The snow is almost here

I was hoping when I arrived home from my African adventure that there would be snow on the ground. Unfortunately I'm not quite that lucky. We did have a dusting on Monday night but when it warms up during the day it doesn't really do much. I guess I got a little spoiled last year when we had snow early in September. At this point I can just hope when it does start snowing it doesn't stop so the skiing is fantastic!

Fantastic news

I just found out that U.S. Paralympics wants to be a big supporter of my latest adventure. Including myself, there are 4 female ski racers that are going to climb Kilimanjaro this September. By climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, we want to not only raise awareness about female athletes who have a disability, but also raise money to create two scholarships for female athletes to attend the NSCD race program. Having U.S. Paralympics on board is a huge deal! I am so excited!

Unfortunately, it's has still been snowing up here. The past 2 days we've seen nothing but snow and rain so I haven't been able to play outside. That's Winter Park for ya!

I also got some other good news the past couple days. Rudy Project USA has been sponsoring me for sunglasses for a few years now. I just got an e-mail from them saying that they want me to use their goggles as well. I love everything that Rudy has done for me and I feel special to be a fully sponsored athlete! Thanks Paul, Avi and Molly!

Next adventure

I've decided that I'm not going to be skiing much this summer, if at all. I could really use the break mentally and physically. Time off the hill will also give me time to do other things, like work on the ambulance, going to a cycling race that I want to attend as well as doing as much hiking as I can.

Three girls that I race and train with and I have decided we are going to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa in September. I don't know exactly how this all came about but we’ve decided we're going to do it to raise money for the NSCD. It's going to be a lot of work and a lot of fun. We have been working out the details and setting things up. We actually have a blog for it if you want to check it out. http://disabilitieswithoutborders.blogspot.com/

End of the season

Photo by Ken Watson

For Winter Park, the season comes to a close on Sunday. You wouldn’t know that from looking outside as it has been snowing for days. That’s okay though, we need the snow. In some ways it’s hard to believe the mountain is closing but in other ways I’m ready for the break. It feels like it’s been a long hard season. I guess all of the changes and ups and downs, has just taken a toll on me emotionally.

Our racing season ended at Waterville Valley, NH with U.S. Disabled Championships. Because we couldn’t run the speed events they ran 1 Nor-Am race and one National race for GS and SL and then the last day we did a dual GS for fun and prize money. I skied well. I had two of my best SL races of the year and I actually beat my friend and teammate Liz Miller in a few runs of GS, which usually doesn’t happen. In the Nor-Am GS I took bronze. For the Nationals GS I came back from being behind first run to taking silver! The Nor-Am SL was a heartbreaker for me. After first run I was sitting 3rd. Second run the leader DNF and I won the run, but it wasn’t enough and I lost by .58 of a second- OUCH! For the nationals SL I was down by 2 seconds after first run, had another good second run and made up time but it wasn’t enough and I ended up 3rd. The final day was the duel GS and I had another good day. I skied fast in the qualifying and then throughout the day to take 4th place behind my teammate Laurie Stephens. Not bad.

All in all I had a good week but it was bittersweet. At the end of the week we had our individual meetings with our staff and made decisions about next season. The decision was made that I will not be part of the U.S. Disabled Ski Team next year. This was really tough and I wasn’t quite ready to deal with it. I think I’m going to take a step back and focus on training and maybe just local races, I don’t know. I’m not sure how everything will work out but I’m going to stay in Winter Park and WILL be training and racing. There are a lot factors that have affected my skiing but the bottom line is that I want/need to race faster, whatever it takes. Photo by Kurt Smitz

More changes

We have yet more changes to our schedule. We are no longer running any speed races at U.S. Nationals this year. Apparently it isn’t legal for Waterville Valley Ski Area to hold a downhill or super G at their mountain. Somehow this had been overlooked until this week so they’ve changed the races to 2 GS races and 2 SL races. I don’t mind too much because there were rumors that the speed races would not have been scored with ASD points (so they wouldn’t have done us any good.) Plus as of right now, one of the each of the tech events will be for the national title and one of each will be scored as an ASD scored Nor-Am race. This is good news because that means the penalty should be lower and it could help us keep our points down. We’ll see.

Wells Fargo Bank Cup

This past weekend was one of the biggest fundraisers of the year for the Nationals Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD), the 32nd Annual Wells Fargo Bank Cup. It’s a weekend full of sponsors, fun and racing. For the athletes that train here in Winter Park, we get a chance to “show our stuff” to the NSCD sponsors and open eyes for others about our program. The NSCD is one of the best outdoor recreation programs for people with disabilities in the world. Thanks to this event, Wells Fargo Bank, the Denver Post, Denver Broncos Alumni and Denver’s Channel 4 we are able to show sponsors and the general public what that really means.

For me, this past weekend really was a lot of fun. On Saturday I participated in the Frontier Cup which is triple SL team race. I want to send a special note of thanks to Don Marshall a member of the NSCD board of trustees and long time supporter of me and my racing. I had the privilege of being on his team “Wellskis” in the Frontier Cup and helping them advance to the second round of racing for the first time in years (maybe ever.) Yeah!

On Sunday I raced in the Disabled Invitational. This was the first time I’ve raced in this race because in the past, the Disabled Invitational was only open to men. This was because it was based on the pro-race format that was only open to men. Last year our head coach here in Winter Park, Erik Petersen, changed that and created a women’s category. Unfortunately for the NSCD most of the women who train here (including myself) were in Italy racing World Cup and Paralympics.

The race format is very different from our usual races. This race is a dual GS course with 3 bumps in the course that send us into the air. It’s exciting for spectators but really exciting for us. The weather didn’t cooperate as it was snowing really hard throughout the day but it didn’t dampen the excitement. During the qualifying runs I raced really well and actually won the qualifying round. I thought that set me up pretty well to win the race but I had to face my British teammate Liz Miller in the semi-finals and she edged me out by .12 seconds. That put me into the consolation round to race off for 3rd or 4th. I skied well against my teammate Ricci Kilgore but she ran into trouble both runs, and I was able win and take 3rd place. Liz took 2nd after my U.S.D.S.T teammate Elitsa Storey beat her by only .11 seconds in the finals. It was great day of racing and an overall great weekend!

No Go...

…Our Austrian World Cup was officially cancelled Friday. This was not unexpected but disappointing none the less. I had been checking the weather almost daily only to see warm temperatures and rain. Just a few days before the announcement the IPC organizers had posted a “worst case scenario” on the website. It gave us a new schedule for the races, implying that they could just move some things around and we’d be all set. I guess this was not only to give us a little hope but them as well. As it turned out, the conditions in Abtenau just weren’t very good. We are still scheduled to run our races in Italy but as always it depends on the weather. So instead of leaving this Thursday we will now be leaving next Thursday for 1 Slalom race, 1 GS race and for those with the proper points, 2 Super G races.