Springer Tourney & Beginning of Europe Training Camp

8/9/2014

Arrival in Planica, Slovenia

Running In the valley of Planica, Slovenia

I am very fortunate to be apart of another Europe training camp for the month of August. My teammates this year include Nicholas Madden a fellow C team athlete, Nathaniel Mah a Canadian Nordic Combined skier and two younger SSWSC athletes; Koby Vargas and Grant Andrews. We arrived here on August 6th and we will be here until September 2nd. Our training camp is starting off in our second home of Planica, Slovenia. So far we have jumped both the k95m hill and the k125m hill. It has helped me a lot to be on these bigger hills more than we usually are. Of all these days my long jump was 126m which I was excited about and I am hoping to go farther before the trip is over! Here in Planica we are lucky enough to be right next to a bike path that goes about 50km each direction. We are able to get an incredible amount of endurance training done here which I am very happy with. I am very excited to be starting this trip in my European home of Planica.

The team from left to right: Koby Vargas, Jasper Good, Nathaniel Mah, Nicholas Madden, Grant Andrews

On the plan for the rest of the trip are some exciting places and some very cool experiences. To start we will be traveling to Ramsau, Austria for about a week to train on their k90m hill. After that we will be moving on to Oberwiesenthal, Germany where myself, Nicholas and Nathaniel will be competing in a Summer Grand Prix event. This is the equivalent of a summer World Cup. After that we will be moving back to Planica and doing day trips to Villach, Austria. We stay in Planica as it is cheaper for us and the drive to Villach is about 20 min. In Villach we will be competing in another Grand Prix event! There are many exciting things to come on this trip so stay tuned for more updates on the trip and the events!

Springer Tourney - Park City, Utah

Our next big summer competition was Springer Tourney located in Park City, Utah. This is always an extremely fun competition as all of the North American teams come to this competition. We arrived on a wednesday and did an easy roller ski to get the legs moving after a long drive over to Park City. The next day we were able to start jumping on the K90m hill, I really enjoyed this because it is one of my favorite hills. Later that day we got the opportunity to do weights at the COE again, this is a great experience as it is the nicest weight room I ever get the opportunity to train in. The next day we were able to jump the K120m hill again which was super fun! The following day was the comp day, for Nordic Combined we use one jump off of the k90m hill. My comp jump was fairly good and I was able to start the race in first position in my age group. The race that we did was a hill climb from the bottom of the Utah Olympic Training Center to the top of the big hill ski jump. The race was only about a 5km race but it took me 22 min to complete the race as it was entirely uphill. I did have a good race and ended up in first place at the top of the hill. I was psyched with my performance this day as it was a solid day on both sides of the sport.

Jasper Good competition jump on the K90m hill. Photo by: Nathaniel Mah

On that Sunday was the bigger event of the week, It was US National Championships for Special Jumping on the k120m hill. For my team this event does not hold a lot of weight but it is always good to compete on a big hill as we only get the opportunity to do this several times a year. I did not jump as well as the day before and I ended up in 26th place.

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