Beginning of Winter / First Continental Cups

We have finally gotten to the time of year when we have enough snow in Steamboat to skate ski all of the trails and have snow all over town. We have also had our first two competitions of the year. Both of which were before all of the snow forcing us to compete on a very short skate ski loop and limited stoping time on the jumps.

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Our first competition was here in Steamboat and is the qualifier for the Continental Cups. For this competition my team competed with the U.S. B team for the spots on the Continental Cup. We did the jumping portion of this on our 90m hill in the morning. Then later in that evening we did a 10km race on a 1.3km loop under the lights. It was a fast icy race that was challenging but fun. 

Our second Competition was in Park City, Utah and was a three day opening event of the Continental Cup Competitions. This was my first big international competition of my ski career. Because of how i qualified in our first competition i was able to compete in the second and third days of competition. The first day i started the race in 53rd and finished the race in 51nd. The second day i competed i started 41st and finished 52nd. It was quite the eye opening experience to race with people much faster than me and more experienced. Overall i had a great time and learned a lot.