September 05, 2014 – Flu shot time – do it early and don’t wait. Also think about the pneumonia vaccine and don’t put off a shingles shot – hurts like a bitch if you contact this virus. Do it now so if you have a reaction you have time to recover from it. With all the travel you guys do and exposure you have to the sickos out there, you need to use all the tools available to win the battle!

Climb to the Castle – Lake Placid, New York on Sept 6th at 8am. The access road has undergone a major re-do of the whole road – both lanes being re-paved- it’s total re-build. This leads me to believe we should see new record times in both sexes efforts – barring really bad weather. I’d bet lots of money on Liz Stephen doing it – nobody has touched her at any of the climbing races this summer or the past two summers. Weather and health are the only chance that she doesn’t win and set a record.

Choosing the man is harder to do. This one is a real flip of the coin and will put my money on Andy Newell – I like what he has to say about his training this year.

I know I’m planning to be there to see the show.

Fischer Boots Running Fast – This has been one big year so far for Fischer, especially in NA, as they have scooped up a huge amount of the top National team talent on to their boots. This spring and glacier skiing the summer has provided a huge testing period for all of this to take place – Kikkan [Randall], Andy [Newell], Simi [Hamilton], Sophie [Caldwell], Sadie [Bjornsen] and Kris [Freeman] are the new speedsters on board – read more here.

WC Prize Money – How long has this been going on – the big upgrade to actually winning prize money on the WC circuit? Well, at least 10 years, is what I found out in talking around (it could be earlier, but not much). Which means there hasn’t been a cost-of-living or change in the amounts of money that are being handed out in that period of time (which is way too long). To get a better feeling, read here.

If the WC is as popular as FIS says – it’s yearly numbers report of TV viewership all over the world including all countries who do not watch the direct broadcast, but use the Internet – these numbers are huge.

Of course there has been a vast interest in building the schedule with races that create more excitement and therefore should bring more sponsors and money to the table.

This means to me that it is time for the FIS to step up and raise the prize money total by at least 25% and the number of recipients to 20 skiers in each race – more money for more racers – YES!

Pursuit Needs To Go – this race just does not make sense to me – two races, two different techniques, changing skis and poles during the race and huge area in stadium and manpower to accomplish this event. It’s also unfair to the smaller teams and I’d bet a case of beer that there isn’t another PURSUIT race on the FIS calendar all year long – so what is the meaning of all this – NONE. The fact that this race has no popularity tells you it needs to go the way of the doodoo bird.

I think a good race to put on the calendar in it’s place, and which would be instantly popular at all levels of racing, with the skiers and most importantly with the TV viewership would be a mixed relay – 2 women, 2 men. I’ve heard some rumblings about this in the mountain passes, which is not loud enough for FIS, so it will be a 3 year test period, followed by a two year evaluation and then they may bring it onto the schedule. Oh, and once it gets on the WC schedule it’ll be another 2 years before we see it at the WSC and Olympics. Well, that’s too bad for us, because this format will be really fun for the skiers and exciting for everyone.

CCC Moving Forward ? – With all the rumblings that took place this spring and early summer I’m wondering about the women’s program. The few chosen skiers seem to be assigned to the training centers in Quebec and Canmore but have no identifiable coach that I’m aware of. From what I’m hearing not much seems to have changed from the past – low training hours and effort. Are there any women in Canada doing 750 to 800 hours? Plenty of them are old enough to be training at this level and more.

The boys have coaches that are identified but it’s not clear who is directly responsible for the women’s program and deals with their day-to-day programs at both training sites – it’s not stated in all that I have read. Is it one of the academy coaches or Justin Wadsworth the National Team head coach?

The boys ended up with no skiing on snow during this summer training sessions. With funding numbers coming in late I hear and a drastic in reduction, the team had to give up the New Zealand camp, and didn’t get on to the Haig Glacier – either they missed the deadline or chose not to. It seems they’re the only National team of any merit that was not on snow this summer…and won’t be on snow until Frozen Thunder in late October.

I’m also wondering about their summer training camp programs being primarily in the USA – Sunshine in Canada, followed by a dryland camp in Bend (USA), then off to Stratton, VT (USA), next upcoming is Park City, Utah (USA), and the last camp is in late Oct. at Canmore for Frozen Thunder. Why not drum up some exposure for the big name guys in Canada for lots of potential media, sponsor and supplier exposure? All of the top provincial skiers could have been brought in to train with these guys to build some momentum coming into the season. Plus new Norwegian coach, Tor Arne Hetland, could have made more inroads here and perhaps done some presentations for provincial coaches on what the Norwegian theory is about training and racing.

I’m also wondering how Len Valjas is doing and how he get named to the men’s World Cup group as I don’t believe he made the criteria – or did he?

NorAm Travel Winner for the Summer – In the early summer it was a close competition between Kikkan [Randall] and Noah [Hoffman], but the “Hoff” has made a late charge here in the last few weeks with a New Zealand  trip followed by a return to Vermont on the way back for three days of testing (value) and some technique work, and then finally home to Utah. That should do the trick for this title.

Talk to you Soon.

PS – Don’t forget those flu shots!!!!