Friday, May 4, 2007

Pics are in!

Andy Docken holds court with Georgie of the NZ Alpine Demo Team, and Megan Harvey of the American Team swooning at his side...
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Andy "You're a Tiger" Docken rockin' it at the Aeire bar at the Cliff Lodge in Snowbird. ************************************************************************************

Skippy the Kangaroo getting ready to party the night away.
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Here is the lovely security guard who let us party in his OFFICE when we got too loud in the hotel room... In this photo, he's in the process of handcuffing the kangaroo, just before I leaned in to blow in his ear...
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This is Jackson Hole, WY, the first day I was ever away from my kids overnight! They took it great, and Shannon, Angela and I skied that sucker (4316 vertical feet) top to bottom in good form! (After Posing a bit). Bulletproof to hard butter to corn to slush to full on water skiing. Awesome.
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Nick nursing only his second drink of the night... with the lovely and talented Kiwi by his side...
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Megan Harvey, ladies and gentleman. Shannon and I get a squeeze in with our coach of the week.
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This is actually from the Bridger Bowl employee party, and yes, we are that cute, and yes, we are that hammered. It was a good party. Sue me.

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The girls ski Jackson!

On Gratitude

I am a bit overwhelmed, and I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to everyone who is making this possible for me. Never in my many pursuits have I had a team of people pull so hard and willingly behind me, gathering me up and pushing me onward.

Ever since I made the decision to train to the D team, I have heard nothing but "Go for it!" "Let me help you!". I must admit, I am at a bit of a loss. I remember when I was skating taking the buss to the rink at the crack of dawn to get a patch session in. Standing next to my friends while they had their lessons, and then making them re-teach me what they had just learned. Sewing my skating dresses in my underwear so I could try them on and fix em.

There are two careers that my mom never wanted for me, one was that of an athlete, and the other was as an actress. Both are such tough roads, with such enormous competition, and with such huge possibility for failure. Unfortunately for mom, I pursued both of them rather vigorously. And here we are again.

But this time, something is different. The amazing Mike Hickey, a gold mine of skiing knowledge and passion for the sport, former D team member (1976) and race coach, has agreed to coach me. His colleague at Bridger Bowl, Kurt, is going to supplement the training and coaching. My sister, Liat, a nutritionist, has agreed to donate her time to my nutrition coaching. The Ridge Athletic Club is being incredibly supportive with sport specific programs, and is allowing me to run a hiking group this summer (now I can get paid to get my cardio in.)

I can't ski without gear, and honestly, Tom and I are flat broke right now, and lo and behold, Megan hands me her skis. And offers to train me. She handed me gear I desperately need and can't afford, and I can't wait to get out there and get my ass kicked by her when the season starts again.

Then there is my incredible husband. Tom comes home early and gets the kids ready for bed so I can get to the gym and get my strength training in. Weekends, the only time I'll really see him, he's watching the kids so I can hike for snow.

And speaking of my kids, I come home and they want to know how my workout was. They are practicing on the balance boards with me. Ethan is doing boot drills in the kitchen with me. "Mom, are you skiing in the kitchen?" "Yes..." "Can I ski with you? Can we go fast?" Look at those little 5 year old ankles flex...

And my older sister, who sent me a credit card. For emergencies. For training. So I can go to places like Snowbird when I don't have any money for gas or food. But she does much more than that. This woman tells me I can do it daily. She emails IMS from Germany (where she is working on the new Speed Racer film) and makes it a priority in her 18 hour day to tell me she is proud of me. This is the girl that used to throw me out of her room for having sticky fingers!!

My mom flew out from California to watch the kids so I could go to the Academy, and she ended up paying my way. After buying me all my backcountry gear, which I taught on all year and will be training on all summer.

This doesn't include the incredible notes of support from Nick McDonald, trainer extraordinare, and Rob Sogard, the coach of the team I dream of. Thank God I have people like Josh Spohler and Nick Herrin to tell me I suck and slap me down, all the while grinning and challenging me to try harder, because you need that too. They set the bar high.

All of this hit me kind of all at once, and here is where Shannon came in. We were at Snowbird, and I noticed that my face was leaking. I was an emotional wreck. I am used to having to fight and swim upstream so much, that all this help and support was downright strange and foreign. And Shannon said, Kate, what you are feeling is good, its called gratitude. Enjoy it. Allow it. So I did, I sat in the bathroom and cried for a bit, feeling what it felt like to have a huge group of people pull together to make your dream happen, and then we went out and ripped it up on the hill. So thanks for putting me back together and being the chick I can ski with...

So thank you. If I never made it further than this point, it has already been an amazing experience for me. And since we WILL be moving forward, I want to say thanks to everyone who hangs in there when its tough, not so fun, scary, and looks impossible. With your help, we just might get there!

In utter amazement,
Kate

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Training Log: May 3


No cardio today. Crud. Raining (would have loved to hike in it). Legs at gym. Squats in smith machine, dead lifts, leg press, seated hamstring curl, standing calf raises, abs on the ball.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Weigh in: May 2


159.5 lbs
26.5% body fat

Training Log: May 2



Okay, here is the catch up.

April 26 drove home from Snowbird with a big hangover. Ha ha. Good training day.
April 27 gym work out: back: hyper extensions, lat pull downs, assisted pull ups, face down row, abs
April 28 hiked kirk hill with Bodhi in the back pack, 3 miles
April 29 swam 1 hour (17 lengths) in olympic sized pool, began to teach Shannon the Total Immersion method of swimming
April 30 no work out
May 1 no work out, tooth extraction, darvocet coma all day
May 2 hiked kirk hill almost to road, 5 miles, 1.5 hours, chest at gym

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Backed up!

I owe a couple of training logs and a weigh in... i know... but I got a couple of teeth extracted and spent some much needed time with my kiddos and my hubby... updates to come in the next few days... thanks for reading!

Also coming soon: the team bios, book suggestions from my nutritionist, and dry land training ideas.

By the way, does anyone have a used road bike I can borrow for the summer? Too broke to buy one... I am 5'11".

Thanks!

Kate

National Academy Wrap Up - Photos and links coming soon!!

Okay, Shannon had the camera, and I haven't got the photos from her yet, but I wanted to get the story up, so check back in a bit for the pics.

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Wow, that went fast! Here it is in a nutshell. Friday night, I was still calling Karen Hagaman (The incredible woman co-ordinating the Academy) and asking if I had got in!
My mom was here, having flown out from California to watch the kids so I could attend.

The beautiful and talented Shannon had also been trying to attend, but it looked like neither of us was in. I tracked Karen down in her hotel room at Snowbird, and begged her to let me in. She said that the hotel was full, but I offered to stay at a Motel 6 in town, so she called down and got me a single room for an additional $312.

The next morning, I drove to Shannon's house at 9am and asked her if she wanted to go to Utah with me. She was a bit shocked, "Do they have a space for me?" "I don't know, but I doubt they will turn you away if we show up!" I said. I called Karen and left her a message that told her that Shannon had a place to stay, and would need a credential that night if possible.

Shannon had her self packed in an hour, and we hopped in the Bronco and hit the road. Awesome. We drove through West Yellowstone and into Idaho, made it to Snowbird by 5, checked in, got a room with two queen beds, and didn't have to pay the extra $312 after all!!

I called Karin and told her "Well, we are here!" and she answered "Um, by we, you mean..." "My friend Shannon. She came on the off chance that you might have space for her, and she has a place to stay." "Oh. Well, I don't think that we... We can do that. I'll have to hand write her credential, and you can pick it up at dinner."

SWEET! She's in.

We got dolled up and headed down to the opening night buffet. The only people that I knew were Nick Herrin and Rob Sogard, and I didn't see them anywhere, and they were working, so we fended for ourselves, got a $5 beer and found a table, got our spiffy credential and our itinerary, ate a fabulous amazing dinner, and sat back to hear two amazing men get inducted into the Skiing Hall of Fame. The stories these guys told were incredible, and we gave them well deserved standing ovations. I’ll post links to them as soon as I get their info.

Later on, wandering around, I ran into Nick who gave me the most amazing hug and said “You made it! We were wondering if you’d get in!!” Yay! I was happy to be there anyway, but Nick is a ton of fun and a great teacher, so that was cool.

After dinner, we split into groups and looked for a coach. It was great, like controlled chaos. We milled around and found our way to the top end of the middle group, where we attempted to decide between Nick, Megan Harvey and Richard, the Aussie D Team Guy.
We ultimately decided on Megan, the author of the Alpine Technical Manual and in her third term on the team. (“Lets ski with a chick! Yeah!”), and were SO happy that we did. Nick’s comment on that was “You are skiing with Megan? That’s perfect.” Really? Why? “Because you like to know everything and she likes to tell everything.” GREAT!

Later on I ran into Rob, who was a doll and checked in with me all week “How are your skis, how is your clinic, how is Megan?” and so on… Most excellent.

We hit the bar for a while, met a hot buff blonde cutie, ordered our whiskey and tried to figure out how to extricate ourselves from the Ski Camp Ick whom we ended up in conversation with. They were lovely gentlemen, don’t get me wrong, but rather obviously trolling for a hook up, ew ew ew. Welcome to Ski Camp.

Anyhow, we hit the sack early, after saying our hellos and making our social appearance, and went to bed giggling for tomorrow.

The next day, we had our first lesson with our coach for the week, and I got on a pair of Demo Volkl AC40s (next year’s awesome all mountain ski) Unfortunately, they had them in 160, which is a bit short for me, but I skied a run on them anyway.

I liked them, but they were squirreling around, washing out and I couldn’t find their center. Megan told me to fight for the center of the skis, and I’d change them out at the bottom of the run. I do what my coach tells me, so I fought. And fought. And by the end of the run, they had stopped washing around.

Got to the bottom, and Megan and Rob had a little discussion about wether I should move up or not, hard to decide what to do because Rob wanted me to stay on them and figure it out, and Megan wanted me on longer skis, I think so I wouldn’t hold up the group. I was good to go either way, and I ended up on Rossi Z-11 170s for the next two days.

These little freight trains weigh about 4 times what my Shucksans do, and have a wicked side-cut and quite a bit of camber, so the second you step on them, there they go! I felt like a pig on roller-skates, and it was once again demonstrated to me that I am NOT the world’s best skier! I was determined to be able to turn these suckers in the crud/powder/freeze that we were skiing, and actually the snow for the first two days was lovely, although the visibility was downright TERRIFYING!!

Our afternoon clinic on the first day was video, because I was thinking of having video at the front and back of the clinic for comparison. We did video with Sean Smith, a technical coach for the D team, in basic white out conditions.

Not to mention that I wanted to air it out every turn to feel safer, and I was skiing with my feet nailed to the snow. These are NOT the nimblest skis in the world. And Shannon kept telling me “These are freight trains. Let them do what they want to do. Let them bust through it. Let them turn, keep them on the snow.” But I was just ready to throw them down the hill, I was so damn frustrated. By the end of the second day, I could ski them a bit, I was not fighting them and trying to ski them how they wanted to be skied.

I was going to go to the Rossi Radical, which has less of a sidecut and is a more racing type ski, but the guy was gone for the rest of the week, and the Volkl guy went to Hawaii, so Megan said I could try her skis, and for the rest of the week, I skied on her Ativa Volkl 170s, which are only twice as heavy as my Shucksans, have a moderate sidecut and a lot of camber, so it was FUN!


I loved them immediately, and had a blast for the rest of the week. By the end of Wednesday, I felt like I was basically ready to begin instruction. Crud.

For electives, I worked with the international team of Rich, Josh, and Georgie (Australia, Canada, New Zeland) and it was a great experience. Their teaching styles were all complimentary, and they all skied slightly differently, which was awesome. Josh has a tremendous blend of grace and power, and as I am shopping for a skiing style right now, I am thinking of trying to overlay Josh with Nick and coming out with a cheerleader on steroids… we’ll see how that goes.

I also did carving with Andy, which I wrote about earlier, and steeps and bumps with Josh Foster the next day. Super fun, MAN did I learn a lot. I have been having a huge leveling issue, and Josh fixed it in about five minutes: plant your pole with your elbow lower than your hand. This creates the pinch and draws the swinging shoulder down. YEAH!

Suddenly, I can occasionally find flow in the bumps! Rock on!

Did steeps and bumps the next day with Bobby, the director from Telluride, who just had a new baby! And who was great to ski with, he challenged us with some good terrain in the icky poo crud of doooom which I need to be able to ski (This was probably my best two hours of skiing of the whole week.) He didn’t give me a new focus, just had me keep working on what Megan gave me, and it went really well. I am looking forward to skiing with him again.

Megan ended up making me want to perform beyond all, her ownership, her enthusiasm, her joy of skiing, of training, is just phenomenal. She took us through some Aikido exercises that were great for grounding and centering. She asked me to traverse any side hill on only my uphill single edge, and challenged me to do it in the right body posture. She invited me to come train with her in Aspen (and told me I have a place to stay…) and at the end of the week, she gave me her skis. Yes.

Which was an amazing thing. Because when I was a figure skater, I skated on broken equipment for years, skates 2 sizes too small that I got from my friends when they were worn out, and I used to poach their lessons until I was, gosh… 10? And even still after that…

I was overwhelmed. And that’s the subject of the next post.

The end of the story is the amazing blow out party that went till 4am in the security guards’ office (We have a pic somewhere of him handcuffing skippy the blow up kangaroo, whom Richard bequeathed to me, while I am blowing in his ear… most excellent.) We didn’t have to ski the next day so it was whisky after whisky after PBR and some other odd mixed drinks, made some good friends and partied until we couldn’t stand up anymore. Then we went up and worked on the wobble boards! Insane.

The next morning was a quiet, headachey affair, Shannon picked up some AMAZING shots of herself skiing for the blog, and we hit the road (after nursing the Bronco at the Oil Drop for a minute) The ride home was quiet, and we both had big stupid grins on our faces, can’t wait to get back and share it all with our coach, Mike Hickey, and get to work for real.

Not a bad way to spend a day or six!!!

See you next year at the Academy!!

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Balance 360 boards are here!

I have wanted one of these for a while, it is the ultimate balance exercise. I emailed Kevin at Balance 360 and asked him if he could overnight us a couple of boards to the National Academy, and he did it! We got two skinny boards, which we took down to the bar before the technical talk.

The thing that is incredible about these boards is they roll all directions, demanding excellent balance and precision. It is an awesome core and leg workout!

It was a blast!! Everyone got on them, props to Andy Docken (American Alpine Demo Team) for being able to stay on the board the longest! We got great video of Deb Armstrong (Olympic gold medalist) and Rob Sogard (Head Coach of the Alpine Demo Team) working the board, as well as Josh Foster (Canadian Demo Team) and so many more!!

It was great fun, the demo guys were tossing the extra balls back and forth to each other whilst balancing on the boards.

Thanks for the quick work, Kevin, I probably could have sold at least 10 of these things in those two days!!

Now that I am home, Ethan and Bodhi and my husband, Tom are all working on the boards a couple times a day. Awesome. (Well, its a bit addictive...)

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

At the National Ski Academy!!

We are HERE! We made it! I have a LOT to blog about, but here is just todays info... I promise to catch up as soon as I can!

Today was amazing. It was our elective day, so we got to choose the clinic we wanted to ski in. It was So hard to pick! Scotty McGee was here doing a telemark clinic, and, since Mike had decreed that I shall now be a Nord, I was sorely tempted to learn from the best. However, now I have a reason to drive down to Jackson Hole and visit him, so I decided to pass for the day.

Other choices were steeps and bumps, crud and powder, and carving, among others. I decided to go with carving, because I figured that just chasing Josh down the hill and trying to look like him isn’t working, and just tipping the skis isn’t working, so maybe I should take a class! You can’t carve if you can’t ski!

Andy Docken was our clinician (I ended up in the “I kind of know how to carve, but I need to work on it” group). I’m not going to go through the whole clinic (It was four hours long, and as Andy said, we basically covered the whole Alpine Technical Manual).

Here are the things I had been working on, or that people had been asking of me:

1. Get to your edges early.
2. Stay on your edges.
3. Stay in the front seat.
4. Move your core in the direction of your next turn.
5. Keep moving (no camping).

When I combined these ideas previously, I was hucking to my new set of edges as early as I could, and in my mind, that meant going all the way to a hard edge, and then riding it around. “Just tip it, and ride it around.”

It had NOT occurred to me that the angle of tip can be a progressive movement, as well as the flex and extension in the body being a progressive movement, or the fore/aft can be progressive.

I have had a couple of people tell me to be more patient in my turns, but I felt like they were asking me to stay on a flat ski, and I was getting this huge, ugly, out of control traverse in my turns. I didn’t understand why I didn’t have control, and then, I would look for control and end up going back to getting to my edges “earlier” wich, in my mind, also meant “harder”.

Frustrating.

Here is how Andy fixed it in one fell swoop:

The skis, when they are flat on the snow, are at 0. Tip them just a hair, that is 1. One more degree of tip, that is 2. Higher still, that is 3, and that is just before the apex of the turn (That last bit is me, not Andy, but that’s when I felt it). Ride this just through the apex, and then begin de-edging… 2….1…0… and now we are in the transition.

Interestingly, this is a lesson that I also had to learn in tennis. I like the forehand down the line shot. I like it because it clears the net by three inches, it is powerful, strong, driving and true. I like to try to take the cover off the ball when doing it.


Getting an accurate shot down the line DOES take athleticism and power. BUT, like in carving, not all the engines are burning full fuel, open throttle all the time. Do that, and you loose accuracy, touch, directionality, control and your temper.

The TRUE elite athlete is patient. It takes discipline to be patient. It takes more discipline to wait for your shot, to roll the skis just enough, to listen to the feedback of the ball/snow/skis/body than it does to train hard to be able to hit the ball hard. Holding back often times takes more training than going balls to the wall all the time.

Lesson learned. Again. Andy took the “pop” out of my turn, and in turn, gave me about 150% more control than I had before. The turns link, they flow, I am not chasing my skis down, trying to get back in the front seat because I was hucked to the back of my skis at the bottom of the turn BECAUSE I was over steering BECAUSE I was throwing to my “most extreme” edges in an effort to get there early, and the skis were taking off without me!

Wow.

Carving takes touch.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Training Log: April 20: In which Joe is Not Lost

Climbed Mt. Blackmoore today in Hyalite Canyon near my house. I think it’s a 16 mile round trip. Okay, this would be pretty much the whole story, except for I went with Josh and Joe, and so it’s of course, better than that.

It starts with me being a bit late. Which is something I strive very, very hard not to do. My mother taught me. You never EVER make a boy wait. You wait for the boy. They don’t wait for you. (This is in sport. In everything else, let ‘em stew, girls!)

Okay. This is hard to do when you are hiking with an Antelope and a Freight Train. Right. But I am more in shape than I was the FIRST time they hauled my ass up the Ridge at Bridger. And I have to give it to them, these boys were lovely, they were waiting for me, patiently and encouraging.

HOWEVER, on this day… here is how it went… “Okay, so if you get lost (as they are skinning away) or if we leave you (ha ha, general laughter all around) (as they are skinning away) just follow the skin track. There will only be one!! (ha ha, general laughter all around…)

And off they go, and I follow them (This, by the way is after Super Josh got his truck stuck and they had to dig him out.. They being Joe. Because I didn’t dig.)

Okay. So I got a bit behind when we crossed the creek, mainly because Josh and Joe feel fine just skinning across a creek on a big fallen log. And I, uh… took fifteen minutes to go across. So.

I figured I would spend the rest of the day catching up to them, which is fine with me, while I like the company, I love to hike alone, and my old skiing buddy used to ditch me regularly so she could get a good work out.

Right. So , eventually, I hear their voices. And I think its really strange that I have caught them, because honestly, Joe is really fast. Like super duper fast. And Josh, well, hes not as fast, cause he’s vertically challenged to some extent, but he can go all day at the same pace no matter the pitch.

So why can I hear them? And why does that look like the trail that went off that other direction? And why do I now see Josh climbing over a fallen tree in dense old growth forest on his skis? And where the hell is Joe? Yes, you got it, we are lost. And Joe is gone, although we can hear him crashing around in the forest to our left, and Josh is going “oh, Joe Joe…” because they are girlfriends, you know.

So we hike up out of the forest and onto a trail type area, where I hear Josh say from far away “Kate, when you get up here, just wait until we find the trail.” Click on the video below to see the “One Skin Track”.



Alright. Okay. So moving on, Josh finds the trail, (as is clearly indicated by the sign), and we skin along. What about Joe?


Well, Joe is fast, and while he is dumb, he does have Josh’s dog with him. And he also has his gun with him, so we figure that if it ges bad, he can shoot Ros, and eat her. So on we go.

Eventually, just after Blackmoore lake, Joe comes racing up to us just dripping with sweat, because he blew his binding while he was bushwhacking and had to rebuild it with a leatherman and some keys.

But he caught us. So my goal of being in good enough shape that Joe has to keep up with me is a big one.



So we skin on, and every corner we come to I am thinking is the one we are going to ski, so I keep stopping and taking pictures, but eventually we can see Mt. Blackmoore, and we stop to dig a pit. I am excited to join in and dig, especially because I have a new shovel, but because I can NEVER tell when Josh is pulling my chain, I am a bit of a sucker and I have gotten more cautious. So… Should I dig? I offer to dig. He says two people will be more than enough, and they both get in there and do their best to make it look gnarly!! The snow flies, the boys dig…



Oh, wait, first they had to shoot off Josh’s Glock… and no, they did NOT give the gun to me, they let me pet the dog while they shot the gun… punks… anyhow, the pit was deep and pretty and they had me test the snow stability by jumping up and down on the column, which was basically concrete and didn’t move an inch. GOOD!


Josh took off and Joe and I skinned up to the ridge line, and then went up up up. I tried to take some pictures with the proper aspect so you can see the pitch of the hill we were climbing, but it was tough.
Needless to say, its good to have an antelope put the bootpack in for you, because he was postholing in hip deep snow for a while, and I was too, but in his footprints, which makes it easier.


We got to the top and Joe put together his shotgun, and I had the task of whipping the clay pigeons off the top while he attempted to shoot them. He got one. Then I got to shoot the gun. Which was FUN. Yeah. Joe tried to blow up the wind lip.
I tried to blow up a rock. So here is a picture of Joe with his gun to make his dad proud, and here is a picture of me with my skis on my back to make my mom proud, because she bought my gear, and I couldn’t have done it without it!!

Then we skied down, ice on the left hand turn, wind blown powder on the right hand turn, back seat back seat back seat. Then we got to the little chute, and Joe, (who is quite the gentleman when Josh isn’t around, and vice versa) let me get the freshies. The top couple turns were great, although I skied tentatively again… and then I hit the avalanche debris at the bottom of the chute. Which had frozen into concrete boulders, which I hit, and then blew up on. I was all bummed out, and then I looked up the hill, and thank GOD, Joe was wobbling and hanging in there on his tele gear by the skin of his teeth. So I hopped up and decided to ski it with an “adaptive” stance, like doing GS turns in bumps. It went really really well for about three turns. And then I blew up again.

Hmmm… Anyhow, we got through it, and skied some north facing slopes, which were lovely, fluffy and fun, and I skied for REAL down the second one, with good turns, saying “Single Platform, 50% /50%” out loud all the way down.

So now, we are done with the skiing part, and I figured we’d skin around a different way back to the car. But no, apparently the plan is to SKI the hiking trail back down. Okay. The trail is too narrow to stop on, too narrow to snowplow on, full of whoopties and trees, and I am not wearing my helmet. Yeah.

So we go full speed down this ridiculous trail and I am SURE I am going to die. Funny that it took us from 8am to 3pm to hike it, and less than an hour to ski out.

But I lived, and it was a blast, and I can’t wait to do it again. I like to earn my turns.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Training Log: April 19

Hiked up Pierre's Knob at Bridger Bowl today with my little sister and skied back down! It was snowing! 6 inches! Alaska, Liat's 80lb pit bull and Wya went with us, it was awesome, Alaska runs SO FAST! She was way ahead of us!

No gym tonight, took the kids and Clay to Chico with my mom and sister, so sweet! Drove back home through a lavender and peach sunset shining through the snow storm. I love where I live.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Training Log: April 18

Okay, NOW I KNOW why Subaru is the official car of the US Ski team! I borrowed Clay's little Outback and bombed up Hyalite Canyon behind our house. It was like the Outback Rodeo, sliding and bucking and bouncing all over the place on my way up the hill. Poor Wya (my German Shepherd) was flying all over the place, my coffee was bouncing out of the holder, my skis were slapping together, it was chaos! (But really really fun chaos). I got up to the Palisades Falls campground and didn't want to drive any further for fear of getting High Lined, so I threw on my skins and went up the rest of the road to the trail head for Emerald Lake.

Unfortunately, it was thundering and snowing a bit, an odd combination to say the least, and Wya looked incredibly nervous. I thought for a while she was going to get close enough just to stand on my skis, like tandem skinning. I finally decided that skiing in the mountains by myself with big metal poles in my hands while it is thundering is a less than great idea, peeled off my skins and skated back to the car.

1 hour of cardio at 125 bpm avg.

Gym Tonight:
Legs day: Total leg machine, hamstring curl, dead lifts in the smith machine, standing squat in the smith machine, calf raises. Abs on the ball. Alternated one foot balance drills with weights.

Home:
Boot drills (in ski boots).

Weigh In: April 18



This is what a pound of fat looks like!

Today, I am
26.9% body fat
162 lbs

with:
44 lbs fat
118 lbs muscle, etc.

My Goal, by September 1 is:
15% body fat
add 10 lbs muscle
151 lbs total weight


My Last Weigh In:
January 22

187.5 lbs
33% body fat

My Nutritionist, Liat, just made this chart for me, and we figured that to reach the goal by September 1, I need a calorie deficit of 520 calories burned a day. Here is the chart!

My Own Personal Kato

One of my training rules is that any time I am standing anywhere, I have to be standing on one foot. I have recruited Tom (my charming, indulgent and adorable husband) to come up and push me without warning. My goal is to use my "cheetah tail" (as Josh likes to say), to save my balance without having to put a foot down.

So far I have landed on my ass twice, and Tom is having way WAY too much fun shoving me and shoving me and shoving me before I ever recover my balance. Other than that, its working out great!

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

PSIA Symposium at Big Sky

So I went up to Big Sky over the weekend to try and stalk my friend Josh who is trying out for the "D" team this time around. Unfortunately, he dropped off the back side of the mountain into waist deep fresh powder where you need an avalanche transceiver to follow.

Instead, I spent the day skiing with his buddy, Zach, who had just got back from Garmisch, Germany, and who was suffering from a bit of culture shock ("It's such a 'Nar, Brah' scene here!"). He had just passed his level 3 exam, and deigned to spend the day helping me to suck less.

Zach's big tip of the day: drive the outside knee out, like opening a door. YES! I need this. I ski like a knock-kneed lilly-livered girl. I wanna look like a friggin bow-legged (magnetic) freight train. You know, because even though the magnetic ones are burly and fast, they float about an inch off the rail, so they are smooth as silk. Or buddah (that's New York butter, not Buddha, right? got it?). Or Ghee, if you are really a purist.

Anyhow. I am glad I spent the day with him, exploring the mountain because the next day we got to ski with some of the clinicians. My first guy? The very sparkly Nick Herrin, poster boy for the Alpine team (All the photos of him skiing, he just looks like he couldn't be having ANY more fun!!). What a blast.com. Seriously. He is, um, ebullient to say the least!

Nick, who is now the asst. director at Telluride, lived at Big Sky for nine years, and took us everywhere. I skied the steepest terrain I have ever been on, in trees, down groomers, through crud, off jumps (Okay, I got 2 inches of "air", Nick threw a huge Iron Cross, whatever, you know...). Anyhow, my skiing dramatically improved, and it was awesome to have him there going "YEAH! GOOD JOB!!". This guy is a bucket of fun on skis.

The next day, I skied with Rob Sogard, whom I NOW know is the Coach of the "D" team, but whom at the time, I foolishly thought was TRYING OUT for the NRM region "D" team. Yes, I am a goober. Hi, I'm Kate, I'm new.

Anyhow, its a good thing, because had I known, I certainly would NOT have opened my big mouth and told him I hoped to try out this psycho physiological experiment and make the team in five years. He was really nice, encouraging, and basically told me to go for it. It can be done. YES, it can be done!! Says the coach!! So here we go. Once again, my skiing dramatically improved, and then I got to take a spin on his skis at the end of the day. "Kate, have you ever been on real skis?" (Right, neglected to mention that I showed up on my only gear, back country skis and dynafit bindings... not so great for high performance in bounds skiing...) and tried to ski away with them... ah, well...

The next day, I skied with Nick McDonald at Rob's request, head coach of the NW Technical Team and all around amazing coach. This guy has a drill for everything. After the first five minutes, I owned the center of my skis like never before. Thanks, Nick!

All in all, it was an incredible weekend, I can't wait for National Academy in just five days!! YEAH!

I also hope to get over to Crystal Mountain in Seattle where Nick M. is based out of to just siphon his brain of all those drills, drills, drills.

Okay. Here is the girly note. While I was there, I met Kirsten, the education coordinater for the North West Division. She was wearing just the hottest jacket I have ever seen. Bergan of Norway. Yummmy Yummy Yummy. So I sent Bergan a letter asking if I could have some free clothes. Cross your fingers!! (Because I know you want me to look THIS good!

Training Log: April 17

Today's training consisted of: Biking on my mountain bike 14.2 miles to the Ridge Athletic Club and back (fairly easy).

At the Ridge, my trainer, Liat, and I did shoulders (Military Press, Deltoid Flys, and Rear Delt Cable Cross on the cable machine).

For triceps we did a mini circuit of triceps Pull Downs with the rope, triceps Kick Backs while standing on the bosu ball with free knee off the bench), and triceps dips on the bench.

We did all standing exercises standing on the Bosu Ball (a half inflatable ball that makes you wobble wobble wobble), the first set standing on both feet, and all sets after standing on first the left foot, then the right. With each exercise, we moved the position of the free foot, first just raised and centered, then in front, then out to the side, then behind us.

We did all our abs on the exercise ball, straight crunches, v ups, side crunches, and pikes.

We also worked Chest, and did seated chest press on the machine and incline dumbbell flys as well as flat dumbbell flys.

Tomorrow we might hike for snow!! Yeah!!

Friday, April 6, 2007

Go Time: List of Emotions

For those of us that have trouble identifying just how we are feeling, here is a list of emotions broken down into the most basic and easily understood emotions:

Afraid:


abandoned, agitated, alarmed, anxious, apprehensive, bothered, cautious, concerned, desperate, distraught, disturbed, edgy, fearful, frightened, hesitant, horrified, hysterical, jumpy, nervous, panicked, perturbed, petrified, scared, shocked, threatened, terrified, timid, uneasy, unnerved, worried

Angry:


apathetic, bitter, contemptuous, cross, cruel, defiant, disobedient, enraged, fed up, fuming, furious, hateful, heated, hostile, incensed, indignant, infuriated, irate, jealous, livid, mad, mean, outraged, raging, rancorous, raving, resentful, seething, spiteful, stubborn, ticked off, unforgiving, vengeful

Confident:


affirmative, amazed, ambitious, bright, brave, buoyant, calm, certain, cheerful, converted, convinced, courageous, definite, determined, empowered, encouraged, enthusiastic, exhilarated, helpful, hopeful, independent, loyal, optimistic, persuaded, positive, proud, respectful, sanguine, secure, sure, strong, triumphant, trusting, upbeat

Doubtful:


arbitrary, bewildered, bored, capricious, cautious, changeable, confused, cynical, despairing, disbelieving, distant, distrustful, dithering, dubious, hesitant, erratic, evasive, fickle, impulsive, inconsistent, indecisive, indifferent, insecure, irresolute, powerless, preoccupied, puzzled, shy, skeptical, suspicious, timid, torn, uncertain, unconvinced, undetermined, uninformed, unpredictable, unreliable, unsure, vascillating, variable, volatile, wavering, weak

Happy:


blissful, calm, carefree, cheerful, comfortable, complacent, contented, delighted, ecstatic, elated, enthusiastic, exalted, excited, exultant, fantastic, festive, glad, grateful, inspired, joyful, joyous, jubilant, lighthearted, optimistic, peaceful, playful, pleased, pleasant, relaxed, relieved, satisfied, serene, tranquil, thrilled

Hurt:


abandoned, broken, crushed, damaged, disappointed, disillusioned, disregarded, harmed, heartbroken, helpless, impaired, injured, marred, messed up, misunderstood, offended, rejected, shocked, spoiled, tarnished, unnoticed, unwanted, wounded

Interested:


absorbed, amazed, ambitious, attracted, awed, captivated, concerned, curious, eager, earnest, enchanted, engaged, engrossed, enraptured, enthralled, enthusiastic, excited, fascinated, gripped, held, immersed, involved, inquisitive, intent, intrigued, mesmerized, obsessed, pitying, preoccupied, rapt, spellbound, sympathetic, wrapped up

Irritated:


aggravated, annoyed, bothered, cross, displeased, distressed, exasperated, frustrated, goaded, grumpy, impatient, offended, overwrought, peeved, provoked, shaky, strained, tense, troubled, uncomfortable, upset, vexed

Loving:


accepting, admiring, adoring, affectionate, amorous, awed, caring, close, compassionate, considerate, delicate, devoted, doting, fond, friendly, humble, kind, open, passionate, pitying, sharing, tender, understanding, warm

Sad:


bleak, cheerless, defeated, depressed, despairing, disappointed, discouraged, disheartened, dismal, dour, dreary, dull, gloomy, grieving, grim, heartbroken, helpless, hopeless, lonely, low, melancholic, miserable, moody, murky, ominous, pessimistic, poignant, regretful, remorseful, somber, sorrowful, sulky, uninviting

Shamed:


affronted, ashamed, besmirched, corrupted, disgraced, debased, degraded, defiled, desecrated, despoiled, dirtied, dishonored, embarrassed, fouled, helpless, humiliated, mortified, offended, regretful, remorseful, ruined, shown up, soiled, spoiled, stupid, sullied, tainted, tarnished, ugly, violated

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Go Time: Article #1 What Makes a Champion?

From the book "Champions in Training" by Kate Howe. Copyright 1992, 1999, 2008

What Makes A Champion?

All of us who have participated in a sport we loved have at one time wondered why and how the elite got to be that way. What makes Michelle Kwan so special? How is it that she skated so flawlessly from so young an age? And Tiger Woods? And Andre Aggasi? And Tony Hawk?

Some will say that it is genetics, and a propensity to do well in athletics certainly owes something to being born long lean and fast. But not everyone at the top of his or her game is naturally genetically gifted. In fact, in my experience as a coach it is those with the most natural ability who have the hardest time cracking the top 25%.

Why is that? Aren’t Champions born and not made? Isn’t the Olympic Village peopled with those who started skating before they could walk, were born to parents of Olympic prestige themselves, and who had nothing but the best coaching staff dedicated to their every move their entire lives? Not necessarily! Sometimes yes, but mostly, No.

Who wins, then? Who gets to be a champion? Let’s look.

Imagine this: that the triangle below represents everyone in the world who likes to ice skate.



What does it take to make it into the top 5%? Lets start at the bottom of the triangle with everyone. First, you have to like to skate. Then, you’ll probably take some lessons. If you do well and still enjoy it you might start competing. If you like competing, you probably want to win. Lets be honest, even if you DON’T like competing (and you’d be surprised how many people don’t) you probably still like the idea of being a famous well loved awesome ice skater who goes to the Olympics.

Making it from the group of people who compete (the top 50% of people who skate) into the group who does well enough to start training, who have Olympic dreams, who have desire to be the best is right around where I come in.

Stepping into the top30%, joining the group of “contenders”, or people who we can seriously consider as contenders takes something special. Most of us can guess what those things are, but let’s list them so that we know that it is hard work and not magic that gets us there.

• A love of skating
• Understanding that it takes work to improve
• A desire to improve

Lets stop right there. If I love to skate. And I understand that it takes work to get better, and I have a desire to get better, then… You have to learn to love to work!

• A love of the work that will make you better
• Determination to keep working when it gets hard

Have you noticed that I haven’t yet said “A will to win?” That’s because it takes a LOT more than a desire to win to become a champion. If I had to put “Will or Desire to Win” on the triangle above, I would have to put it down at the bottom with “Takes Skating Lessons”!

• Surround yourself with people who want you to succeed
• Get a coach you trust and listen to them


This list will get you into a more elite group. The big question is… how do you get out of this group and into success? The first guess is that the people who rise to the top of this group are naturally gifted.

Let me assure you that is not the case. I have trained people with more natural talent than anyone would know what to do with. I have trained people who had to work a hundred times harder to land a jump that came in a week to a peer. Its true that you need to have an ability to skate, and enough intuition and natural athleticism to master the moves, but what makes a champion?

Lets look at another triangle for the answer:


Here is my golden rule. It takes any combination of two of the above to succeed. That means: Timing (being in the right place at the right time, or more accurately, putting yourself in the right place at the right time) and Persistence are as likely to succeed as Timing and Talent, or Talent and Persistence. Talent alone won’t get you there. Being in the right place at the right time won’t get you there alone.

The top five percent are people who have remembered that, and are smart enough to hang their hat on persistence, keeping talent and timing in mind.

Imagine that all the competitors in the top 30% (All of whom are good enough to qualify for Senior Nationals. They all have triples. They all have put in the time, they all have spent a lot of money and made a lot of sacrifices.) are in a tree, hanging on to branches.

Let’s imagine that to make it to the top 5%, to be a real champion, all you have to do is hang on to your branch when the tree gets shaken.

What shakes the tree?

• Injury
• Failure
• Depression
• Loss of belief in yourself

You have been skating all your life. You and your family have made sacrifices. The last three competitions you have placed in the bottom 5 in the field. You examine your choices and… give up? Or hang on to your branch? What can you do here? Give up and never make the top five, or…

• Talk to your coach
• Make a new strategy
• Go back to basics
• Learn to reinvent yourself
• Hang on

And crack the top 5%. In my experience, everyone in the top 30% is talented to some degree. Everyone has an almost equal chance of becoming a champion, belonging to the top 5. The difference between the groups?

The only difference is that the people in the top 5% didn’t let go of their branch. They have a cantankerous desire to improve that makes them hang on, back up, and find another maze.

Want to be in the top 5? Never let go of your branch.

Go Time: Article #2 Will O Meter

from the book "Champions in Training" by Kate Howe copyright 1992, 1999, 2008

Will-O-Meter

This is a favorite torture device of mine. I mean, this is a great training tool that I use. It all started with Lactate Threshold Endurance Training for Rock Climbing. Here’s how it works:

When you rock climb, you get this awful burning feeling in your forearms. They are the tiniest little muscles that are working harder than any other muscles in your body, as you try to remember to use your BIG muscles in your legs and butt and core, and save your forearms. But human nature is to hold on and pull, and so those little guys just die. They flame out. They are on fire. You can’t close your fist anymore after a while.

That burning feeling is lactic acid building up in the muscle and impeding its ability to function. There are two things your body can do here, they can learn to tolerate it, and they can learn to shunt that lactic acid away quickly. We train these things by climbing continuously until you can’t hold on anymore. We climb to failure.

So I had this AMAZING client named Eddie Babyans. When I first got him, he climbed pretty hard, V-4/5, and he was very muscular. Like any big strong guy, he liked to pull with his hands and let his feet dangle fantastically out in the air behind him. Very exciting to watch. Not the most efficient way to climb.

I put Eddie on the traverse wall and I had him climb sideways, using all the holds he wanted to, until he started getting tired. Then I had him keep climbing. Then, I had him keep climbing. He wasn’t allowed to touch the ground, rest, shake out, just continuous movement. Standing on his feet, with good technique, he stayed and stayed and stayed on the wall. Then, I had him tell me when he felt like he was going to fall, like he only had one more move in him.

And then we started counting moves. The first time we did this, he had about 9 more moves in him, and then he fell off. But did he climb to failure? Did he climb until his fingers couldn’t close, physically couldn’t grip on the wall anymore? Or did he step off? I put him right back on and we started counting again. He had another 9 moves in him.

In climbing, boulder problems are about 7-9 moves long. So if he had nine more moves in him, he certainly could have enough for ONE more move, if he were at the crux of a problem.

Another client I had had 26 more moves in him, about the length of a sport route, or three more bouldering problems.

Lactate Threshold training is brutal. It is hard to be honest with yourself, to dig deep and give everything you have. To go totally to failure. Some people do it better than others. By our second training session, Eddie could climb all the way to failure on his own. He’d tell me, “Start Counting” and he’d only have one or two more moves in him. He had truly tapped his deepest reserve. Yet he’d hop back on and make sure. One or two more moves and fall off again. Yes, Eddie had dug as deep as there was to go.

Eddie was special, a shining example of what we wish all of our coaching clients could be, and because of this extraordinary ability to listen to his coaches and apply what they said, he climbed very hard, very quickly. He was climbing v10/12 and beat climbing sensation Chris Linder at one of our American Bouldering Series competitions.

What is it about Eddie? Why could he instinctively have access to all his reserve energy? Why could he work so hard, while others had to work hard just to get halfway there?

I have a theory about this, one I tested on Eddie and all my clients with interesting results. This is the theory of the Will-O-Meter.

Everyone has one. Imagine that your ability to dig deep, to try as hard as you can, is like climbing up a ladder. When you feel like you have reached the top of the ladder, you have nothing left to give. Now imagine that the top of the ladder is just a saran-wrap ceiling. Push through it and on the other side you will find more of YOU!


Challenge yourself to check your Will O Meter every time you think you’ve given all you can. You’ll be surprised at how much more is in you!

A great example of this is a story I love to tell about my mom. In her sixties, she decided that she wanted to come and see what it was that I did all day. She came to the climbing gym, and we put her in a harness. She got up on the wall, went about ten feet off the deck on the teaching terrain (which is slabby enough that you could actually walk up it without even using your hands) and froze.

“Okay, I understand, I think I’m ready to come down.” She called.

Unfortunately for my mom, this is what almost every adult who has never climbed before says when they get off the ground, so I have a bag full of tricks that I use to get them calm and keep them going. And yes, I was going to use all of them on my mom.

“Okay, mom, just rest there.”

“I don’t want to rest, Katheryne, I want to come down. NOW.”

Crap, she used my whole name. Tough, she still isn’t coming down. In my heart, I know she can reach the top. I start pulling out the tricks.

“I want to take your picture, wave to the camera.” She takes her death grip off the rope (did she really think she was holding herself up there with her hands?) and waves. I have her say hi to her husband on the other side, with the other hand. I point out that she is no longer holding on, and she hasn’t fallen to her death yet.

She argues back that she wants down. NOW.

I tell her she can come down when she touches the blue hold above her head. She doesn’t have to go to the top, she just has to stand on her feet, make one more move, and then zip, down she’ll come.

She scowls at me, looks up at the blue climbing hold just out of her reach, and decides to get this nonsense over. She stands on her feet, she reaches for the hold (and in doing so, goes through her saran wrap ceiling), and then decides (as I guessed she might) to just keep going. I expected another ceiling along the way, but surprisingly, she climbs very calmly to the top and then RINGS THE HECK out of the cowbell up there.

I lower her to the ground, and when her feet hit the deck, she starts crying. I think, oh, dear, I’ve broken mom. But there is a big goofy grin on her face. She’s proud of herself. This experience affected her so profoundly, that she, a woman who has never been able to swim, decided to sign up for classes at the YMCA, got red cross certified, then got SCUBA certified, then went diving with turtles in the Cayman Islands. Because all her ceilings are made of saran wrap now.

What will YOU accomplish if YOU push through?

Go Time: Challenges!

GO TIME!
Performance in Pressure Situations
With Kate Howe

Challenge Sheet

Challenge #1: Learn what style of performer you are

USE: Clinic settings, friends and trainers to force performance situations
ANALYZE: Am I an Amper, a sleeper? A nervous nelly? A cocky bastard? Something in between?
WRITE: What your tendency is, and if it differs in different situations.


Challenge #2: Learn how people affect your performance and use them in a way that enhances it!

USE: A whole crowd of people! Friends, clinicians, the general public.
ANALYZE: How do people affect me… the day before, the night before, the morning of, an hour before, right before.
WRITE: what you wish you had from people in certain situations.


Challenge #3: Recover into Victory!

USE: Any run you bobble, any crash, alone or in clinic situations.
ANALYZE: How you feel when you mess up, what helps you get back on track.
WRITE: Words you used, what worked, what didn’t.