As the christmas trees are slowly being taken down and many transition in to the new year that only means one thing, it's time to start racing. Many of us have now returned to NSA from our families and are excited to begin 2014. When I was home for the holidays I got some beneficial training in and had a spectacular time visiting family and friends while somewhat managing to juggle skiing and workouts. Now that we are back, I am preparing for the upcoming season opener race weekend ahead on the 11th and 12th. I will be competing in the Hovey Memorial and a Mountain Council U14 race both this weekend. I have been away from my home mountain for a long 18 days and have missed it very much. As nice as it was to go back to my old hills, I regret not staying in Lake Placid over the holidays to train with the weekend group. That would be one mistake we are sure not to make again. I now have 3 days to stay focused before the races. The whole family will be making the trek up to Whiteface to come spectate along with some NSA faculty. Although this is truly not my "season opener" its my first race in NYSSRA. I had one start back home at the Dan Cardillo Race for Excellence. Where the outcome was not the one I anticipated. Even though this race did not count against me or for me it was more of an opportunity to learn from my mistakes and fix them for my next race. Okay, Enough Vacation talk.
One thing that I have definitely learned here at NSA and which is becoming more visible than ever is TIME MANAGEMENT. Before my season started here I can remember at a pre-season camp one of my coaches telling me how important this is in my ski racing career. He was completely correct. Every minute counts here, and when I say that I mean it. When we are pulling in to the mountain and it is around 8:12, it means we are going to be much later opposed to pulling in at 8:08. That gives us for extra minutes to talk with coaches and teammates, get ready to be on snow, drink water, etc. Anyways, thats not the point. The point is managing your time is HUGE. Especially during the season when everyones schedule gets filled down to the minute. From balancing academics, ski season, tuning, laundry, a social life, etc it is very hard to get everything you want accomplished in a day done by 10:15. Although there is nothing to complain about, no matter how busy I will ever be I will always love living this. I feel so privileged to be able to do what I love and be able to go to school and enjoy mostly every second of it.
My first race was a few weekends ago, I raced in two GS races. One on the 11th and the other the next day on the 12th. My giant slalom has been improving lots so I was excited to race especially because it was my first start in NY. The results turned out okay, but not as I wanted. I made a few mistakes in my runs, but I am always looking for a challenge to improve. Despite all of this it was a great weekend and I was still happy to take home 7th and 5th.
The "No Phone" project, was something I did the week before my races. As many of you may know I have an awful habit of always being on my phone From checking my email to instagramming I can never put it down. Our phones are an extreme distraction to our lives everyday I realized! So from Tuesday to Thursday night of the week before I gave my phone to one of my dorm parents to keep. I only allowed myself to have it for a few hours each day to be specific from after the academic day till study hours. In the end It was nice not to have a phone all the time and helped me stay more focused in classes.
This weekend I will be racing Super-G at Gore. I have never raced here so I am very excited! We have been training all week and last weekend, but I was able to take two days off to rest. Thanks for reading.

Maddie