Apocalypse Couloir Trip Report

Now that my skimo race season is over, it's time to take my race fitness to the mountains and ski some fun lines. One of the short comings of competing is ski mountaineering races is that training needs to happen and, depending upon your degree of commitment, should be specific to the demands unique to the racing format. It's not that you can't come off of a program of shralping the gnar in the backcountry and still perform well in competition. It's just that you probably won't do as well.

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Powder Keg Junk Show

After 35 years of competitive endurance racing of one sort or another, no sport has captured my interest quite like ski mountaineering racing. Sure, it has the usual, vomit-inducing qualities they all share - heavy breathing, masochistic throttling of one's capacity trying to keep up with or vanquish fellow competitors. Nothing unique there. In that regard, it's much like mountain bike racing. But it's the technical side of the sport that captures my interest. The gear and technique involved fascinate me.

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Power of Four Race Report

As most of you know, I got a bit of a late start on skimo training this season but have been committed to it since. The form has come around nicely. The one disagreeable aspect of the sport is that, outside of Colorado, races are few and far between. We are lucky to have two here near Jackson but then the next closest is a three hour drive and it just goes up from there. This fact leads to less testing of my training than I would like. At the same time, when I do get to race, a lot tends to be riding on it.

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Bozeman Bridger Bowl Race Report

That felt better. Who knows why? With the new Suunto computer on board, my training is evolving significantly so it's impossible to know what made the difference. Hell, it's only two races. I could have just had a good day yesterday or a bad one at the Jackson race. No way to tell. I need more time and data to make any sense of it. On it goes…

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National Championships Report

Two years ago I went into this race looking for a good performance having had some decent results during the season. Granted, the field was not deep then but I managed 9th and walked away very satisfied. As you know from reading here over the past 2 months, I have prepared very methodically and, well, hard for this event. Still, I did not harbor any delusions of this 49 year old whooping ass on the best field North America has to offer. I would have loved to have been surprised. But let's face it, I prepared in a time-tested fashion, using training techniques that have served me well for decades. There is no reason why anything extraordinary should have come of it. And, well, it didn't.

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