Team Atomic member, Patrick Weaver, clinched the 2004 American Ski Marathon Series overall title with his third place finish at the recent California Gold Rush. Weaver described it as, “A long tough season.”
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/oldsitearchive/upload/040330Weaver.jpg width=450 height=359.70394736842 border=1><br />
<BR><font size=1 face=verdana>Patrick Weaver racing at US Nationals – photo by Erin Kelley</font></center><BR></p>
<p>Weaver pointed out that, “Racing the Marathon Series in the US is a whole different ballgame than competing on the Worldcup in Europe. The training's totally changed. When I was on the US Ski Team we needed to be fast by December for the NorAms and January for the USSA Nationals. Now that I am on Team Atomic, we focus on endurance for February and March. I'm using the Nationals as part of my training which can be frustrating because I'm losing to skiers I know I can beat. But they're peaking for Nationals and then going on to race 10 and 15km events in Europe. I'm trying to develop endurance for weekly 50km at the end of winter.”</p>
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![](https://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2020/09/FasterSkier-logo-sq-320x320.png)
Team Atomic member, Patrick Weaver, clinched the 2004 American Ski Marathon Series overall title with his third place finish at the recent California Gold Rush. Weaver described it as, “A long tough season.”