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2009 May

span style="font-size:130%;"6th grade – It was great to see all of you again!!/span And I am glad you enjoyed my bibs and stories, because I enjoyed your questions and stories too (Jessica I will keep you posted on when I am going to get marriedJ ). ...

a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_T8lplfcx_Ro/Sh9eY9Y4hYI/AAAAAAAAAP8/osayom_i_58/s1600-h/MANTEC+LOGO+bw6black.jpg"img alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5341091465973499266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_T8lplfcx_Ro/Sh9eY9Y4hYI/AAAAAAAAAP8/osayom_i_58/s200/...

The other day we rode in the Mad River Rider's first Time Trial. The course was an eight mile out and back--gradual up on the way out, gradual down on the return. The course was about 8 miles.br /br /Times are available at: madriverriders.combr /br /Pi...

Recovery from surgery has gone well for Kris - really without a hitch. However, it’s a long road back from a very invasive fasciectomy, and Kris is just starting to introduce some load-bearing exercise to his legs. He’s been on several double-pole sessions on rollerskis without any setbacks, and is slowly introducing other more ski-specific [...]

Since the last time you heard from me I spent two weeks on Kauai, 3 days driving my new (to me) car from Utah to AK, had some sweet spring skiing and now I am just finishing up my 5th week of training for the year.


After a great week in Fairbanks to end the season I enjoyed doing absolutely nothing for a week before Annie, Hazel and I got on a plane to spend two weeks in Kauai. The last time we were in Hawaii we were on the go pretty much the whole day. This time with the addition of a 5 month old definitely made us adjust the pace. We got in some sweet hikes and saw some amazing things, all a little closer to the car that we had before.

There was another big life change this spring when the 1987 VW van that I have driven since I learned how to drive retired. It has been replaced by a 2001 Audi A4 wagon that I bought down in Salt Lake and spent three days after Hawaii driving the 3000 miles home. So much more fun to drive and this winter is going to be a whole new experience with a heater that works and the sweet bonus of heated seats! Still the van will be missed...

The first training period of the year is 3 days from completion before I get my first week off. We hit things off pretty hard with the first training and testing camp starting April 27. There was some great crust skiing down in Turnagain Pass that we got to take advantage of to make the break in to training much easier on the body. Plus the chance to watch a bunch of people who aren't the greatest tele skiers unleash their skills on race skis is a blast!

Since then I have been settling into the routine of summer. Training, working, and spending time with baby Hazel. The pace of life has had to adjust a little bit. Not quite as much down time so my time management has had to improve a little. It makes me focus more on what I am doing and I think for the training it is a good thing. Something I like to think I have been pretty good at, but it has been forced to a new level.

During the week off I get to spend a day or two helping coach the APU juniors at the first APU Death Camp down in Girdwood. East High's xc team used to have a Death Camp back in the 1990's and Charlie Renfro decided to bring it back. Not sure what the details are but there will be some sweet adventures.


Since the last time you heard from me I spent two weeks on Kauai, 3 days driving my new (to me) car from Utah to AK, had some sweet spring skiing and now I am just finishing up my 5th week of training for the year. divbr //divdivAfter a great week in F...

br/In 2004 when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series, much was made of the reversal of the curse of the Bambino.  A short documentary, the appropriate revival of the losses that Red Sox fans suffered through and a thorough history of Babe Ruth’s 86-year effect on the ball club were a hot topic.  The individual players on the club were unfazed, mercenaries hired by the best minds in baseball to win regardless of history, and win they did.  To quote the Boston sports columnist Bill Peterson, “If there’s anything to curses, they’re mental. They become expectations that are reified when Bucky Dent beats you with a home run or a ground ball scoots through Bill Buckner’s legs.”  br/As cross country skiers, we’re living a similar curse- it’s a curse of culture, history and circumstance.  Where does the mental block come from?  An examination:br/Cross country skiing is particularly participatory in this country.  Given the small geographical locale for skiing spread out across a big country and the myriad other sports that compete with skiing, most programs take all comers and don’t separate based on talent or physical gifts, the participants.  Programs are successful first if they have numbers, second if those numbers perform.  This is a strength of skiing- it builds the closeness of the community.  It’s also a weakness, since there are few places skiers are culled out made elite, pushed in a way similar to basketball or baseball players.  Our “all-star teams” are smaller and more vulnerable.  If we lose one good athlete, that represents a higher percentage of loss in our sport than it would in baseball or basketball.  br/Because of our niche position, we attract a certain type of athlete.  There are very few folks that ski well, coach well or are involved deep in the ski community that don’t have a natural feeling of opposition.  That feeling could be described as “I don’t care if the world doesn’t follow skiing, I love and believe in it.”  The sport is tough physically demanding isolated self-confidence and drive.  It may be tougher culturally demanding an even more stubborn, focused and driven folks.  Think Zach Caldwell.  br/Finally, we’re haunted by what we are not.  You need only to read the impassioned reports from the world cup and Team Today to know that as a ski country, we have a lot to prove.  If medals were handed out based on pure wanting it, we’d crush all comers.  They aren’t however. br/These bits and pieces add up to the curse, the mental hiccup that gets in our way time and time again.  There’s no one at fault.  No bambino.  No hidden race number from Bill Koch buried under the stadium at Soldier Hollow.  There are just a series of events that have put us down.  Here’s where we cannot start to doubt ourselves or question and or cast blame. br/The USST released a statement urging athletes to push ahead with a year or two of deferred acceptance to college and to focus on skiing.  Andy Newell, in a Faster Skier interview explained it this way, “I think the other big area we could improve on is in College skiing.  Right now in the US you can’t go to college full time and still train at a competitive level. People who say you can are full of it. It’s just embedded too much in the American culture that you have to go to college right after high school. If you’re a fast junior skier you should definitely weigh your options.”  By themselves, these aren’t untrue or unreasonable statements but there are a few points that are important to understand.br/ Firstly, there is no such thing as “college skiing”- to label it such implies that college programs are unified, driven and focused into an institution.  They aren’t.  There is no common goal for all college programs. Some programs are driven to build skiers beyond graduation, some aren’t. Some are driven at NCAA success.  Some aren’t. There is so much discrepancy in what the programs believe and support and so much difference in tradition and financial offering that to toss college skiing in one big pot is just as ineffective as saying that “junior skiing” or “post-23 skiing” is not getting it done.  “College skiing” isn’t getting it done…but that’s because “college skiing” doesn’t exist.  Like junior skiing, there are collegiate programs that are working towards success post college and programs that are not.  Some college skiers are training at a competitive level, however.  Over the last two years several collegiate skiers collected top ten and twenty finishes at the U23 and World Junior Championships.  These skiers owed that success, in part, to their college programs.  It is the next step that is important, the next jump up the results page.  The next step will take a Red Sox approach, an unfazed approach with the support of the entire skiing community.br/ It is here where the questions start mounting.  Should a skier take a year off from college if they’ve started? What type of support will there be for athletes that take a year off?  What is the rate of success for kids who ski for a year only?  Which college programs are committed to post collegiate success?  There is no single answer which is why each athlete has to be conscious and confident about making their own development happen.  Pete Vordenberg at the coaches congress said, “I only know what hasn’t worked.”  Pete, along with all of us, is looking for what will work. College coaches, club coaches and USST coaches will need to work harder to make certain that the inevitable transitions between programs that will occur don’t leave cracks in training and support for an athlete to slip through. Club coaches need to reach out to successful skiers both from college.  There needs to be racing longer into the season: a joint USST / NCAA trip would be a good step.  Bring those athletes to a round of late Europa cups following the collegiate season. br/It would be a bad decision to cut out any possible avenue for skiing success.  Across all disciplines there are hard working, gifted coaches pushing success.  There is an ember of belief burning in the ski community that hasn’t previously.  To those that naysay, that point to mistakes (“The Ski Team is wrong. College is wrong.  It will never happen.”), get on board.  It is too easy to point out the difficulty.  Offer solutions.  To do less would be to strengthen the curse.  - Andrew Gardner

The FIS Cross-Country Committee met at the recent FIS Calendar Conference 2009 in Cavtat-Dubrovnik, Croatia.  A number of topics were discussed, including the elimination of the B-Finals from sprint competition.  Apparently the B-Final has attracted little interest from media and spectators alike.  The Committee is forwarding a proposal to skip the B-Finals to the FIS Council for approval. One of the ideas behind the B-Final was to provide additional rest for athletes advancing to the...

div style="text-align: center;"br //divdivOur last day on snow in Bend with the MOD team included an intense crust ski up to the top of a nearby mountain, Broken Top. Arriving at the hill very early, a group of around 30 US ski team members, Sun Valley...

The FIS has issued a draft of the 2009-2010 Cross-Country World Cup Schedule.  The schedule will be sent to the FIS Council for approval in its next meeting in mid-June. Including the Olympics, there are 40 races on the calendar.  The breakdown is as follows: Relays: 3 Individual Sprints: 13 Team Sprints: 3 Distance Races: 21 Individual Start Distance Races: 8 Mass Start Races: 8 Handicap Starts: 4 Freestyle Races: 17 (does not include relays or...