Copper

Last night was the official opening of the USASA Nationals. It started with the parade of the different series, the national anthem (sung by one of the girls from the Appalachian Series), and a few awards.

Today the competitions started. One of the boys from Massanutten competed in slope style, did well and finished in the middle of the pack. Since it's his first year out here it's a good learning experience. Tomorrow he competes in bx, along with another guy from Massanutten.

I've spent time the last couple of days walking around, sitting outside people watching in the sun, and relaxing. They are having warmer than usual temperatures here, the sun is out, and it's great as long as you're not racing. The snow is very much East Coast type snow. Must remember the sunscreen!

The big thing that happened today is Whitney was fan-girl-ing! Amy Purdy was here during awards and spoke about being in USASA, losing her legs, getting back into snowboarding, and the adaptive snowboarding organization she's started which is based here at Copper. Then, even more exciting for Whitney, Alex Deibold was helping hand out medals tonight. We walked right past him as he was leaving. I didn't realize it soon enough and she didn't say anything, like ask for a picture. If she gets lucky, he'll be back another night like maybe the one she races.

Left - Appalachian Series at the parade
Top right - all the series gathering for opening
Bottom right - Alex Deibold in the white shirt

We're off!

We hit the road to the airport early yesterday to head west to Colorado. I was going to post a nice "sunrise at the airport" picture because we were up that early but there was no sun. It was a rainy morning when we left, but here's one anyway.

After clearing the clouds in Washington, it was a good flight to Denver. We got there and Whitney was not feeling good. It seems to be a combination of not enough sleep the night before, dehydration, needing food, and probably the altitude. Thankfully she's fine now.

We got our bags, some food, and meet the shuttle which took is to Copper. Checked in, got Whitney registered, and we're good to go.

Our room is in Center Village, overlooking Burning Stones Plaza, the heart of things. Today Whitney is off trying out the new board on good snow, she has her practice time after lunch, her first and only time to see the boardercross course before race day. Tonight is the parade and opening ceremonies, our series is having a get together, then racing starts tomorrow. Should be a fun week!

Rankings

What do the national rankings mean? This is something I've been thinking about the last few days. The regional/series rankings make sense - for each age group it ranks the snowboarders based on how they do against the others in their series. Each series holds 3-5 races for each discipline and they earn points based on how they finish. The riders are then ranked based on their points. This makes sense, they race against each other then are ranked.

What doesn't make as much sense, or at least doesn't provide much useful information, is the national rankings. Based on the points earned at each race, the riders are ranked nationally. The problem is that you don't know how good the other riders really are (or aren't) since you're not riding against them, it's strictly based on the points earned. What that means is that if you're the only one in a race, you earn 1010 points (1000 for first plus 10 for each racer, so if there were three racers first place would earn 1030 points). Surprisingly, at least in Whitney's age group, there wasn't a bunch up towards the top. There were several girls who were the only ones in their series, the only series that had more than one girl racing was the Western New York series, the Great Lakes series and maybe one out west. I'm a bit surprised that there weren't a bunch of girls with 3030 points, Whitney was only tied with one other girl at the last rankings.

So, while on the one hand I was super excited that Whitney was ranked 1st for a week earlier in the season and finished tied for 3rd, what does that really mean? There's no way to really compare her to the other racers until they get to Nationals. The other downside is that not all the racers go to Nationals. Whitney will be the top ranked girl in her age group there and to fill out the numbers, they eventually ended up inviting all the girls and only 12 accepted.

We do have a pretty good idea of how good she is though. At several of her races this year she  had the opportunity to race against guys who were in her age group or older. She was able to either beat them or keep pace with them. These were guys who were competitive, not slackers, so for her to keep up with them was really good; she can also keep up with her coaches. She's a strong rider and should do really well at Nationals, no matter her ranking.

Nearing the End of Another Season

The end of the season is getting closer and closer. We were down at the mountain on Wednesday and it was definitely spring skiing. If you can ski in Virginia, you can ski pretty much anywhere. We had decent man-made snow conditions for a lot of the winter, but we also had some awesome powder, not so awesome ice, and then the spring slush. I think we'll only make it down there once more, over the weekend. The resort is planning on Sunday being the last day of the season so this week/weekend will be it. Whitney and I had talked about going up to NH again so she could get in some more time on the slopes before Nationals, but neither of us was looking forward to the 9-hour trip. She'll just make do with what's here in Virginia while it lasts and also spend some time focused on school.

We're looking forward to our trip to Colorado in a couple of weeks. As of now, Whitney is the top ranked girl in her age group going and there's only 12 registered. There's still some invites out so we're not sure of the final numbers yet. It looks like she could reach her goal of making the podium this year. And she'll have a couple of the crazy boys from the Massanutten team to hang out with, cheer on, and board with while we're out there.

Although this season isn't quite finished yet, she's already looking towards next year. She's decided to go to college at the University of Maine at Farmington and has been talking with the ski and snowboard team coach there. When we were up for a visit, she had a chance to talk with a couple of guys on the ski team; they could tell her general details about conditioning, practices, and things like that but not much about snowboarding. She emailed the coach and has also been in contact with another snowboarder who is already there and is looking to build the snowboard team. I think this will be a good fit for her, she's already had experience building a team up and is excited about going there. The team competes in both USASA and the USCSA so she'll be able to keep working towards her snowboarding goals.

I can't wait to see how things go at Nationals this year and where she goes with snowboarding next season.

Nationals

USASA Nationals are getting closer! The invites have started going out and Whitney got hers on Thursday. She's registered, ready to go. I booked our rooms a month ago to make sure that we could get something in Center Village at Copper, near the action (and the lifts). The flights were taken care of this morning, now I just need to book the shuttle from the airport to Copper and I think we're set.

For a while Whitney was ranked 1st in her age group but currently she's tied for 3rd. A pretty good accomplishment for a girl from a small mountain in Virginia. I'm not sure that really matters though. She's had some awesome coaches this year, done really well in her races, gotten stronger and faster, races smarter, and expects to do well at Nationals.

She was talking with Chad last week and he encouraged her to move to the Open Class next year. She had been thinking about her plan moving forward and was planning to do her age group for another year then move to the Open Class. After this weekend I think she'll be moving to Open Class next year. We looked a bit at the Maine Mountain Series, which is where she'll be competing next year while she's in college and they have no one in the 18-22 age group, but four or five girls in the Open Class. She was also talking with one of the guys who competes in the Appalachian Series in the men's Open Class and he also said she should move up next year, that she's definitely ready for it. Guess it's been a good year for her!

Holiday Valley

Although I was really trying to avoid the trek all the way up to Holiday Valley we went for two boardercross races yesterday. The main reason I didn't want to go there was that Whitney wanted to go to the last practice of the season at Massanutten and the team picnic on Saturday morning, then head to HV. That meant a very long day for us and also a long day yesterday to get home after the races. I was really trying to get her to go to Blue Mountain again for the bx races there on Sunday, but she won out and we went to Holiday Valley. It was actually a good decision even though it made for a very long weekend with lots of driving.

Massanutten had gotten about 8" of new snow on Thursday (which cancelled the last weeknight practice) so the snowboarding/skiing was great on Friday and Saturday morning. I really wish we could have stayed longer to ski on Saturday, but the drive was still ahead of us. We left the picnic, packed up our stuff at the house, then hit the road north. The good thing about Holiday Valley is that they have a tougher course than Blue Mountain and they also have a start gate like they use at Nationals (which one of the competitors broke!). Whitney said it was worth going, she had a good time. She had hoped to finally have competitors in her age group to race against and two had preregistered but they didn't show up. Initially she wasn't too thrilled to race them (they're ranked 1 and 5, she's tied for 3rd) but when they didn't show, she was disappointed. It would have been a good preview of Nationals. Even though she had no competition, she said she felt race 1 and 4 yesterday were her best of the season. It's good that she's peaking right before Nationals. Now if only the snow will stick around long enough for her to keep working out on it.

Last Practice

It's hard to believe how fast this season has gone! Tomorrow is the last practice with a picnic following after at the grill. It's been an amazing season, Whitney has gotten so much better; she's faster and stronger and much more confident. This weekend might be a good test of that. We're heading up to Holiday Valley, NY, for a boardercross race in the Western New York series. We looked at the rankings in her age group the other day and the top ranked girl and the fifth place girl are both in the Western NY series. Right now Whitney is tied in third so if they both come to the race it will be a good challenge for her and give her a preview of what she'll face at Nationals. She's looking forward to it though, finally a race with true competition.

Speaking of Nationals, the invitations have started going out and Whitney got hers yesterday. She accepted her invitation and is ready to go. I already made our room reservations but still need to book our flights. The best news about Nationals this year is not only is Chad going again to coach her but there will also be two other boys from the Massanutten team going as well. Actually, three boys will be going but one is a skier so he won't be there until after we leave (the free ski Nationals are the week after snowboarding). It will be great to have teammates out there.

Yesterday we had another good snowstorm, about 8". We couldn't get out to the slopes yesterday, it started snowing in the morning and continued all day. The storm started with sleet so there was a coating of ice underneath the snow. We went out this afternoon after Whitney finished school and the conditions were awesome. The sun was out, there was plenty of new snow, it was great. The only problem was that one of the lifts was broken and shut down so on the expert slopes there were plenty of people who perhaps shouldn't have been on those slopes and wouldn't have been normally. This is probably the last big snowstorm of the season. The weather is supposed to warm up a bit in the middle of the week but hopefully the snow will be around for several more weeks, at least until closer to when we head to Colorado.