We had our first comp for the season this past Saturday, and it was great to get out of the start gate!

Conditions were pretty tough for Soelden which says a lot, cause its normally pretty tough already!  It was snowing and raining a bit a couple days before the race, so the conditions were less than great, but they broke through a tiny bit.

Skiing was ok for me.  It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but it’s good to get back up to speed, and I felt really comfortable, just not super fast.

I’m looking forward to some relaxing and recharging in Maui!  I will be back on snow the 14th in Colorado!  and then we race in Aspen! yay.

I love races on home turf!

So the season is underway. We had our first World Cup GS race in Soelden, Austria last week and the season is off to a start. As far as my skiing went, it was ok. I got out of the start strong and had a good top section but then I got a bit lost half way down and started skiing way to round and over thinking it so I had no speed coming onto the flats. I have to be happy with it though because I had not started in a GS race in two years. Since the Lienz world cup that ended GS skiing pretty fast. So I am happy with finishing and getting that out of my head but I am ready for the next one. Too bad its not till Aspen. But I have some work to do. I need to start training more like I race. Strip down to the downhill suit and get after it on my first two training runs. Maybe work on my inspections a bit more. I always enjoy having the first race down, that way you know how you stand. It can be a bit nerve racking though when you are not on your top form. But just another little thing in the back of your mind to get you down the hill. All in all, the training and racing in Switzerland and Austria went great.

I am home in Jackson now enjoying some serious weather. It’s freezing cold one minute and dumping with snow the next to beautiful blue sky. I am only home for a few days but it might be my last for the year so I am happy to just lay around eating and hanging out with family and friends. As we speak I am having a food baby on the couch. My father cooked up a great meal and now I can’t move. It’s nice to get away from all the hype for a few days and just relax. Let the body detox and release and let your mind do something other than sleep ski eat train ski sleep eat. We are headed to Germany for some indoor skiing and then up to Finland for the Slalom race on my Birthday! Oh man I’m getting old. I better get on it! he he Enjoy the new snow wherever you are!!!!!!!!

One of the drawbacks of being back on the U.S. Ski Team is the mandatory participation in the U.S. Anti-Doping pool. I understand why we have to be subjected to the humiliating and irritating practice of drug testing; I just don’t like it. This process includes a “whereabouts filing” and random “out-of-competition” drug testing. Every athlete needs to fill out a form that says where they are going to be, morning and night, every day for three months at a time. On top of that, we have to pick an hour, every day, where we say we will be, so that a USADA man can show up whenever he feels like it, to perform a drug test. If they show up at your door within that hour and you aren’t there, then you get a strike against you. Three strikes equal a positive drug test and a two-year suspension from the sport.

Last week, I finally got a visit from the USADA man. I can’t remember what his name is so I’ll just call him Jeff. The doorbell rang at 7:15 in the morning and I was still sleeping. The hour that I pick for a random visit is from 6:00-7:00AM so I know I’ll be there…sleeping. My girlfriend, Suzanne, was the first one to the door. She just went through a recent surgery, so she was loopy on pain meds and she had a catheter strapped to her leg. We had spent so much time discussing USADA and the possibility of a “filing failure” that she couldn’t contain her excitement that the USADA man showed up and I was actually there. I heard from a distance in her excited, yet scratchy tone “Oh my god, he’s here. The USADA man is here. I can’t believe it. Go pee in the cup!” she said as she climbed back into bed.

In my stupor, I got up to greet Jeff. Lance Armstrong just recently moved into the neighborhood so I wanted to say, “You’re at the wrong house. Lance is about 10 blocks that way.” But I held my tongue and introduced Jeff to the bathroom. I’ve been tested many times in my career so I wasn’t surprised by any of the procedures. Jeff was very professional and business like. I made sure all the numbers on the bottles matched up. I was grateful that we were doing this in the morning because I had a full bladder. If I would have relieved myself before he got there it could have been hours before I could work up another sample.

Then, it was time to pee. Jeff said, “Lift up your shirt to above your belly button, and pull your pants down so that I can see the urine come out of your penis.” Again, this was no surprise. This is always the procedure. But this time, I locked up. I got the dreaded stage fright. I held the cup out ready to receive my sample. I was holding my pants down and my shirt up. Jeff was silent…watching; and there was no pee. I called on my years of using sports psych to help me. I tried to relax, get in the zone, breathe; no pee. The more I tried to relax the more I tightened up. Then Jeff spoke. “Do you want me to run some water?” As if he had seen this a thousand times before. “Yes, please.” I knew I could do it. “Just relax,” I said to myself. Then, I figured it out. I pretended I was the only one there and I pulled the cup to the side to look at the water like I do every morning. I relaxed, and the urine flowed like the waters of the Colorado River. I was relieved.

We wrapped things up and I sent Jeff away with my pee sample. It was on the start of its journey through rigorous testing procedures to confirm that, yes, I am, and always have been, a clean, drug-free athlete. Jeff, and many like him are part of an army of scientists on a mission to ensure clean and fair competition. I may not like the 7:00am visits or the whereabouts filings, but I know, for the moment, it has to be done.

So we had a great last prep period here in Saas Fee, Switzerland. There is not a lot of snow here in Europe right now but it’s coming! We are getting ready to race in Soelden, Austria for our first World Cup. It’s so exciting but a little nerve racking. I have not raced GS since December of 2007 when I crashed in Lienz so I’m a bit nervous. But this year I had a great prep period with lots of skiing in New Zealand, Chile and here in Saas. I feel good; it’s always hard to tell how you are doing til you race. But sometimes it’s hard to just let go of the training and just go and race. You have to be confident and trust yourself. Trust that you have trained hard and that you know what to do. Then after the race, you can reassess and make some changes. We have so many GS skis to try also so that is hard. After Soelden we don’t race GS for another month so that gives us more time too. I have had a bit of a head cold so I have been trying to stay healthy, sleeping a lot, eating, drinking a ton of water and resting. Gotta stay on it for the race. I am taking a few more days off to rejuvenate and hopefully that gives me a bit more energy! Either way, I’m just going to put my poles over that wand and go for it! I can’t wait!

It’s been a while, but hopefully you’ve seen a bunch of my summer updates! I might as well do a grand recap, to get you all up to date rolling into our first World Cup.

To start off, I’m not gonna lie: Last year really sucked for me. It was tough to deal with an injury that never seemed serious enough to sideline me from my sport. So after a bunch of mediocre finishes and a lot of searching, the season finally finished with a kick in the butt to motivate me for this year.

I put all my energy this summer into getting healthy fast! It was not easy, but the work was well worth it. I spent most of my time in and out of the gym, chiropractor, Pilates, and getting body work. Speaking of which, have you heard of Yamuna Body Rolling?? Well, look it up, cause it works wonders.

While it was strenuous work, I had fun doing all of that.

I stayed at home in Maui for 2 whole months straight, unbelievable for a schedule like mine! I only left once for a photo shoot for Nike which was well worth it. You can see my posing all over the web and at tons of sports stores in the U.S. It’s pretty awesome.

Besides the training, I got to surf a bunch too, as well as start up some new hobbies like slack line and rock climbing.

On the snow side of things, I have been training hard there too. I think I have already skied more than ever now going into the first race and I still have some days to go before the season really kicks off in Soelden. I skied with the team in New Zealand and stayed some extra days to ski a little bit more. In Chile after Portillo with the speed team, I stayed a few more days there to ski with the tech guys. The extra skiing just felt right!

It’s been a lot of fun, and I am skiing really strong. Times are good, but I think it’s really going to show up in the races. I am very excited to race, and be back to my normal healthy self.

Just sitting here in my hotel room in Switzerland it’s easy for me to reflect on the tough times, and see how it not only effects your results, but it chips away at everything: self confidence, self awareness, ability to focus, everything. For me when I jumped back on skis after spending months away from the snow, the fact that I was healthy again, made it so much easier. I can’t even remember a time that it’s ever been this easy. I feel great!

The race is next weekend, so bring it on!

Aloha,

Jules

I have been enjoying such a fun time traveling. From Chile to Germany and France, I am just all over the place and loving it. We had a great camp in Chile, very difficult but much needed. I was in desperate need of some serious boot camp training, being off the snow for so long and not having long courses in my bag of tricks so it was great. Then a quick trip home where I enjoyed some good dinners with friends and family and got the house ready for winter and spent a few days with my pops hiking and just laughing away…….. Now I am on a crazy adventure with Kevin. I started in Sylt, Germany which is this Island north of Hamburg where he has Windsurfing finals. It is always so cold but a fun place, kinda like the Hamptons of Germany. We had one day in Hamburg and explored it up and down. Very clean and hip. The architecture is super cool some very modern mixed in with old WWII area buildings and gorgeous water fronts and canals. It was not what I expected and loved it. We are now in Marseille France staying with Kevin’s windsurfing buddy, Cedrics, very lovely family in such a cute French villa and cooking up big dinners with 8 people at a time sitting around laughing away and yes complete with the stinky cheese that they dig out at the end….. I am going to gain loads of weight before our first race… he he bring on the ski race! I have been so into cooking and especially with a spicy flare so I cooked everyone curry tonight and they are all crying or downing rice and cashews to chill off the effect!

I am so in love with this European peacefulness. For me total chaos is always peaceful. We have a big house full of French, Argentinean, English and American craziness laughter, love, happiness and a sweet little dog named Nala. I love the the family feeling, running around in my moccasins and getting this feeling so far from home is very pleasant. It is a perfect break before we head to Saas Fee Switzerland for our last prep camp. Its so exciting that we are going to be racing in less than two weeks. Crazy, I am so happy for this. Gotta keep the head on straight though and keep plugging away and being safe. We have a good little power block before we head to Soelden and rock the world right!!!!!

Till then I’ll be diving head first into the ocean to cleanse the body before skiing is full on!

We have come to the end of what seems like the shortest summer in history. The snow is flying in Colorado and it looks like Loveland is threatening to open tomorrow. That means it’s time for weekly updates from yours truly from now until the end of April. I will be taking you behind the scenes to give you my perspective on the world of Ski Cross in its debut Olympic year. I will discuss everything from who’s playing dirty on the slopes to who’s playing around off the slopes. I’ll discuss triumphs and defeats; cooperation and controversy; who’s hot, who’s not; and everything in between.

My summer was filled with strength and conditioning. Most of the time, I was either on my road bike eating up miles or in the weight room pumping iron. I also did a lot of field workouts and some gymnastics. It’s so important to be quick out of the gate in Ski Cross so I have been focusing on upper body strength and quickness.

When I wasn’t training or working out I did a little mental cross training in the form of golf and bowling. If these two games aren’t good for mental training I don’t know what is. Right now I’m trying to get my last few games of golf in before the snow starts sticking to the ground. It’s been cold here in Colorado lately so that reality seems to be right around the corner.

My two daughters, Riley and Annalisa, are now 6 and 4. It is unbelievable how quickly they grow up. Riley is in the 1st grade now and she is enrolled in gymnastics and hip-hop dance. Annalisa hasn’t taken to the dancing just yet but she absolutely loves doing gymnastics. When I pick them up from school we rock out to Hannah Montana on the way home. As grown up as I think they are and as manly as I think I am, we’re still not above playing with dollies, Barbie dolls, Hannah Montana dolls, Polly Pockets … we do it all!

It has been a summer packed with media opportunities. I spent two days in L.A. and two days in Chicago doing nothing but NBC interviews and media. NBC Nightly News is doing a profile on Daron Rahlves and me. I don’t know when it will air but when I find out I will let you know. And last but certainly not least, I have been busy for the last two years doing a documentary film that documents my path from Alpine racer to Ski Cross racer and father and of course the path to my 5th Olympics. The film is almost finished and Anna Christopher and Seth Caplan, the director and the producer, might just be doing a screening of it around the Beaver Creek “Birds of Prey” weekend. These guys are pumped about making a good film and I can’t wait to see it!

So make sure you tune in to my blog. You never know what kind of tidbits of information or just pure entertainment you might get. It’s going to be a great year and I want you all to be there with me every step of the way.

We have had an awesome camp so far. The main focus was to get lots of runs under our belt. Test out your endurance and just ski. No matter how hard you work all summer strengthening, there is nothing like skiing.

So, now that we have our ski legs, I’m ready to go home. he he I have had fun on this boat but I’m ready for something new. I am holding it together better than I have in the past. It helps to have great teammates and great internet service. But after two weeks in the same place, the food and everything gets old.

What saved me for these last few days here was an amazing afternoon shred session with Sarah. We went out to take pictures and breathe in the love of our lives and just smile. We love to ski; there is nothing else like it and we are so lucky to be able to do it for fun! Some good pool sessions and very nice cooks have also helped me out. I dug up the last remaining GF tortillas I have and had them make me a quesadilla which hit the spot! I’m super happy with how this camp went — even if it was tough and didn’t always feel great, it always feels good to work hard!

PS- For a good laugh…
All week I guess there have been some cute Brazilian boys on a little boys trip. Every day at around 3 p.m., they come down from the mountain and jump into the pool and rock their speedos. I have not noticed them until today (apparently a man in a speedo does nothing for me). I guess they have been mesmerized by all the U.S. women running around. So, now since it must be getting close to their departure day, they are getting a little more aggressive. So I am sitting here watching a preschool flirt-fest going on. They started at about tea time and have been strategizing how to pick American girls up … what they came up with was a question on paper plane that came soaring into our laps. It read “Want make a brazilian party tonight?” We sent a baseball paper plane back saying “only if it’s in a speedo!” ha ha and right then and there they pulled their pants down and showed us, yes their speedos that they wear all day all night. Pretty funny. I get such a kick out of watching these crazy kids! Hilarious, that was pretty much the end of it but who knows, maybe Hailey will make a video of them in their speedos in the pool tomorrow.

I am in Portillo, Chile right now. Training has been awesome. We have had really great weather so far and have had great speed training. We just wrapped up five days of DH and have speed in the form of super-G coming our way.

I am getting back up to speed in a steady progression. I started off sectioning the course and wearing some clothes to slow things down so I could really work on my movement and my technical skills. I worked into full length after a few days and slowly upped my intensity and my speed. It was the first time I was back on the DH boards and I was having a great time!

By our last day of DH I was charging pretty hard and getting more comfortable with my turns and my jumps. My knee is feeling really solid and other than some minor things — a bit of swelling here and there, it is holding up great. I could use that last 5 percent of strength when I was making high speed turns through some chop on the “Rocca Jack” pitch, but it will come. Overall it was really a great block for me and most importantly, it was a lot of fun as well.

We had a film crew down here that is making a documentary that will air a week before the Olympics. They were not just your random documentary crew, but really top notch heavy hitters in the industry that should really put together a cool program. They followed us from 6 a.m. blood work, to breakfast, putting on the boots, warming up, getting on the hill, training, recovery, workouts, video sessions, team meetings … if we did something, they were there.

The should have some awesome helicopter shots of DH training as well. Looking forward to seeing that!

Not too soon to start thinking winter!

Scott

Welcome to the wild world of crazy Resi! I have been training hard from a major comeback, almost two years in the making. It’s been a long road, but a good one. One, if fact, I wouldn’t trade for the world. But I’m back and ready for some action!

We started the prep period off in New Zealand with a strong camp, great snow, lots of drills and some new style. It was great to be back with the team and training hard. I’m a big fan of training hard. I love the feeling of sculpting your mind and body and having a goal and doing everything you can to achieve it. It’s pretty cool to focus on something and have it be your life, dream, job and passion all in one. This year is the Olympic year and that has always been a big one on the list. I hope to not just go but to do well. I have a lot of work to do before that though.

We are in Valle Navado, Chile right now where we are practicing our slalom and GS skills. I even got a few runs on my super-G skis which was pretty exciting. It’s my first time coming to Valle Navado and I like it. Big ski area with lots of snow. Great hotel with a nice pool and amazing food for Chile. The key here is to not get sick. We have already lost a few girls to the stomach virus that we like to call the “Chilalean.” I am rooming with Jessica Kelley who is also back from an injury and we have been playing it safe in our room watching movies and writing and painting in our journals. It’s super high elevation here — we sleep at 10,000 ft and train at 13,000, so we need all the energy we can get. Hydrating constantly, lots of sleep and eating healthy. Luckily they have good fish and are very helpful with cooking up some of my gluten-free food I brought. It can sometimes get a bit claustrophobic up here in the mountains so its important to have things to entertain you and stay focused. I have struggled with this in the past so this year I am really trying hard to just calm down when I feel like I can’t go anywhere and explore. My teammate Sarah says to focus on exploring your inner being instead of outside. You can’t go to far around here or you might fall off the earth. It feels like we are just resting on stilts!

So far, training has been going well. Snow is a bit soft but that is OK. Feels good on the body and we can focus more on drills and tuning our skills. So far, so good! I’m so happy to be back and skiing and feeling good. I’m staying in the “Now” and not thinking ahead, but it is getting close to ski season. Only a month away before we race. Crazy, time flies by. I can’t wait! This is going to be a good year! For all the hard work there are always fun times with this crowd. I am a big believer in living every moment to the fullest and exploring the world! It’s about happiness and always having a smile on my face. Whatever that takes, I’m up for it!