SkiTAM, continued

It's been a reasonably fun weekend here in Vail. Last night at a great party, I had a long conversation with Jennifer Kennedy-Zanca (a former U.S. Disabled Ski Team coach), Mike Brown (a former USDST head coach and World Cup racer), and Steve Porino (former World Cup racer and current ski racing commentator for Outdoor Life Network). After a few drinks, they all opened up a lot about their experiences in ski racing over the years and their take on the current state of the sport.

I'm trying to get some reading done now before the closing dinner, and then I fly back to New Hampshire tomorrow.

SkiTAM, continued

It's been a reasonably fun weekend here in Vail. Last night at a great party, I had a long conversation with Jennifer Kennedy-Zanca (a former U.S. Disabled Ski Team coach), Mike Brown (a former USDST head coach and World Cup racer), and Steve Porino (former World Cup racer and current ski racing commentator for Outdoor Life Network). After a few drinks, they all opened up a lot about their experiences in ski racing over the years and their take on the current state of the sport.

I'm trying to get some reading done now before the closing dinner, and then I fly back to New Hampshire tomorrow.

wow, it's been a while.

Sorry about that. As I had anticipated, it's much harder to make myself write a post on here when I'm at Dartmouth than when I'm doing the skiing thing... I guess it's just something about making myself write voluntarily when there are all kinds of other things I'm expected to write, too.

After Nationals, we went back to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs for our quarterly physical testing regime. We do a Wingate Test one day and a full battery of strength, agility, power and balance tests in the gym the next day.

Last Wednesday, I flew from Colorado back to Manchester, N.H., where I picked up my van and drove up to Dartmouth. I was up until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. unloading my stuff from my van into my dorm room, and then the next day I went to two 2-hour classes, one called "Computational Linguistics" and the other, "Mass Media in Latin America." The professor for the computational ling class is a little dry, but I decided to stick it out. The other prof was really dynamic and young and the subject matter seemed interesting, but the course was taught entirely in Spanish and I realized that I was going to have a hard time keeping up with all the native speakers in the class. 50 pages of nightly reading in English take me long enough as it is; in Spanish, I'd never have time to get anything else done. So I opted out of that class.

The next day I went to "History of the English Language," which I'm very excited about and which I like to abbreviate as HOTEL. Monika Otter is one of my favorite profs at Dartmouth. She is a native of Germany but has been teaching in the U.S. so long and is so interestied in the subtleties of language that she has a much better command of English, even idiomatically, than most other American college professors, let alone average Americans. I've been listening to her carefully the last couple of classes, and the only error I heard her make was pronouncing the word "circuit" as "ser-kwit," which is a pretty logical mistake to make. Right now the class is basically a quick synopsis of Ling 1 for the benefit of the non-majors in the class, of which there are many. But looking ahead, we'll be getting into some neat stuff about Old and Middle English that I know nothing about. Here, let me post a sample of some Middle English. This is from a translation of an early French travelogue about Africa:

"In Ethiope, whan the children ben yonge and lytill, thei ben all yalowe; and when that thei wexen of age, that yalownesse turneth to ben all blak."

Funny, huh?

I went home to Maine briefly last weekend to get the rest of my dorm room stuff, and my brother and I went to see Sin City. It's quite a bloodbath, but very beautifully rendered: all in sharp, deep black and white apart from the occasional flash of lurid color: red drops of blood, blue eyes, a pool of yellow ooze.

I wish I could've gone home this coming weekend instead, because my mom's a capella group, !zing, is performing then. I keep missing their concerts. But on Tuesday I had to pack up all my ski stuff again, and yesterday I left for Colorado yet again. We visited St. Anne's, an Episcopal primary school in Denver where we got to see all the kids we've been exchanging emails with from the road ever since October. Ralph gave me a ride up to Vail afterward and let me sleep on his couch, and today we checked into the really luxurious Vail Cascade Resort, where we're staying until Sunday. We're here for SkiTAM, the main annual fundraiser for our ski team. I really don't like schmoozing with people, but it's worthwhile for me to be here because our team really wouldn't have the money to do what we do without this event. Plus, you never know — maybe I can find a company here that's interested in sponsoring me.

OK, it's off to the opening reception for me...

"Uh, yeah... maybe I won't volunteer."

My friend Abby sent the following email to the volunteer coordinators for the 2006 Paralympics:

Hi-

Went to Noi2006.org to see about volunteering at the
paralympics in 06, but it's in italian and I am one of those
unenlightened people who can only guess at your beautiful
language. Also, when I click on essere voluntario, the page does
not load. Could someone send me info on being a volunteer? I'll
most likely be there to support a good friend on the US disabled
alpine ski team and I'm sure I could take some time to help out
in whatever way you need.

Thanks! Grazie!
Abby Drevs

Here's the response she got:

Hello,

we are with knowledge of some problems which located it has but
our techniquex is with work to improve the service, would advise
reprouver to him and of controller which it version to explore
which uses is not compatible with the Form Application, in this
case it is necessary to use PC with a version of Internt Explore
5.5. or superior. Thank you for interest.

Aster the Snowflake!

In case you missed it (I did), the official mascot of the 2006 Winter Paralympics was unveiled earlier this month. Meet Aster! Apparently, he "comes directly from the sky, to represent, with his warm smile, the sports of the disabled." I laugh every time I look at the picture of this guy. If that was the idea, then well done, TOROC.

Whoa, I just discovered that there's a Windows Media video of Aster too! (highspeed) (dialup)

In other news, yesterday I completed a trifecta of third-place finishes at nationals with a bronze in the slalom. Sure, I had been hoping to move up a spot or two, but I skied two totally solid runs so I'm not really disappointed with the race at all. Chris won yet again, and Tyler took second. I made it into the Vail paper again with a pretty nice photo accompanying their story on the slalom race.

Here's the U.S. Ski Team's report on Saturday's GS. (They're a day or so behind in posting these.)

GS day

Third place again today, although I was kind of lucky to even make the podium: Chris, Nick, and Roger all went down in the first run and failed to finish, leaving Tyler, Joe, Kevin Connolly (not yet a U.S. Ski Team member), and me to duke it out for the medals.

I had one big mistake on my first run, sliding on my hip for a second on the steepest part of the hill, and finished third: 5 seconds behind Tyler, 3 seconds ahead of Joe, and just 0.05 seconds behind Kevin. I figured I could easily beat Kevin on the second run with a decent run, but I decided to really attack the second course anyway. I had a good run with no big mistakes, just behind Tyler's time and well ahead of Joe's, but Kevin laid down the best run I've ever seen him ski and increased his lead over me by a second, keeping me in third. It was a fun race.

Here are some links to USSA's stories on the downhill and the super G. No story in today's Vail paper about yesterday's race, but they did run a pretty sweet photo of Nick on the cover.

some redemption

After yesterday's disappointing 5th place, I made the podium today for only the second time this season — 3rd in the super G here in Vail. I am pretty happy with my run, especially one section that I skied well where almost everyone else messed up. Chris and Nick had outstanding runs, though, and they deserved to beat me.

Here's an article from today's Vail newspaper about yesterday's race. It included this pretty cool photo of me.

this is only a funny link

if you are easily amused by the poor quality of computer translation: a post from the blog of the Portland band Phantom Buffalo.

a bit of a disappointment

Well, the weather today ended up being just fine, alternating between sun, clouds, and light snow flurries. As a result, we were able to run today's 2-run downhill as scheduled. I had two totally decent runs, basically equal to my training runs over the past couple of days. Unfortunately for me, everyone else really stepped up their game. In the end I finished fifth, behind Chris, Roger Lee, Nick, and Joe. Definitely a disappointment after my string of second-place finishes in the training runs, but the first six of us were all pretty close, within a few seconds of each other after two runs. It's hard to be happy about my performance when I'm so bummed about my result, but I know I should be. I have three more chances this week to hit the podium.


Latest absolutely amazing song I've heard: "Maps of Egypt" by the Portland, Maine-based band Seekonk. (Listen to a sample on iTunes.)

Last incredibly depressing movie I've seen: Osama, a film about an Afghani girl living under Taliban rule who tries to pass as a boy in order to feed her family.

March in Colorado: sunny to snowy in 3 minutes flat

I don't think I've ever been in this position before: I might have won the silver medal in the downhill at nationals, or I might not have... yet. Today was supposed to be the second day of training for the downhill race, but this afternoon snow clouds moved in and quickly erased the sunny, warm weather we had yesterday and this morning. We got the training runs off in time, but if the snow keeps up tonight as forecasted, we may be unable to hold the race tomorrow as forecasted. If we still can't run it Friday or Saturday (in addition to the other races already scheduled for those days), the results of the last two runs of downhill training will count as the race, and I will be in second place. (A further complication: downhill races are usually just one run, but because the Vail race hill is fairly short, we are running a two-run "sprint downhill" where the times are combined, like in GS and slalom.)

In any case, I'm mostly pretty happy with how I've been skiing in training. In yesterday's run I was second behind Chris, and I was second and fourth in today's two runs. My second run today was actually my fastest yet, but Nick and Roger Lee of Winter Park stepped it up and snuck in between Chris and me. Still, my combined time from the two runs today was second-fastest.

I'm listening to the new album by Queens of the Stone Age. It rocks.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Bode mania

Just some miscellaneous links today as I finish up packing the van for the drive east:

Even USA Today has jumped on the Bode bandwagon, running a cover story on him today. There's also a really cool photo gallery of him on their website.

According to the ornithologist quoted in a "Week In Review" article in Sunday's New York Times, an estimated one billion birds fly into buildings each year in the United States alone. My roommate, Josh, calculated that works out to 3.1 collisions per second. That sounds feasible enough to me, but Josh was skeptical, saying he has rarely seen it happen.

March madness

So, my schedule for the rest of the month is finally starting to shape up...

The doc still says I can't ski until 3 weeks after my crash, so that would be just in time to for downhill training at nationals in Vail, which begin on the 22nd. That means I have like two weeks to kill however I please. I have to get my car back east during that time so I can fly straight back from nationals for the beginning of spring classes; I have decided to take the most circuitous route possible. This Thursday and Friday I'll drive from Colorado to Chicago and then spend the weekend with my friend Abby (and hopefully Shifra as well). Then on Monday and Tuesday I'll head down to Washington, D.C. and visit Will M. and Seth, and finally back up to Maine (with a possible stop in NYC). Then on Monday the 21st I'll fly back out to CO for nationals. Whew.

When is every airline going to have something like this? This is 2005, for Pete's sake; people need to get online. It should be free, even.

last day in Europe

We're packing up now and getting ready to head out at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning and catch a flight from Zurich to Washington DC to Denver. Hannah and I visited Ben in the hospital today and he was in really good shape, considering that he basically broke his neck... no neurological damage, luckily. Monte won the slalom today in the men's standing category — his first win of the season, and he really deserved it. I'll close with a great quote from yesterday's Word-A-Day email:

A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." -Stephen Crane, writer (1871-1900)

off days (for me anyway)

Today was GS and yesterday was super G here in Klosters, and Hannah and I continued to sit out the races. Today we went up and watched the second run of the GS, which was a tricky course that claimed a number of the top skiers. Chris had problems but still held on to finish 3rd. Laurie improved her streak to an amazing 11 consecutive World Cup wins in GS, beginning last season with a win in her first-ever World Cup GS.

By now my face has turned a very interesting assortment of colors, and my cuts and scrapes have scabbed over. This morning my right eye was swollen almost shut, which made it really hard to get my contact lens in. It feels fine, but I wore sunglasses to breakfast. I think my vanity is injured worse than my face.

The injuries on the team just continue to pile up. In addition to Sandy, Hannah and me, one of our ski technicians, Ben Roberts, was injured today when he accidentally skied off a 5-foot drop and landed on his back. Good thing we only have one more race left — only one more chance for people to get injured.

yesterday

What a day... It started with me ready to have my best downhill run ever, and ended with me in the hospital. After inspection, I was warming up on the trail adjacent to the downhill. Suddenly I was lying on the ground with 15 or 20 people standing around me asking me in various languages if I was OK. I was really confused because I couldn't remember crashing. Thinking about it more, I could remember that I was in Klosters at a race, but I wasn't sure what time it was or whether today was a race day and, if so, what event we were skiing. At one point, Tyler skied by and asked if I was OK. I remember responding, "I can't remember shit." Ski patrol (or "SOS," as it's called here) showed up and asked me what happened. I was starting to piece it together. I remembered skiing down the final pitch on the hill, trying to carry a lot of speed down onto the flats. But on the far right-hand side of the trail, where I was skiing, there was a big compression at the bottom of the steep pitch, a sort of gully followed by a decent-sized roll. I was aware of the terrain, having crashed there during warm-up the day before when it caught me by surprise. This time I thought I was prepared for the compression and would be able to ski right through it by staying strong and deliberate. It didn't turn out that way. I remember staying upright as I hit the compression, but it must have thrown me off balance so that I flew off the next roll off-kilter and slammed into the ground face-first. Or so I can conjecture, based on the goggle-shaped pattern of the bruises on my face.

I felt fine apart from a little soreness in my neck and face. I asked if I could just ski down, but the toepiece of my binding had snapped off from the binding plate on my ski, so that was out of the question. (My watch snapped off my wrist too, but someone found it, luckily — it was a high school graduation present from my parents.) The ski patrollers must have gotten me out of my monoski and into their sled, but I don't remember that part. I just remember riding down in the toboggan — my first time ever — and looking up at the sky. By now I had realized that it was downhill race day and that I would miss the race. I got angry at myself for making such a stupid mistake and blowing my shot at what could have been my first World Cup podium. I think I started crying.

In the patrol room, Ralph stepped inside and asked how I was doing. I said I would be fine, and that he should "go get 'em." (He later told me it was like a scene in a bad movie. You know, like, "I'll be OK. Go win it for me!") A doctor showed up and introduced himself, and our team physio trainer Alison arrived too. They wanted to take me to the hospital in an ambulance since I'd obviously had a concussion. They also put a neck brace on me. At the time this seemed unnecessary, but as I'm writing this now my neck sure is sore. At the hospital, they let me get into my wheelchair. They X-rayed my neck and made me lie down in a bed for a couple hours for "observation." Alison left to go find our team doctor, Peter, who had been taking another injured athlete to the airport. A nice Australian-born nurse checked on me every so often; it was a comfort to talk to someone who spoke fluent English. A Swiss doctor arrived and introduced himself. My X-rays showed some stiffness in my neck but no fractures, he said. Even though I was showing none of the usual concussion symptoms like dizziness, nausea, or tingling in my hands, he wanted to keep me in the hospital overnight as a precaution. When Peter arrived, though, he convinced the other doctor to release me into his care and let me go back to the hotel for the night. By the time we sorted out all the paperwork and drove back to Klosters, it was 5:30 pm or so. (The accident had happened around 10:45 am.)

It turned out that there had been a lot of casualties at the race that day, with numerous holds to get injured racers out of the safety fencing. One guy even had to get airlifted to the hospital by helicopter. My teammate Hannah finished her run and then crashed into the fence in the finish area while trying to stop, injuring her knee. Nick crashed three gates from the finish, but was unhurt. Other than us three, it was a good day for our team, though. Laurie took second in her class, and Joe won the race in my category, the sitting men's. Chris took third. (results) In fact, the guys on the podium were the same three who had been fastest in training the day before, and in the same order. Since I had been fourth the day before, it was painful to realize that I certainly would have had a shot at a top-5 finish or even a podium.

Because of the concussion, I'm not allowed to ski for the rest of the trip, and maybe not for a week or two after that. There's just too much of a risk of a much more severe head injury if I were to crash again. So right now, the super G race is about to start and I'm chilling in the hotel for the day. I have plenty to do: books, music, DVDs, Internet, chatting with Hannah, getting my watch fixed. Tomorrow and the next day, I think I'll go up to the hill and watch the GS and slalom from the finish area. Then on Saturday, we'll fly home to Colorado.

My face is pretty bruised up — I should have someone take a picture — and my neck is sore, but I feel pretty much fine. I slept soundly last night except when Peter woke me up periodically to make sure I was OK. It's a huge bummer to miss these last four races, especially when I was skiing well and had a good chance of moving up to the B-team based on the final World Cup standings. But as everyone keeps reminding me, at least I'm not hurt worse.

If anyone else has any good concussion stories, post them in the comments section, would you?

downhill training day #2

I just came in the door after today's downhill training run and I'm waiting for the snow on my tires to melt on the doormat, so I have some time to write about what we've been up to here in Klosters. Where to begin?

Klosters is a resort town near its more famous siblings of Davos and St. Moritz. It's not a cheap place, and it's full of tourists from all over Europe. We're staying in a really nice hotel that charges 9 francs (basically $9 these days) per half hour for internet access. At least I can write these posts offline and then paste them into a browser window. The breakfast spread is fantastic, the pool is large, and there are elevators!

Our dinners are served in a huge circus tent in the park across the street. The dinners are a source of no small amount of grumbling among the athletes because while the race organizers' intentions are good, their elaborate events kind of get in the way of the schedule we're trying to keep. Dinner is served at 8 and involves three courses served very far apart. By the time it's over, most of us would prefer to be in bed so we can get plenty of rest before getting up at 6 a.m. the next day. To be fair, though, it's pretty lavishly catered with gourmet food, a big screen showing disabled ski racing highlights, and live entertainment along the lines of a different theme every night.

Today's training run went as well as yesterday's. I'm not sure exactly what place I finished in, but seven of us monoskiers were all very close, within a second of today's leader, Joe. My run was about four seconds faster than yesterday, due in no small part to the much better visibility today. Tomorrow is going to be a great race. I'll be happy with my performance as long as I ski as well as I have the past two days, no matter what place I end up in.

For those of you who aren't so familiar with ski racing, downhill is the only event where you're allowed (required, in fact) to run the course prior to the actual race. The organizers are required to schedule at least two training runs over the course of one or two days before the race. The course is exactly the same for each training run and for the race run, although of course the weather and snow conditions often change, which can make the course faster or slower. Times are announced for training runs, although some people make a bigger deal about them than others. Most people use the first training run as a chance to familiarize themselves with the course and make sure they know where they're going. (Coming up to a blind knoll at 55 m.p.h. can be unnerving if you don't know where the next gate is going to be.) After each training run, we generally watch our runs on video and discuss with coaches what changes we'd like to make to our "line" for the next run. Downhill is all about finding the fastest line through the course, and often the person who wins will not be the one with the best technique but rather the best sense of how to use the shape of the hill to generate and maintain more speed. This is especially true on this downhill course, which is fairly fast but mostly flat and not very technical. There are only one or two difficult turns in the whole course, which means that even a small mistake can be costly because the winner will probably have a near-perfect run.

Anytime you make it to the finish of a downhill course is a pretty amazing feeling. The speed is such a rush, and when you realize you made it down under your own strength, control, and mental skills, it's hard not to feel good about yourself. (Having fast times doesn't hurt, either.)

world`s quickest post

It`ll have to be fast, because I only have a couple minutes left on this public computer. I`m in Switzerland for the world cup finals. Klosters is beautiful and very snowy. Today was the first downhill training run and I tied for second with Nick, behind Chris. If those were the results on race day we would all be ecstatic. Hopefully it won`t snow TOO much and we get more training in tomorrow. OK, more updates to follow when I`m not under such time pressure!

GS #1

Our first GS race was today. I made a big mistake in my first run and was 19th heading into the second run. I had a really solid run ended up... yup, 13th again. That's three days in a row. I'm not sure if that's good luck or bad. I'm also staying in room 13 of our hotel. Ralph thinks I should sleep somewhere else tonight, but I'm not that supertitious. I know if I ski both runs tomorrow the way I skied the second run today, I can be in the top 10, or at least not 13th again. (results)

Remember that cool radio station in Minnesota I mentioned a while back? Here's a link to a neat feature about it.

Our first GS race was today. I made a big mistake in my first run and was 19th heading into the second run. I had a really solid run ended up... yup, 13th again. That's three days in a row. I'm not sure if that's good luck or bad. I'm also staying in room 13 of our hotel. Ralph thinks I should sleep somewhere else tonight, but I'm not that supertitious. I know if I ski both runs tomorrow the way I skied the second run today, I can be in the top 10, or at least not 13th again. (results)

Remember that cool radio station in Minnesota I mentioned a while back? Here's a link to a neat feature about it.