Just a quick update before the season starts. We have entered the last training camp of the prep period before we begin racing in Lake Louise. The training has been good with only a few inches of new snow in the last week. We have been training DH for the last 5 days and tomorrow we begin 4 days of SG. We have also been skiing GS every afternoon, so the days have been long and at 11,000 ft, it starts to wear on us. We have oxygen and spin bikes to help us recover every afternoon but we have also been trying out some new techniques. We have a trainer who massages our legs everyday after training. The other thing we have been doing is making ice in all of our pots and pans in the freezer then in the evening we fill the bathtub with ice and water and sit in it for up to 15 minutes. Turns out this make the joints feel better and helps with recovery and it really takes your breath away! On top of that, one of our coaches had his mom come out and do all of the cooking for us. She is the author of a cookbook and an amazing cook. She has been keeping us full from 5:30am until we go to bed at 9pm. That kind of nutrition really helps keep the energy up. Due to all these techniques, we have been able to keep the level of intensity up and get a lot out of every session. With only 4 more days of training until the season officially starts, we need to get everything we can out of each day!

Just got to Park City two days ago and I feel like I got hit by a truck. Our strength coach decided that we needed to toughen up a bit before the season and max out effort on all of our workouts. He designed these first two days to really challenge our mental and physical toughness. We started the first day with a lower body workout designed to give us maximum eccentric loading. This is the kind of workout that makes muscles the most sore (think water skiing for the first time of the year). After three and a half hours in the gym he gave us a two hour break before the next workout. The afternoon was called a Peak Lactate Workout and is designed to build up huge amounts of lactic acid. This is the stuff that actually causes muscle fatigue and soreness. We started on the bike with a max effort for 60 seconds followed immediately by jumps until failure. Then we got a break for a few minutes and did three more sets of this. After these two workouts I felt extremely fatigued and ready to lay down for a few days. Instead we got up the next day and started with a Speed Strength Workout. This combines lifting with quick feet exercises and it was another 4 hours in the gym. In the afternoon we got to have another crack at the same Peak Lactate workout from the day before. They had recorded the number of jumps we did in each set, until failure the day before and asked us to beat that number. Today is a recovery day so we will probably only be in the gym for 3 hours with a light lower body workout and an hour on the bike.

We skied our third day of SG today and swampy set a particularly challenging course over some tough terrain. Ted and I were at the start first, and he was actually in the gate and asked if I wanted to go first. I said no I would rather learn from his mistakes (since we can see the whole course from the start) and follow him. At that point he pulled out of the start and told me to go first. Since I like going first in SG anyway I didn’t mind. I actually won the first 7 gates but on the corridor going onto the flats I came in a little straight and had to really stand on it through some cross ruts and my ski flexed off. I crashed into the sun cupped off piste. I bruised my right cheek and left quad but got up and finished the course. I was a little tentative the next run but came back and had the fastest time of the day on my third run and won the 4th run as well. Neither run was my best skiing but apparently I can be fast anyway. I wasn’t too concerned with times this camp but it feels good to win runs. I guess I am still better at SG and DH.

I’m rooming in the Octagon which is the little lodge off of the main lodge. Most of us are in there and we just take over the top floor of 8 rooms and spread out. In the morning the technicians put all the skis out right in front of the Octagon so that is our base camp for the day. We usually have 5 pairs out per day of DH training. I take one run on each. We have had our sports physiologist down here taking bloods every morning to make sure we are eating and drinking enough and I don’t think I have ever taken care of myself as well as we have at this camp. Everybody is real conscious of hydration and food. We eat constantly and probably drink 6 liters of water/sports drink a day. Plus meal replacement shakes after training and dryland. The coaches set up a 55 gallon drum out by the hot tub and filled it with cold water for us to do hot/cold recovery therapy. We do one minute in 45 degree water then 3 minutes in the hottub. We put snow in it to get it down to that cold temp. It has become popular among the other hotel guests. At first they thought we were crazy but now we have a hard time getting in ourselves.

It has been a good, full summer for me with lots of training off snow and one trip to Chile under my belt. I am now down in Park City for another round of physical testing before we go back to Chile. Hopefully it won’t snow as much as it did last time and we will get some good, hard-snow training. I will be working with a new technician this year from Atomic and I am really excited to have such good support from my ski company. His first trip was down to Chile and things went really well. More to come soon but the snow is already flying here in Park City so the ski season will be here before you know it. My first races will be the World Cup in Lake Louise in Late November then Beaver Creek in early December. If you haven’t been to a World Cup, I highly recommend the trip especially to Beaver Creek. It is always exciting and the Americans have a history of doing really well there!

I arrived in Mammoth a few days ago for 6 days of GS training. This is the first real camp of the season for me. I skied 3 days in May but had to get back to school so I only got started on the progression. Now I am taking the drills I worked on in May and applying the concepts to some flat to moderate GS courses. Today I trained on a run that didn’t have lift access so we used a snowmobile to shuttle us to the top of the course. As it worked out, I was the only one training GS today so I had 2 coaches, my technician, a snowmobile and the course all to myself. On top of that, the snow was hard and stayed good for the whole session. I skied 10 runs of GS in 2 hours and was exhausted! It was one of the best days of training I’ve ever had.

I realized with my last post that I haven’t updated everyone in a while. After finishing the season with my best results of the year I headed straight back to school. I am now in the middle of finals week and it seems like I just got here. A couple of weeks ago I was able to get out to Park City then to Mammoth for a few days of skiing with the team to work on some basics and start to dial in my boots for next year. In Park City we had our annual spring meetings. There I learned some really exciting news. I have been named to the B-team again for next year and now I am fully funded! So after two years of injury and struggling to fund myself, I have made it back! It was even more exciting for me to learn that I have been moved up to be a full member of the World Cup team. Now I will be traveling and training with them and when the competition season starts I will stay on and race the full World Cup schedule as well! I would like to thank everyone for all the moral (and financial) support over the last couple of years. I am no longer fundraising for myself so I won’t be asking for money this year but I hope you continue to check the website and follow my progress. For my part I will try to make it as exciting as possible!

I am excited to announce this years Mens Alpine Team fundraiser at Mt. Hood, Oregon! It will be held July 19th and 20th with options to join us for either one or both days of events. A ski clinic hosted by the athletes will be on saturday followed by a banquet at night. Then on Sunday we have the Men’s Alpine Ski and Tee, dual ski race followed by a scramble golf tournament in the afternoon. You can join us for any or all of the events! I will post the official announcement soon with more information. For now contact me with questions kevski13@gmail.com

After the GS at Nationals I jumped in a truck with Andrew Weibrecht and Dave Chodounsky for the 3 hour drive back to Dartmouth. Classes started the day before we returned so it was game on right from the start. It has been a nice break from the season and good to get away from the mountain for a while. I hope everyone got a chance to see the Nationals coverage on VS. network last week. I will try and post some recent pictures of all the excitement soon.

It is the night after the SG at US Nationals and I just wanted to write a quick post. After four days of bad weather we finally got to race the SG today and I won it! I scored the best result of my life and I am National SG Champion! I am really excited and it hasn’t even really sunk it yet. Skiracing.com has some good articles on the race. It is an amazing feeling to win this title and I want to thank everybody who has helped me achieve my goals this year!