Happy Easter Everyone!
I’ve had a very busy and exciting end to my season.
After Whistler, I flew to Albuquerque, NM for the World Pro Ski Tour World Championships in Taos Ski Valley. I was still feeling quite sore and stiff from my crash in Whistler so I sought out a hotel room swimming pool (something I usually try to avoid) and did some swimming to loosen up my back. I picked up my parents from the airport who flew in from Buffalo to watch me race and help me during the races :) They’re the best! We had a quick stop in Santa Fe for lunch and continued on to Taos in time to tune my skis and make the Pro Tour athlete meeting and registration.
The first day, March 30th, was the qualifier day where we raced two runs down the parallel slalom track to seed us for the next day’s parallel slalom race. It was fun to get on slalom skis for the first time in a long while and I qualified fourth in the first run and had a pretty crazy recovery in my second run. Video here:
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Dad subbed in as my ski tech to make sure my edges were sharp and my skis were fast! He was my ‘start coach’ all weekend and every run would comment that I was “skiing great and to just trust myself and ski my race” which turned out to be great advice.
For the World Pro Ski Tour they use the special parallel door start gates that open up after a series of beeps. Being fast out of the start is a huge advantage and something I was working on all weekend. If you go too early you ‘barge’ and the gates don’t open and if you go too slow your competitor in the course next to you gets the advantage.
After the qualifiers, mom, dad and I were able to take some laps and explore Taos which is an unbelievable mountain. I was excited my parents were able to ski around a bit this day, because the following two days I raced until 5 pm so their ski vacation quickly became helping support me. Mom was at the bottom, feeding me snacks and dad was at the top getting me pumped up and ready to go.
The World Pro Ski Tour team does a fantastic job of hosting races. Everyone involved is so welcoming and excited and supportive, it’s truly one of my favorite weekends of the year.
I finished 4th for the slalom race on the 31st and ended up winning the GS on the 1st which was quite fun!
I then flew straight to Sun Valley for US Alpine Nationals. My mom picked up my younger sister Mary, who flew straight from her rowing training camp in Florida and we raced the Super G the next day on April 2nd. It was Mary and my first time racing each other ever! which made winning my first US Nationals SG title even more special :)
Uncle Peter also drove to Sun Valley to cheer us on and brought good cheer and good luck, so we gave him the Idaho Potatoes as a thank you to take home!
The next day was the slalom, which I decided not to race in (pretty lame I know, but I was super exhausted and a day off was quite nice). My mom (coach Martha :)) and I cheered on Mary and the rest of the girls and then we prepped skis and got ready for the GS. I’ve trained GS all year but only raced it twice, simply because it never fit into the schedule to do more GS races. Sun Valley was my first GS finish on the year, so I was really happy to get second place! I love GS, and will definitely be trying to race it more next season.
Mary and me in the finish! Mary had an awesome second run as well in what could be her last ski race ever as she will be rowing in college next year ;( It was super special to race with her in Sun Valley and also to have my mom there helping us!
Now I am in Tahoe for Spring Series races. I raced two SG and have two more GS races on Monday and Tuesday to finish out the season.
Big shout out to Kurt Dahm (long time family friend) for hosting me in Tahoe for these races. I feel very lucky to have so many amazing people help me throughout this season!
Huge thanks to Ian Buckley for all the great Taos photos!
Fantastic action shots Trish!
Hi Trish. Sorry we missed you by a day in Whistler!
Glad to see you had an amazing finish to the season..and that your parents were able to share in the happiness. Congratulations!!