Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Another Great Day Spent in Vail!

Hello!

We began with two days of freeskiing on our Slalom skis, and have now spent two more on our Giant Slalom skis, and everyone has shown consistent improvement in each event over the past four days. Since we have been going pretty hard over the past three days, coaches decided that it would be a good idea to let our athletes sleep in a little bit later. Rather than starting our day with an early morning run, we decided to start out with our breakfast at 7:30 am before heading out to the Lionshead village for another morning of great skiing. As expected, crowds in the early morning were rather small allowing for us to take full advantage of the massive trail. Each athlete entered this mornings session with a specific focus designed to help them achieve the body positioning and line necessary for fundamentally sound GS skiing.

Taylor Mikell with some athletes, some sending/ taking pictures of a unique cloud formation. 
The mornings session was slightly different in that we had an extra set of eyes watching and critiquing our athletes as they enjoyed another wonderful morning in the ever-beautiful Vail, Colorado. Joining coaches Taylor Mikell and Andy Smith was none other than MMSC Director, Igor Vanovac. There is something about his presence that adds an extra motivator for our athletes to push themselves to be their very best on the mountain, and today it showed yet again. Athletes were achieving some exceptional angles moving at very high speeds that were seen during our video review session.

Dash and Connor posing with some binding-saving equipment!
After making our way back to the Manor Vail Lodge for a quick lunch, we headed up to the top of the Golden Peak race arena for some more guided freeskiing. Some of our athletes were even able to get a run through the GS course set for MMSC's U18 Men's Program! The afternoon session was a little short however due to the lift closing at 2 pm. Once we were back and had removed our boots and ski clothes, athletes met in one of the rooms to review our video from the day which revealed some great skiing, as well as some things for each athlete to work on in the following day.

Once we finished going over the video, athletes headed out to the hotel pool for an aquatic exercise routine derived from some experience in water polo that consisted of extensive treading, swimming some laps, and some core exercises.

Tomorrow we are planning to get into some actual training with brushes set to mark the desired apex of each turn as this is our next step in the progression designed for this particular camp. Depending on the skiing that is seen tomorrow, we may be ready to head into some sectioned gate training tomorrow afternoon.


Until next time!

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