The Sun Valley Comp Team just wrapped up its first training camp of the season, an on-snow camp, over at Anthony Lakes Ski Area in Eastern Oregon.  It was an ideal camp location set in the rolling foothills of the blue mountains.  We were able to rent a house 20 minutes from the skiing which sat up at 7,500 ft on the Anthony Lakes Touring Center Trails.  For one week we had no distractions, it was a life of training, eating, resting and Bananagrams.  Our focus for the week was classic technique work, base fitness, and building as a team.  After an especially wet last few weeks, the snow was going fast, but we managed a few solid days of classic skiing before hitting to the roads and trails on rollerskis and mountain bikes.  Click the link for a short video from our week of training: camp video

Lions Club member Andrew Pfeiffer striding it out on jean shorts day.

Maggie Williams, focused

the gang, getting ready for a Distance CL Roll Hillclimb up to Anthony Lakes

What we do to ski on snow…

Rick 1 - Spiller 0, one of many wrestling matches

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another

with no loss of enthusiasm.

-Winston Churchill

Skiing in Norway

Training in Lillehammer. From left - Me, Scott Lacy, Kristin Halverson, Elizabeth Guiney, Tyler Korfield.

Hilary Rich, Jake Barton, and myself putting some American muscle into our European Vehicle.

Hey Everybody,

It is Max Durtschi.  I am alive.  Busy, but alive.  It has been a while since I have posted so I am going to recap the season a little.

I have been training with the Sun Valley ODT team.  The guys are awesome!!  I started out the race season by heading to West Yellowstone for a training camp and the Super Tours.   From there, we headed north to Silver Star, BC.  It was great skiing and awesome racing.  I really enjoyed the venue!!  From there I was sent home to go to school and actually live like a 17 year old for a little bit.  Our next travels took us to Anchorage, AK.

My goal all season was to make the US junior World team.  In Anchorage I had a good race, but I came up just short.  I felt strong in the skate race, but I think that I can say it was not my best (or worst) race of the season.  I ended up 7th Junior on the day, Second alternate.   Close, but no plane ticket to France.  I did, however, qualify for the J1 Scando Cup Trip.

Led by Justin Beckwith, Dan Weiland, and Brenna Knowles, our group of 12 girls and boys headed to Norway for two weeks.  It was a truly amazing experience!!  I really enjoyed getting to know everyone on the team and I look forward to seeing them in the future.  I ended up not racing very well in Norway which was dissapointing, but I will just have to go across the pond next year and race faster.

Here is a link to a bunch of sweet photos and updates and photos from that trip:  http://usaj12009.blogspot.com/

Thanks to all of the coaches for a great trip!!!!

I am now rebuilding and getting ready for Junior Nationals.  It took some time, but I am feeling now like I have good energy levels.  Typically, I go into every Junior Nationals tired and burnt out.  This year, however, I feel much better.  Last week Chris Mallory and I sat down and wrote up a plan to deliver me to truckee sharp and rested.  I can’t wait!!  Here are some more links to info about my year!!  They are from Nicole Deyong and Kate Whitcomb’s blogs.

 http://in-the-arena-kate.blogspot.com/

 http://in-the-arena-nicole.blogspot.com/

World Juniors wrapped up today in Praz de Lys France.  The Norweigian girls and Russian boys continued their dominance.  The US girls skied really well and took 7th place.  The guys fought hard as well and took 12th.  For me, the highlight of the day was watching Jesse Diggins fend off a hard charging Italian womens team in the the anchor leg.  No one left anything in the tank today.  Our girls were one spot from a medal (relay medals going to the top six).  While we came up just short of taking home a medal, there were some great performances this week.  Watching Liz and Morgan duke it out with Norwegian Marte Elden for the U23 Pursuit bronze was something.  Those were some inspiring and gutsy races.  The US team has this tradition of marking down top 30 performances on a ski team “All In” banner that lives in the waxroom.  By weeks end, there was not much white left on the banner.  Here’s some photos from the week courtesy on Eileen Carey:

Liz and Mo (4th, 5th)  U23 Pursuit

We ate A LOT of bread and cheese this week

We lucked out with many bluebird days

Early morning testing

The US U23 team and coaching staff arrived in Praz de Lys, France on the 20th gearing up for U23/Junior World Championships, which will commence on the 29th with the U23 10/15K skate.  Praz de Lys sits in the southern French mountains at about 4,000’, and is 1:30 drive southwest of Geneva and hour northeast of Chamonix.  The past couple of days have included some easy distance skiing, interval workouts, acclimatizing, and an afternoon or two of some sightseeing and culture.  Our second night here, some of the team made it down to the neighboring village of Les Gets to watch a downtown night team sprint.  The atmosphere was pretty festive with free raclette and hot mulled wine for the spectators.  Day three, the team made the hour drive over to Chamonix to ride the 8000’ tram giving some amazing views of Mont Blanc and the French alpine country.  In anticipation of spending the next two weeks in a waxing cubicle it was nice getting out on some long skis early on.  Wax and structure testing will ramp up these next two days as will athlete ski testing.
Our first two days here we saw perfect weather, sunny and in the high 20’s.  The trails were in perfect condition with immaculate grooming.  Skiing up the valley past chalets, school ski groups and alpine lifts, you got the impression some of these trails go on forever, visiting neighboring villages along the way.  The whole team was pretty psyched up to be here, with many “this is why I’m a ski racer moments.”  Yesterday a storm system moved in bringing a wintery mix of rain, sleet, snow, wind, all of it.  Looks like this next week we’ll see some more of both sun and snow.  There’s around a four-foot base out on the trails so this snow isn’t going anywhere even if we do get some rain.
I’ve never experienced a race venue and accommodations like this.  Our windows overlook the stadium and we’re a mere 30 meters from the wax trailers.  Its pretty ideal, no driving involved.
Representing Sun Valley and the USST over here are U23 athletes Morgan Arritola, Alexa Turzian, and junior athlete Noah Hoffman.  All three seem to be in good form and will be gunning for podium spots in the distance events.  I’ll report more once the racing gets underway on Thursday.