15 Nov 2024 by Erik Read

I’ve had a chance to reflect on Soelden these past couple weeks, while shifting my focus to slalom ahead of the Levi and Gurgl World Cups. Moving up from bib 46, I finished 33rd and didn’t qualify for the second run. A disappointment to be sure, but there were positives to take away from the day. I skied well and I was in a good place in the start: confident in my equipment choice, and my prep leading into the season opener. 

 Soelden is notoriously difficult to qualify from higher start numbers, and this year was the same with the highest being bib 41. The race sits in the sun and quickly gets rougher while slowing down on the flats. It’s a fight from these start positions, and to jump in would have required more than good skiing but grit and higher risk on my part. You can see in the video I skied the top of the pitch well, but I was overly tactical in the middle section taking too much space. I’ve been making this tweak in my training to find more aggression and speed.

At the moment, slalom has been in a better place than GS. I’ve found a boot I enjoy, and we’ve had some good training days in Schnalstal and Diavolezza. Compared to last year where I was struggling to find my equipment set-up well into December and January, I’m in a much better place. I’m happy with how things feel under my feet, and I’m focused on finding speed and those last tenths in a course. 

 I made a small gamble to stay in central Europe rather than fly north to Levi and train on the race hill. So far I’ve been happy with this decision as it’s been warm and the race hill training was cancelled. A couple more days on the Leo hill in Schnalstal, and some days for my first time in Diavolezza have me excited for the upcoming slalom races. 

 As part of my updates this year I want to continue sharing my financial situation. I’ve been fortunate to include two new sponsors over the past couple months: Sportsinsurance.com as my headgear, and SYNC Performance for my outerwear and race suits. I'm very grateful to these partners and their vote of confidence in me. 

 On the expense side I’ve spent about $55,000 so far this season with a rough breakdown below. This next month will be expensive with the flights to Finland and Colorado, and the continued high lane fees early in the season. Once Winter gets underway I expect my monthly totals to drop a bit. I still expect the year to arrive at $120-$130k. 

Coaching/Team Fee: $22,000 

New Zealand: $12,000 

Pitztal & Saas Fee: $3,000 

Soelden Prep: $5,000 

Levi Prep & Flights: $4,500 

Strength & Conditioning Programming: $1,500 

Insurance & Equipment: $2,000 

Ski man salary & Expenses: $5,000 

Thank you again for following along and to those that have made contributions. I've been hard at work, and I will let the skiing speak for itself as I get into the race season. 

As always, take care, and see you on the slopes! 

 -Erik

24 Oct 2024 by Erik Read

Here we are on the eve of the World Cup opener in Soelden this weekend! Thank you to everyone who has contributed and followed along over the past few months. It hasn't been easy, but I've put in a large amount of work and I'm excited to get the season going!

The last two weeks have been by far the most productive of the entire prep period. My team and I had a great day of training on the race hill in Soelden (video below), and a handful of days on the Leo Gurschler slope at the bottom of Schnalstal. There's been a lot of warm spring-like days, but we also had a couple with aggressive snow, and even one with fully slick injection. 

I've chosen my boot and ski set-up for the weekend, so at this point it's about keeping sharp and focusing on the mental approach. The ski is a new model from Atomic that gives me better support and feel in rougher conditions. I'm also going with hand-tuning and a diamond stone finish. It's been obvious over the past weeks that I have better flow into the turn this way. Unless it's really icy, the ski is too aggressive with the machine edger. 

As for my skiing I'm in a great place on the medium and easy terrain. I had quick times on the top section training on the race hill. For the steeps I'm not as consistently fast, so I'll be putting my technical focus on that part of the race. I've also started to visualize my routine and race run for the weekend. It's a great exercise to create some familiarity, and helps manage the nerves on race day. 

Soelden is very early compared to the bulk of the season, but there's lots of emphasis on this first race, and it can feel great to get the season started on the right foot. All I can do now is stick to my plan, charge hard, and enjoy the weekend. 

Thanks for reading and take care,

Erik

15 Oct 2024 by Erik Read

Since arriving in Europe early September, I'm on my third short ski block. With Soelden fast approaching on the 27th of October, the focus has been on dialling in equipment, and building the race intensity. 

We skied 6 days on the Saas Fee glacier in September, with a mix of weather days and productive training. Mostly focused on gs, we did mange to mix in some short slalom turns as well.

The tricky thing about this time of year is the weather. Gone are the days of melt-freeze you find in the Summer, with heavy snowstorms that blanket the glacier in soft snow. This was the case for our short second block in Pitztal which resulted in days focused solely on balanced skiing.

However, I'm most excited about these next two weeks of training starting with where I am now: Schnalstal, Italy. In my opinion it's the best place to prepare for Soelden. On the bottom of the glacier they blow man-made snow and inject a hill with water. It's a "mini" Soelden with a top flat, steep pitch, and a bottom flat. A great first chance to properly test equipment on artificial injected snow ahead of the opening world cup. 

On the years with good snow coverage, Soelden will also open the hill for teams to train. This season it's ready, and my plan is to get two days of training this upcoming weekend. The surface will be different, but it's a fantastic chance to get a feel for the race hill. 

In our group there's 5 athletes who will be starting the opening world cup, so we all have similar focus right now. Winter is fast approaching, and I'm excited to get going!

Thank you for following along and the continued support on this unique path of mine this year! 

Take care,

Erik

26 Sep 2024 by Erik Read

My first camp is wrapped up with my new team after a mixed outcome with the weather. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous flying down to New Zealand to join this new group. There’s a sense of familiarity in your team that is grounding when you’re travelling across the world, and these last six months have been an upheaval.

Fortunately it’s a group of guys at World Racing Academy that all share the same focus, and want to have fun in the process. The costs of going to New Zealand aren’t low, but it’s one of the best places to be over the Summer. Slalom in particular because of the great hill that has tons of bumps and rolls (something you don’t find glacier training in Europe at all).

The purpose of this first camp was to get some feeling and balance on snow, and start testing some of the new ideas I had with my equipment. My first days felt great, and I was super happy to be back on snow after a longer break. The snow was also a bit soft, so it provided me a chance to find balance, and ease my way back into ski preparation.

Some of the guys had been tuning their skis themselves for years, so I leant into the opportunity to learn more about ski prep. I won’t say it was easy, but it was a transition I enjoyed going into with an open mind. There’s a certain satisfaction in taking care of your equipment, and knowing exactly how the skis are set up since you prepared them yourself.

Being on an island in the southern pacific meant ever-changing weather. In one sense this was a good thing since we had many different snow surfaces to challenge us. On the other hand, we were at the mercy of mother nature and were forced to take extra days off when it wasn’t possible to train. This intensified in the second half of the camp during the Australia/New Zealand Cup races where I wanted to compete in the giant slaloms. The organizers tried for three straight days, but they were all cancelled. The first day was wet with heavy snow, the second the surface had only frozen an inch so it broke, and the final weather-reserve day the mountain couldn’t open due to intense wind and rain.

We managed to race the final two slaloms, but the snow conditions were deteriorating quickly after each racer. I didn’t ski like I wanted, but more than anything I’m using this trip as a first “check-up”, and an opportunity to narrow my focus going forward. I do need to find some volume on snow, and make some further tweaks with my equipment.

At the moment I'm in Saas Fee Switzerland doing a short 8 day block. We've had steadily improving conditions, and I've started testing some equipment. Going forward I've managed to find a ski technician that I'll be working together with Louis Muhlen-Schulte. I strongly believe this is the right decision for my best chance at success.

Thank you to everyone who has partaken in this journey with me. We’re just over a month away from the first race in Solden on October 27th! Below you'll find a more in-depth breakdown on some of the financial costs. For now I'll share one last message of appreciation, and sign off to get back to the work on snow!

-Erik

The total cost for my camp was a bit less than $12,000 with a rough breakdown below. I'm expecting this to be the most expensive trip of the year. 

Flights: $4,200

Excess Baggage: $700

Lift Pass: $880

Hill Space: $2,500

Race Entries: $300

Coach Expenses (Accommodation, Lift Pass, Flight Contributions): $1,200

Rental Car: $750

Food: $800

Gym + Physio: $400

Saas Fee Expenses:

Accommodation: $750

Lift Pass: $820

Food: $400

12 Aug 2024 by Erik Read

Here we are in New Zealand! After months of working hard in the gym, it’s always an exciting moment to get back on snow. My feet are groaning and complaining in ski boots, but it felt oh so good to arc some turns again.

I started this month-long camp with two days of freeskiing. It made sense to build gradually for my body. The temperatures in New Zealand only recently dropped, so the mountain here has had every snow gun blowing – including on the training slopes.  I spent my time doing a 50/50 mix of flowing arcing turns and deliberate drills. Now I’ve just completed three days of slalom training, and I’m working my way into GS.

These first days the snow has been softer than I would ideally like, but it’s okay to start out with a slower pace after the long break. The mornings are early with the stars above us when we arrive at the hill. As the sun comes out, we get a beautiful view of the valley and Lake Wakatipu in the distance. No matter how hard you train and prepare your body, there’s nothing quite like skiing. Every little muscle has been sore across my body.

Fortunately, I’ve felt balanced in the course, so I got to work right away. My focus is on getting early strong pressure and running deep to connect the turns. In particular, I’m really working on my skiing in rougher conditions when there are ruts. I’ve always been stronger with a clean surface, but I need to work on building my pressure into the groove. Here's a video of one of my slalom runs:

New Zealand Slalom Training Day #3

The main venue for this camp in New Zealand is Coronet Peak. The ANC continental cup races will be here at the end of August, and it's a good chance to lower my fis points and start position in GS. Coronet is more suited to high quality slalom training as the runs are short, steep, and full of small bumps. For this reason, we may move over to Ohau skifield for a GS block. The run is longer with more moderate terrain to get some good feeling on the longer skis.

It's been fun and exciting working together with a new group of guys at WRA. We’re staying in different houses, but we do most of our meals and ski tuning together under one roof. Altogether it’s encouraging to feel energized with newfound enthusiasm towards my skiing.

We’ve got some warmer days ahead, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be productive. For me it’s about making the most of every run, and working hard but smart.

Thank you for following along on my journey so far this year. The response and enthusiasm continues to blow me away, and I'm extremely grateful for all the support!

31 Jul 2024 by Erik Read

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read, share, and take part in my campaign. Sincere appreciation to those that have made contributions. It’s been heartwarming and encouraging to read the messages and see the response from the ski racing community.

Currently I’m gearing up for my first on-snow camp in New Zealand coming up soon with World Racing Academy. For the past couple months, I’ve been focused on making changes in the gym and organizing my coming season.

My training group is known as the “misfit” crew at the Canadian Sport Institute Alberta. It’s a group of athletes with the same trainer, from various sports who all come together for our fitness sessions. Excitingly one of my training partners just won a bronze in Paris, Canada's first-ever Olympic medal in fencing.  It’s fun to see how people excel thanks to the specific training in their sport.

In the gym this year my goal is to lose a bit of weight, or “non-functional” body mass as my trainer calls it. GS is such a dynamic discipline, and slalom requires fastmovements, so I would like to improve my overall explosiveness, transformation, and ability to move efficiently. An example of a specific change - instead of doing 3 weight sessions a week, I’ve adapted one session to focus on solely on balance, core, and upper. It’s always a long game, but I’m optimistic I’m making positive changes that I’ll be able to evaluate when I get back on snow.

Some of the organizing and planning that I’ve done so far has included some of the early financial commitments for the season. Since I’m asking for financial support, I want to disclose some of these early expenses I’ve paid or budgeted.

WRA Coaching fee first installment: $11,000

Registration & Insurance: $2,500

Strength & Conditions Consultation: $300 per month

New Zealand Trip:

Flights: $3,800

Baggage Budget $500 (Hopefully)

Travel Visas (Australia, New Zealand, & Schengen): $200

Rental Car: $1,500

Lane Fee and Lift Pass Budget: $3,000

I’m super excited to get back to work on snow, and I’ll be sharing more updates as I dive into Winter down under.