Bonjour from Crans Montana Switzerland where I am writing from a lovely cafe in the heart of town surrounded by families with young children on vacation, elderly couples, and friends gathering to enjoy a yummy treat and coffee to start a beautiful day in the alps.
I am enjoying my last sweet treat before lent starts tomorrow and I begin my 30 day no sweets fast (among other lenten resolutions).
As a quick update on the skiing side of things. After Cortina I trained a couple days of GS with Bella and Alice in Sarntal Italy. We stayed at the coziest wellness hotel tucked into South Tirol called Bad Schorgau, and we enjoyed afternoon saunas, ice baths, and some of the best food I’ve eaten on the road.
The owner is a friend of our head speed coach, Alex, and was able to “work with our budget.” It was the perfect reset mid season and paired with the excellent GS training, it made me feel incredibly grateful, motivated, and excited for the second half of the season.
We then loaded up the vans to max capacity and drove the 8 hours to La Thuile Italy, right on the other side of Mt. Blanc, for two Europa Cup Super G’s. The hill and course set were pretty challenging and I didn’t totally know what to expect, so I didn’t quite send it my first race. I finished a respectable 11th, but it was a good reminder that every race, every run, you need to be going for it full gas if you want to do well. So thats exactly what I did the second day and ended up 2nd. My run was a bit hectic and all over the place but I’ve found that pushing my limits and having mistakes is always faster than trying to focus too much on skiing well.
Next, we drove to Crans Montana, Switzerland for one more Europa Cup series. We were met with very warm weather and a couple cancelled days, but were able to run two downhill races this past Sunday. I ended up 5th and 2nd and was happy with my initial approach, adjustments, and execution. I am still really struggling with gliding and lose so much time on the flats, but I’m working on it!
My brother Connor was also able to trek across the Atlantic to watch which was so much fun to have him over here and to share some good results with family :)
The Europa Cup course is almost the same as the World Cup we’ll be racing this weekend (they make the EC a little turnier and shorter than the World Cup), so I’m hoping to take this positive momentum into the World Cup. We have had 9 World Cups so far and we have 8 more to go (fingers crossed no more cancellations), and I am feeling really confident and ready to attack the second half of the season!
My next blog will be answering all your questions from my last AMA blog post. Feel free to send anymore if you didn’t get a chance to last week!