Special Olympics Ski Racing - Days Two & Three at Hurricane

So we survived the first day. Lessons learned from Day One:

1. we need to be better prepared to get to the hill early and ready to board the lift, so that I don't start putting my skis on backwards again!
2. we also need to be better organized so that all our gear is easier to carry from the car to the lift, then onto the lift and to the hill
3. Cory's boots are far too "mooshy"; we need to get back to Govy quickly after training so we can get better selection for demo skis and boots

It's another 5am radio alarm wake-up, 5:15 jog, 5:30 breakfast. But this time, since we now know the way up the mountain (lesson #4 I guess from Day One), we make it a quick breakfast - who can eat at that time anyway?? - and we're on our way by 5:45. Another beautiful day a-rising, and Cory and I are the first ones in line at the lift, giving us plenty of time to get boots on, helmet on, sweaters and jackets on (even though it will be far too warm later in the morning for anything but a T-shirt), make sure the back pack is ready to go, and all is much better during the load.

With one hiccup though. The Atomic ski boots that Cory is demo-ing are much, much stiffer than anything we've ever used before, and Cory is unable to get his boots on by himself. Conveniently, there is a bench right at the front of the line, so we set ourselves up on there to get our boots on. While I'm struggling with these really stiff boots to open them up enough for Cory to get a foot in, I realize that any attempt to have Cory blend-in with the other athletes is now totally useless - not only am I the only adult in the entire line-up except for the liftees (as lift attendents are known), but I'm now on my knees wrestling with Cory's boots in front of them all. Note to self: tomorrow we don't use the bench where everyone can see us.

It's a pretty good morning of training - Cory's Atomic RT TI 100 boots are helping and his Fischer race skis are making a difference too.

Something else that we've learned - flex. Racing ski boots are much more rigid than recreational boots - the idea I believe is to transfer more of the power coming through the legs into the boot and therefore to the ski. The more rigid the boot, the less energy is absorbed by it, so it is transferred more effectively to the ski. The downside though, is it takes a lot more "oomph" on the part of the skier to make the boot work, and the comfort level takes a dive. It's just another of those sacrifices that competitive athletes have to make to be successful - more efficient boot, less comfortable boot. Funny though, things like that don't seem to matter to any athlete standing on a podium.

Top World Cup racers would use boots with a flex of somewhere in the 150 range. So Cory's Atomic RT Ti 100's have a flex of 100 - a very moderate rigidity for two reasons. Cory is not used to a rigid boot, so a higher flex will really be uncomfortable for him and two, he only weighs about 120 lbs., so he has not yet fully developed his leg muscles, so a higher flex will make it difficult for him to use the boots as they are meant to be used - and he could be sitting back on his skis, rather than over towards the tips as he should be.

The amazing thing is, considering it's his first ever set of racing ski boots, he finds them quite comfortable, and it's really only at the end of training that he finds any discomfort at all. So we're onto something good, and we hope to be able to keep the boots for the rest of the week, but we'll have to check in at the Atomic shop in Government Camp every day to see if that is possible.

A similar story with his first racing skis - a more rigid ski that requires more effort than a recreational ski, but gets much better results with faster turns, more grip, less skid. Now, we've not really considered buying racing skis before - with a price tag of over $1000/pair - that's not something you walk into a shop and buy without trying them. So this is Cory's first opportunity to try them, and according to Coach Bob, he's skiing better today.

Here's Cory standing in his new Atomic boots amid a jumble of Fischer skis. That's Ben resting to Cory's right. And Cory's wearing his new blue & white race suit.

Like Day One, Day Two is Giant Slalom training with different drills and short courses throughout the morning. Bob continues to provide constant feedback to all the athletes and is video-taping several of the runs. Cory is improving his plant plants just about every time he skis through a course.

By noon, the sun is high, as is the temperature, and with the snow conditions deteriorating, it's time to head back to Govy. Once again, we can ski only a portion of the way down, then change out of our ski boots into our runners, take off sweaters, and lug all our equipment back to the car in the parking lot. This time we make it back to Govy in time to have a good selection of equipment to choose from and since Atomic will let Cory keep his boots for another day, he also chooses a set of Atomic GS skis, and we return the Fischer skis.


Another stop at The Huckleberry Inn for another milkshake of course, this time sticking with good old chocolate instead of huckleberry.


After another famous Bob dinner, then it's time for video review, with Bob going over the day's proceedings. That's Cory in the foreground, with Max on his right, then Ben, and Samantha lying on the floor under the table.









Now onto ski waxing. Cory has returned his Fischers, so he doesn't need to wax his skis, but the others do, and they take the time to show us how to do it too. So I wax mine, using an iron to melt the wax - don't want the iron to smoke though, since that means it's too hot. So a little bit of trial and error and I'm done. I find myself being really drawn into the whole ski racing culture thing - the early rising, the hard work of organizing and schlepping all the equipment, trying different skis and boots and learning all about that, and now looking after our skis with a little TLC by waxing every day.

By now, the others are interacting a bit more with Cory - they've seen that he is not too much unlike them. Samantha in particular was really trying to help - she showed us how she waxed her skis, and I noticed several times during the morning training that she would look over her shoulder while standing in line at the top, or in the ski lift, to make sure that Cory was there and doing OK.


In fact, Samantha was instrumental in getting Cory to understand how to use his ski edges properly - she used a certain exercise with him on the hill, whereby he stood sideways to the hill in his skis, Sam stood a few feet away down the hill, grabbed one of his poles and tried to pull him towards her and down. The only way Cory could prevent that was to put a lot of pressure on the inside edge of his skis, and that is the type of pressure a racer needs to exert to make correct turns. After that, Cory's turns definitely improved.

Ben was the youngest of the group, and Bob had a good time bugging him a bit throughout the week. Ben comes from a wealthy home, so Bob got on Ben's case about not having a butler around during training to do everything for him. We all enjoyed a few laughs at Ben's expense during the week and to his credit, he was very good-natured about the whole thing. Because he was a bit younger and had less race experience than Sam or Max, he kind of hung around with Cory a bit more than the others.


Max was the de facto leader of the group - not just the oldest, but also the best skier. If Cory can get to Max's level, a world championship is a definite possibility. Several times, Max chipped in with encouragement and advice for Cory - so the week was turning out really well in every way.


Even some of the other coaches on the mountain would stop and speak with Cory - praising his skiing and offering encouragement. I'm guessing Bob had spoken to some of them about our situation, so it was pretty cool of them to go out of their way to support us.


So that's about the end of Day Two, early to bed of course, what with another 5am alarm.


"Time to wake up, Cor. We gotta get going if we're going to be first in line at the lift again" I say to Cory, fighting back the "I'd really like to stay in bed a bit longer feeling". Actually, getting up early for skiing is one of the best reasons to get up in the morning, especially on a nice day, so it really wasn't that difficult. And on this day, the Portland radio stations are forecasting record-setting heat of over 100 fahrenheit.


So now we have our routine nailed, and once again, we are first in line at the lift. Bob walks by a little later and since Max, Ben, and Sam are right behind us, says "Hurricane Front and Center", so he's obviously pleased to see us all organized and eager to get started on our 3rd day of training.


And here's some proof, it's just after 6:15am at the foot of Mount Hood:



Another Giant Slalom day, this one with longer courses and since Cory likes to ski fast, he's pleased. But, a HUGE problem - he's never seen a course like this before. The only courses he's raced in have a very standard set up with gates off-set at regular intervals throughout the course. But this one is different.

Bob explains that this course has a "delay gate" - Cory and I don't know what he is talking about. Apparently, this is a training tool to deliberately change the racer's rhytym part-way through the course. It's an extra pole that forces the racer to delay a turn slightly, thereby changing the rhythm of the turns and challenging the racers a bit more.

Now the extra pole looks exactly like the other poles which indicate a gate. I've mentioned earlier that Cory is always very much concerned with missing a gate - he knows it means disqualification, and in the black and white world of autism, a gate is a gate, there can be no such thing as a gate that is not really a gate. In hindsight, if Bob had called it a "delay panel", instead of a "delay gate", then maybe Cory would have understood better.

This delay panel was set very close to the previous gate, so trying to make a turn before the delay panel was very difficult - the idea was for the racer to make a turn AFTER the delay panel. But as Cory raced down the course, he saw a panel behind another panel, figured it was a gate not to be missed and tried to make an impossible turn. He caught one ski in the panel, rotated his body around it as he crashed to the ground and brought his hand forward just as he hit, and we discovered later, injured his thumb by spiking into the hard snow. At this point, he was still sliding down and then crashed into another gate which finally stopped him. But he got up, and finished his run.

It was unfortunate, not just because of his injury, but Bob had been video-taping this run, and it was the only opportunity to have Cory on video, skiing at a good speed, since it was on a long run. But the fall spooked him a bit, and the rest of his run was rather cautious.

By the next day, his thumb was a dark blue, very well-bruised, but not painful enough to stop him from training - so all things considered, it could have been a lot worse.

And this day, it was really, really hot up there. I mentioned the wind in an earlier post. It sure made communication difficult - you sometimes had to be very close to someone in order to be heard. And since Cory has difficulty processing information even under the best conditions - he gets frustrated when he can't hear instructions properly. So this and the heat added quite a bit of stress to the entire training time.

On Atomic RT Ti 100 boots and Atomic GS 12 skis, Cory continues to make progress. He's making good pole plants now, planting them at the right time to initiate a turn. Once again, I notice that he sees something differently than me: when using his poles, he's often trying to push with them, instead of just gently touching the ground with them to initiate a turn. After all, in Cory's eyes, that what poles are for - to give you the ability to push with your poles to get started or gain speed. So we need to work on that concept - what Bob calls "popping the balloon" with a ski pole - just a gentle touch, not a hard push which actually serves to slow him down.

I also notice that he keeps his hands up so that his poles will clear the ground - not realizing that if he bends his wrist backwards, he can then hold his poles parallel to the ground so that he can keep his hands lower for more aerodynamics and a lower centre of gravity. So we'll work on that too.

So here he is in action, Atomic boots and Atomic skis and with a sweater over his race suit, it's still early in the morning:




And then later in the day:





And some of the others in action. First Ben:













Then Sam:


















And now Max:

And a last one of Cory:

On my next post, I'll cover the last two days of training at Mount Hood, including a very proud moment to be Cory's dad, a ski purchase, a good-bye and a huge thank you to Bob Vial.