After the Olympics, my coaches returned to Park City. I had a meeting with them and we talked about my plans for the rest of the season. I had been training in the U.S. since mid January focusing on improving my jumping and was hoping to get sent back to Europe and compete in the final COC competitions. Unfortunately, the weather has been so warm in Park City I never actually had a chance to jump. Therefore the coaches decided that it wouldn't be beneficial, in the long run, for me to return to Europe and compete for only two weekends.
Since then I have been over to Steamboat several times because Steamboat has had more snow that Park City and they at least were jumping. I was here last week training with NTG athletes Colin Delaney, Jasper Good, Nicholas Madden, and the rest of the SSWSC kids. I was able to get one day of training on the HS75 and one day on the HS45. The weather was really warm both days and it was hard to make changes but I was just happy to finally jump.
I have also been cross country racing almost every weekend. I raced in several 20k races this past month and they have gone very well. I finished 1st at the Round Valley Roundup in Park City and then the following weekend I raced with Tyler and Wes Savill( Canadian nordic combiner) in the final citizen series race in Park City. I had the best race that weekend and finished 1st. I was happy to see that my cross country skiing was still very strong but now needed to focus on ski jumping.
This past weekend the Park City hill crew worked hard and opened up the HS100 for Western Regionals. Saturday was my first jump back on a HS100 since mid January! I was hoping that all the gym training had paid off but unfortunately, not being on a jump that size in so long was not good. I had two very poor jumps and jumped to 2:30 behind the leader. The race in the afternoon was really warm and slushy, but I had been racing very well in the past month so I was hoping that I could make up a lot of time on the leaders. I skied an ok race and finished 4th overall with the 2nd fastest time. This might sound good, but there were only 6 competitors in the field. I realized that after the weekend what I really needed was a solid couple jumping sessions on a larger hill to get back my feeling.
Park City unfortunately could not keep the hills open this week so Tyler and I decided this past Sunday night that we were going to go back to Steamboat for a week and jump. The club in Steamboat was very optimistic that they could get the HS100 ready for a couple days of jumping. I am really excited to get back to training on a larger hill and try and make some big improvements.
I am going to be in Steamboat until this upcoming Sunday and then will return to Park City for a week, before heading up to Whistler for Canadian Nationals at the end of March. The competition in Canada will be my final competition and I plan on finishing the season on a positive note. I will keep you updated during the final weeks of the season!