Today is Thursday February 18, 2010. Today is the start of the 4 day Jim Drew Memorial FIS Colorado Ski Cup.
If you recall from my Days 25 & 26 (2/13 & 2/14) blog I had volunteered through Justin Chandler and his Telluride Ski and Snowboard Club (TSSC). Justin is the executive director and he has asked me to volunteer again for this weekends four day memorial race. When I arrived at the TSSC headquarters they asked me to work the start gate team. Also upon my arrival at TTSC I met a very nice woman. Her name was Virginia. Virginia volunteers for the race as well. Virginia and I will work together with 2-3 others. Collectively we will form the start gate team. No surprise here, but the start gate is where all the racers convene, joke around, then step up to the start and switch to an intense focus. I said this in my Day 25 & 26 blog, but I continue to appreciate what these athletes bring to the table for these Alpine race events. For the four days they do 2 days Giant Slalom (GS) and 2 days Slalom (SL). A quick explanation is that GS is faster speed, a longer run and gates more spread out; SL is quicker/tighter turns, a shorter run length and gates closer to each other.
Unfortunately I cannot tell you who Jim Drew was. This is a memorial race in his name so I am sure he was a special person in the Telluride community. He likely helped to make many races like today's an opportunity to succeed for many young racers. I am happy to be volunteering for a cause under his name. FIS (in the title of the race) stands for Federation Internationale de Ski. American version would be the International Ski Federation. FIS is headquartered in Switzerland and they sanction events like this weekend's. The reason is because even though it is a memorial race, the racers times go toward qualifying times. They get FIS points based on results and I am sure those points qualify them for Junior Nationals and more. I was told that this weekends racers are "the best of the west" A coach told me that. Pretty impressive to see up close.
I met Donna who oversees the start gate. From the picture above, Donna has the blue hat in the background. She keeps order. Greg is the official start timer. He informs the racers the 10 second countdown mark and then the 5-4-3-2-1 final count where they must leave the gate. They can leave at any point in the 5 count. In the picture, Greg is on the left with the headset. He is in constant communication with the finishing gate official, John Jett. I told everyone John Jett is one of the coolest names I had ever heard. They laughed. Then there is Hannah, Donna's daughter. She is in the forefront of the picture. Hannah herself is alpine skier, but she was not racing this weekend. Right after the start of each racer Hannah and I manually take the unofficial start times. We both hold a sport timer and each time the skier goes through the start gate (they cross through a thin wand) we press the start/stop time and report it to Virginia. Virginia manually writes those times down. Unfortunately Virginia did not make this picture, but I hope to get a picture of her to you soon. She was a very kind woman. The purpose of the manual recording is to have a back up plan if Greg's automated system fails. So that was my job for the day. BTW, Hannah's cousin Cole is the other person in the forefront of the picture. Good guy and he and I snowboarded down the mountain during the lunch break and at a break between women's and men's races. He is young so I showed him how to carve up the mountain on a snowboard! Just kidding. He was good on his own already. Just like everyone seems to be in this town. The phrase "carve up the mountain" is snowboarding terminology by the way. It basically refers to digging the snowboard edges into the turns you take. The more you turn and the deeper your edge gets into the snow....the more you are carving.
So tonight, Thursday night, is soccer night. I played and with the help of yet another good person, Zach, I bring to you this video to let you all know that I am finding ways to stay in shape. Actually, I think I almost collapsed again (like last week) while trying to play in this altitude. It is an eye opening difference. And here I was thinking I was fit. The great people at Cambridge Athletic Club (where my gym has been for the past 9 years) would be ashamed of me. Here is the video:
Please note we did win the game (teams play 5 minutes or first team to 2 goals) 2-1. Mick Hill, who I have mentioned before, played well. Mick is English and he runs the Steaming Bean coffee shop in Telluride. He had the assist on the first goal with that great pass. Even Zach could not hold his praise back....you can hear him on the video. I should also mention that Mick was recently appointed as Coaching Director of Telluride Youth Soccer (TYS). He and I spent some time talking shop, over a beer, after indoor play. I have worked with great coaching directors in my past 10 years with the soccer club FC Greater Boston so I hope some of the things I mentioned to him will be helpful in continuing to make TYS a premier soccer club.
It was a busy day. I hope everyone is doing well and good night from Telluride.
No comments:
Post a Comment