2/20
Competition day. But first, a side note.  As more and more of my teammates switch to iphones, I have develeped a pet peeve.  The fart application on the iphone drives me nuts.  I am now surrounded by artificial fart noises at dinnner, in the car and on the airplanes. I find it inappropriate and immature.  Ok, back to the comp summary. We arrived at the mountain Myrkdalen at 7:15 this morning and I could only see the mogul course from the parking lot because it was lit up by a spotlight.  I jumped some rope, hopped around and stretched while the sun rose.

At  8 am, donning my yellow leader’s bid, I got on the well-padded, six person chairlift for a couple of training runs.  I ran 12th in the run order, landed a back-flip iron cross off of the top air then got myself caught up on the first turn.  My left leg kicked out and I found myself on top of the moguls instead of down the fall line.  Luckily I was able to use my strength to recover and get my feet  back underneath me. I finished the run with a quality 360 off of the bottom air and got myself a decent score.  Sometimes it really helps to be wearing the yellow bib in a judged sport.  I was lucky to get a second run in the top 12 final where only the second run counts.

In between runs I relaxed in the lodge with my teammates while the male competitors  trained and took their turn to compete.  I was the  4th competitor out of the start gate for the second run because the run order is the reverse of the results.  I did not feel the usual excitement today, but I skied a clean, solid run until I attempted a helicopter mute grab off the bottom air and just touched my crossed ski, missing the actual grab.  I went into first place with 8 competitors left, but was slowly pushed down to my worst result of the season.  I ended up in 6th place with my competition for the overall in 5th so it will all come down to the final world cup in France.  The highlight  of the day was watching my teammate Mike Morse get this first top three finish of this career.  Mike grew up skiing in Vermont so we have been competing together for years and I was very happy for him. Tomorrow I will ski in a fun dual moguls event with gifts and prize money for the winner.  At the last minute they revoked its status as a world cup so local legend and Olympic gold medalist Kari Traa is hosting this event.  The victor will probably win some of the cool clothes she designs.  That might be just the motivation I need.  After the event will be a banquet and a 3 am departure to the airport for my flights home.  A hop, skip and a five hour layover later, I will be home for the first time in five weeks.

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