the flashing red crosswalk light. Mary suffered fractures in her skull as well as in both legs. She was wearing a helmet. After coaching a group of junior skiers this summer for biathlon, many of whom are members of APU and close friends and training partners of Mary, I feel horrible knowing that the Anchorage ski community is undeservedly short one member. Mary is recovering from her injuries at a children’s hospital in Colorado, and I ask for you to consider donating to her recovery efforts at the link below.    

Mary Robicheaux Donation Fund

I hate writing on a somber note, but I am comforted knowing that every dollar given to these individuals will bring them back to where they belong, and will strengthen us all. It’s a harsh reality that someone’s life and goals can take a turn for the worst in a most unsuspecting way, and both of these individuals’ recovery and continued return to normality have given me a new found appreciation for my situation in life and they provide an inspiration for me this season. I compete this year with these two in mind, and I hope others join in the effort of helping those around us.

-Sam