November 9th, 2009
Well we’ve had the week off and are now gearing up to be back on snow, but what a week we’ve had!!! Colorado has been about 65 degrees and sunny! Is it really November??? I had a great week off, despite free riding a couple of days. Because we’ve been riding gates so much, and there isn’t a lot of room to free ride at Copper lately, I went up to A-Basin for a little “extra-credit” to work on my technique! So some much needed runs as I am trying to get fully dialed in with my technique as the race season is about to get underway.
Being back at home in Steamboat for the last few days has been awesome! Justin and I stained our deck, did some laundry, and paid bills! It seems like that’s all I do when I go home in the winter… Unpack, laundry, repack, pay bills… But needless to say, it is great to sleep in my own bed, cook a meal in my own kitchen, and spend some time with Justin. Thankfully I’m all caught up and well rested, gearing up for a busy week!
We have our first Nor-Am (North American) races this week in Copper on Thursday and Friday. By the sounds of it, there are quite a few teams who made the trek out here, so it looks like the field will be stacked with North Americans, Asians, and Europeans. It should be a great race. AST has had some great training days on the race hill and we are all feeling well prepared! So with a little luck and all of our skills, we should come out with a few podiums! 
In the meantime, we have a couple more days of training and I’ve got my Sports Psychology book to read, In Pursuit of Excellence by Terry Orlick! Gotta make my head fast too!
Posted in Erica Mueller | No Comments »
November 9th, 2009
After taking off a few days off last week to recover from my hand injury, Rob and I decided it would be a good idea if i rode a bit this week. With the team off for the week, and Rob and Ian home, I had to organize some training on my own. I spoke with Steamboat Springs coach Thedo Remelink and ended up joining them in A-Basin for three days. I free rode working on body position and pressure on Tuesday and then joined the Steamboat team in the gates on Wednesday and Thursday. The snow was great and I really appreciate the Steamboat Team for letting me ride with them. Im looking forward to a few days off now before Rob and Ian return and we begin training again next week. I’ve got a few projects before then so it will be nice to have the time off to get everything done. Zac and I put some of our race boards from last year up on Bomber Online for sale, so if any of you are looking for boards that AST members have ridden in the past they are available online.
Posted in Josh Wylie | 1 Comment »
November 9th, 2009
We are approaching the end of our on-snow, pre-season training. We trained 29 on-snow, pre-season days since August 24th. We only missed one on-snow training day due to bad weather! There was one athletic injury (Josh Wylie’s dislocated finger) with a loss of only 2 ½ training days. All things considered… that’s pretty good!
We have 5 on-snow, pre-season training days left for a total of 34… assuming no more bad weather days! We will complete our on-snow, pre-season training at Crested Butte, Colorado from November 16th to 20th.
My main goal for our on-snow, pre-season training was to increase training volume & intensity significantly in conjunction with an expectation of a very high “race-run” completion rate & a very low “momentum robbing” mistake rate.
I believe that we are close to meeting that goal… the final 5 days of on-snow training at Crested Butte will be the real test! I will update you after November 20th.
I want to thank the athletes for all of their hard work. You can rest assured that the training volume, but not necessarily the intensity, will decrease after the Crested Butte Camp.
And a special word of thanks to Ian Price for all of his hard work and collaboration. Awesome!
We are on the road to Vancouver!
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October 29th, 2009
Im back, my coaches and teammates are calling me a medical miracle. With no broken bones and only some small tearing in the tendons of my pinky Im now back on snow training. I free rode yesterday and Im planing on training in the gates today. I still have stitches where my finger popped out in my palm, Im expecting to get them out on Tuesday. Everyday my range of motion gets better with the exercises my doctor gave me. When i wake up in the morning my hand is a bit stiff, but Im sure Ill have to deal with that for a while. After several days of snowy weather the sun has returned. We’re training today at eleven, kinda nice to sleep in a bit. Im looking forward to returning to the gates today although I is still a small fear of smashing my hand again. ill let you all know how it goes.
Posted in Josh Wylie | No Comments »
October 28th, 2009
Tons of snow on tap for today in the Rockies. Hopefully I’ll be able to scoot away for a free ride sometime this weekend. Would love to get in a few turns like this!
CK
Posted in Chris Klug | 1 Comment »
October 28th, 2009
Well Rob is back to his usual of running our energy stores dry, just like training in Mt. Hood. The only kicker here in Colorado, is that we’re at 12,000 feet from sea level as opposed to the 7,000 foot elevation in Hood. But for me, it is great to be in Colorado, close to home. You would think I would be used to the elevation, but I just spent 10 days in Holland (aka SEA LEVEL), then 4 days in New York City (aka SEA LEVEL), then 2 days in Florida (aka SEA LEVEL) visiting Justin’s mom.
While in New York, I had a couple of interviews which was cool. One was with the fitness editor of SELF magazine and the other with Fitness magazine. It was pretty neat to be able to talk about snowboarding, sharing my passion, discussing my workouts, and seeing other women’s interest in what I do. My hope is that I can spread my passion for snowboarding further as I continue this journey to the Olympics. What a story it will be, once I get there! 
I had a blast cruising around New York and pretending that I’m a city girl! Haha A country bumpkin from Vermont and Colorado… It doesn’t get much farther from being a city girl! Oh well I had fun! On a total side note, I went wedding dress shopping with my Mom and friend, Sarah. We found a dress and it was such a blast! (For those who didn’t know, Justin proposed to me in August… What an exciting year I have ahead of me!)
Anyway, back to Copper… It just started snowing and by the sounds of it, it’s not supposed to stop for a couple of days. We’ve got FEET in the forecast! So we’ll see how training goes tomorrow, as we definitely prefer a nicely groomed hard surface. Can’t complain about snow though, we need it! So think snow!
Posted in Erica Mueller | 2 Comments »
October 23rd, 2009
Just a quick update on AST. We arrived in Copper Mountain, Colorado on Sunday and resumed our on-snow training on Monday. Tomorrow will be our fifth day on snow and the conditions are only getting better. There’s hardly anybody here right as they just opened for training and most teams haven’t arrived yet. So, needless to say we’ve been ramping up the volume while we have the place pretty much to ourselves.
On a side not, Josh had a little accident today. He dislocated his pinky on the base of a stubbie gate and it broke through the skin on his palm! I thought for sure he had compound fractured it…I mean it was poking out of his hand! But, miraculously, he not only didn’t break it but he also didn’t tear any ligaments. He went to the Steadman-Hawkins clinic in Vail to get cleaned up by our friend and one of the best orthopedic surgeons around, Tom Hackett. If all goes well, Hackett thinks Josh should be back on snow by Tuesday.
That’s it for now,
Zac
Posted in Zac Kay | No Comments »
October 13th, 2009
Just a quick update on AST. We arrived in Copper Mountain, Colorado on Sunday and resumed our on-snow training on Monday. Tomorrow will be our fifth day on snow and the conditions are only getting better. There’s hardly anybody here right as they just opened for training and most teams haven’t arrived yet. So, needless to say we’ve been ramping up the volume while we have the place pretty much to ourselves.
On a side not, Josh had a little accident today. He dislocated his pinky on the base of a stubbie gate and it broke through the skin on his palm! I thought for sure he had compound fractured it…I mean it was poking out of his hand! But, miraculously, he not only didn’t break it but he also didn’t tear any ligaments. He went to the Steadman-Hawkins clinic in Vail to get cleaned up by our friend and one of the best orthopedic surgeons around, Tom Hackett. If all goes well, Hackett thinks Josh should be back on snow by Tuesday.
That’s it for now,
Zac
Posted in Zac Kay | 1 Comment »
October 12th, 2009
So, I’m sitting in my hotel room near the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam thinking about weather or not I’m going to be able to sleep tonight. I’m excited to fly home tomorrow and get a few days rest before I drive to Colorado for AST’s next camp but I also just woke up! Whoops…it’s 10 o’clock at night and I’ve been sleeping since 4 in the afternoon. This is not boding well for me. I saw the rest of the team off at the airport this morning and headed back to the hotel to catch up on some reading and do some emails. I thought I’d shut my eyes for a minute and next thing I know I’m scrambling to order dinner from room service before they shut down for the night! Haha, such is the life of constant jet-lag.
Anyway, I’ve also been reflecting on Friday’s race. It was the first World Cup of the season and I would say it was a success for AST, as well as the American’s as a whole. Unfortunately, there were no podiums but we did manage to get 5 American’s in the top 16 with Josh in 17th by only 6 hundredths of a second!!! I qualified in the 13th position with two solid runs but was knocked back to 14th overall after losing to Benjamin Karl (the eventual winner) of Austria in the first round. Fellow American, Vic Wild who qualified 16th ended up knocking Rok Flander (1st place qualifier) of Slovenia out of the first round to end his day in 8th!
Klug and Erica didn’t quite have the day they were hoping for. Both had very minor mistakes in their first run of the qualifiers, usually not a big deal but with this flat indoor hill the times and competition are extremely tight. Erica did get a second run and I must say she killed it! She was 6th overall for the second run but it just wasn’t quite enough to recover from her first run and she ended up 25th overall.
Snowboard racing is not a team sport in the traditional sense. On the surface it appears to be just an individual sport, one athlete racing for the podium. On AST this is most definitely not the case! Even though we are competing for individual results, we are linked to each person’s performance through the hard work and training we’ve done together. Each member shares in the good and the bad. I feel the pain of my teammates struggle with not performing how they expected and I also feel the elation when they do! This sharing of the good times and the bad helps each athlete on AST grow and become better as group. When one person doesn’t do well and has a short day they quickly put it behind them and step up to help the person who’s still competing, adding to the already incredible support we get from Rob and Ian. Both of whom, were amazing at this first race. Ian spent a solid 19 out of 24 hours in the tuning making sure our boards were as fast and sharp as they could be. Rob worked tirelessly to make sure we had the best training and accommodations we could get before the race.
I would also like to thank Annie (Ian’s girlfriend) and Tosh (Rob’s son) who went above and beyond to help out with the team while they were there!
Thanks guys.
Posted in Zac Kay | 1 Comment »
October 7th, 2009
Today was our first official day back on “tour.” Although, I’ve been in Holland for a few days now the boys just arrived yesterday as well as the rest of the teams. It’s great to see everyone, but also interesting to get back on snow during “all train” (when all teams train on the race slope together). It’s hectic, everyone has some nerves, but overall it’s a great feel. Except for the fact that we aren’t looking over some beautiful mountain landscape from the top of the mountain. We’re indoors, looking at a ceiling, a flat slope, and windows into the bar at the bottom! So funny!!! For those who have never experienced indoor riding… It’s a trip! I’ll try to take a photo and post it for everyone to see. But regardless, it’s doing the trick! We’ve got great snow, there’s no possibility for bad weather, and we’re back riding as a team again.
I have been here free-riding for a couple of days, which was going super well. I was feeling very strong and confident on my board. Today in gates was a little more tricky to get the timing down, but by the end I found the rhythm. So tomorrow just a short day (maybe 3 runs) to get some good feelings, a little recovery training, and I’ll be ready to rock on Friday! (Race Day, just in case you didn’t know:))
We also got our new speed suits.. VERY exciting!! They were sent to Josh’s house, so he brought them over and they look AWESOME! Thank you to BCF for the great design (and hard work that went into the logistics). And thank you to Vist for manufacturing them. They look sharp and fast!
Posted in Erica Mueller | 5 Comments »
