Waiting… Anticipating

The title of today’s post is inspired by my friend Zach Guy of Crested Butte who is graciously allowing me to sleep on his couch for the next couple of nights while I hopefully close out the Skimo race season with a bang. He managed to drag me out to a local bar so I could proceed to experience an eargasm over the horrendous, sorry delightful, karaoke I listened to last night (all 80’s/90’s songs, and of course with awkward instrumental sessions where singers who were progressively getting hammered stood there white man dancing and air guitaring).  Maybe not the best way to get rest the day before the race adventures begin, but I suppose a worthwhile outing.  And I am waiting and anticipating the final two days of racing on Mt. Crested Butte where hopefully the hard training and forced recovery click together to keep me towards the pointy end of the race.

I was talking to Zach last night about the woes of “tapering” and trying to stick to a program as opposed to throwing caution to the wind and just having fun.  While I truly enjoy the process of preparing for a season, laying out a plan, setting goals, and peaking for races, I also have a hard time sacrificing fun for the proper thing to do for a grade A performance.  Skimo in particular requires very specific training and traveling on the gear you race on… not fatty fun bc skis. Fortunately if there ever was a winter to focus on racing, this turned out to be it.  Coupled with coaching at RIDGE and introducing young skiers and snowboarders to earning turns, I definitely have enjoyed all the training, travel and racing I have done this season.

This week required a copious amount of recovery after three solid days of digging deep at the Wasatch PowderKeg.  Arriving in Boulder Tuesday after a short and high ele tour near Mt. Evans I was thrown into the melee of a city thriving with culture, food, recreation, and eliteness.  Billy Odonnell of RIDGE and I spend three days working on ski industry relationships and recruitment for RIDGE Academy as well as athletes and ambassadors ourselves.  It was wild driving from company to company, going through what the RIDGE program is, and how we intend to provide value to the companies while asking for support.  Dynafit, CAMP-CASSIN, Rab, Vail Mountain School, and others were all incredibly supportive and agreed that the program for RIDGE is progressive and visionary and likely to succeed.  As such, I have the HUUUUGGGEEE bonus of becoming a “pro athlete” for both CAMP and Dynafit for the following year (as well as this year).  I’m completely blown away by the support these companies are willing to offer in return for being an ambassador, racer, adventurer, gear abuser, coach, and social media provider.  You’ll have to forgive my instagram/fb posts where I do that whole @/# thing, it in some way does provide value to the sponsors.  In the midst of all this action, I got out for a tune up ride on the road bike since skiing was a little far fetched from Boulder and got to test some of next years Dynafit freeride skis at Eldora.  Good times!

That brings me to today, Friday.  Instead of racing the dreaded vertical (an all out blast for around 20-30 minutes up a ski hill with no downhill, I decided to take a free ride from Zach to 12,000′ and take a super pleasant tour along Red Lady Mountain.  It was a beautiful ridge cruise with a couple fun and firm south facing bowls to ski and skin out of and ended with a solid 3000′ descent back to the toaster.  It’s always hard to tell how the legs are feeling with the relative amount of inactivity I’ve been experiencing this week, especially at these elevations, but supposedly it should all work out.  I guess we’ll see tomorrow!

photo courtesty of Burket Kniveton and RIDGE Academy