I, for one, am anxious to get started skiing. The Son, who has just started the new school year, has a lot else on his mind. So while he is looking forward to ski season, it isn’t all encompassing like with his dad. With that in mind I’ve been making sure to take care of stuff for the upcoming season. Namely:

• Renew USSA membership at the My USSA site. Remember to do so before October 15 to avoid the late fee.
• Sign up for a season pass at your local mountain. Prices often go up closer to ski season so look for a Sept 30 or Oct 15 deadline
• Sign up for the race program / club at your mountain. Early bird specials also apply.
• Think about ski equipment for your kid. The Son will be stepping up to a new age group and a new league this year. He’s going to have 2 pairs of skis this season, one for SL and one for GS. I may wind up reusing the skis from last year and have them used as the SL pair. Many multi-event skis have the same lengths and radius as the brand’s junior SL skis with different graphics, so that may be an alternative you can consider. You can ask your child’s coach for guidance on what length and what type of skis should be used. You should also bear in mind that older kids (U14s and up) may be subject to new ski rules. You can see the rules here for the 2016-2017 season.
• In The Son’s case, since he’ll be racing SL, I’ll need to to get him protective gear for this season – shin guards, forearm guards, chin guard and pole guards. Try and find used equipment.
• While at it, think about the equipment you don’t need any more – stuff that has been outgrown. Your club may have a way of selling it to other interested families or you can sell online via eBay or SidelineSwap (a new used sporting goods site).

Of course there is the other stuff like putting on the car winter tires and the roof box. Getting stuff out of storage and the assorted other tasks with ski racing. But all of it is a welcome requirement for getting back to snow.

More to come…

It’s now March and the end of the season is right there on the horizon. The shorter season due to the weather has really seemed to accelerate the end. I can’t believe we only have a couple of weeks left to the season. The son has been in 4 races now. It’s been a fun season for a variety of reasons. First, my wife has travelled with us to the “away” races. In the past years she has only attended the race at our home mountain. That was due to the early morning wake ups or the fact that she had to stay home to work. This year she made a concerted effort to come skiing most weekends and her desire to see “The Son” race more. The Son has done reasonably well in past years and she didn’t get to experience much of it in person. This year was going to be different for her. Secondly, it’s been a fun season because The Son has done well which always helps matters. His first race resulted in a very nice 3rd place for U10s and the third race was an even better 2nd place U10 finish. I skipped over the second race for a reason. The Son had a great first run and sat very comfortably in 2nd place with a few tenths separating him from 1st. Unfortunately, he crashed and went down hard in the second run. At age 9 kids often think that falling in a race is embarrassing and The Son probably milked the crash as worse than it was as a result. We’ve had some conversations since about it and hopefully the next time he crashes, and there has been a next time, he recognizes it as him pushing the limits rather than an embarrassing event. He’s learning and it is one of those life lessons that we all have to learn at some point. The fourth and final race, a GS, didn’t go as planned either. The Son really wanted to do well and put some pressure on himself to win. He exhibited nerves like I’ve never seen in him prior to a race. We inspected the course together, a ritual I hope to continue for as long as possible, and talked about the one make or break turn. A fall-away turn on the steep pitch near the top, gate #3. We talked about setting up for it and really getting some good edge angle. The Son is in the starting gate and I’m exhibiting some nerves too. I “hide” myself behind his coach so that he can’t see me and I don’t distract him. He fires out of the start gate, a really good start for him, and nails turn one. HIs coach gives a good exclamation cause The Son is off and looking good. He sets up for gate #3 just as we discuss. Next thing you know he is flying superman style down the pitch. I give out a groan and start skiing down to where he stopped, 2 gates down the hill. “Dad, what happened?” he asks. I can only say I don’t know. People who could see tell me later that his ski pre-released and that he was totally on them just prior to the release. He’s bummed and so is this dad. He seems to be in a decent mood at lunch time and is telling his coach and others he’ll take his second run. He wasn’t really into it but he got into the starting gate and took off. Prior to the run he wondered what he should race for. I told him it was quite simple – get the fastest time of the run. He skied the top pitch well but a little tentatively, but as the hill flattened he seemed to go faster. A fellow dad spoke up and said he was flying at the bottom – and he was. He crossed the finish line and the PA announcer came on to read out his time. It was seconds ahead of anything that had been announced before. I got down to the bottom and found the The Son around the finish coral and he was beaming. “Dad, Dad, did you hear my time?” Yes, yes I did. It was a good end to the race season and another lesson he can take with him on this journey.

The winter season of 2015 – 2016 didn’t start too well in the Northeast. Warm temperatures and a lack of precipitation of the white kind meant a very late start to the season. I know parents who sent their kids to Colorado for training camps because there was no snow in New England. At  age 9 that wasn’t going to be for my son. Our Christmas vacation was a bit of a bust. The traditional Christmas camp was cancelled since the mountain wasn’t open yet. On the weekends they did get the kids together to do dryland training which consisted of hiking up the mountain as well as playing soccer at the base. There was a tuning clinic, watching World Cup videos and a few other indoor drills to pass the time. The rest of the week was spent reading, playing games and a host of things that we don’t normally do since we are skiing. We even made a gingerbread house. In some respects it was a nice change of pace. On December 31, my son and I went further north to find a mountain that had opened already and we skied for the first day of the season. It was the latest first day for the two of us. My wife stayed home and read more. That was ok, it was a good time bonding with my son. The conditions on the other hand were awful. It was ice with a bit of rocks and twigs thrown in. But at least we got our ski legs back.

My inaugural post. I’ve been meaning to get started on this blog for a couple of months now but something always gets in the way. My hope is that I can be informative, humorous and just plain interesting to you, the reader. With that preface, let me get started with a little background. I am the proud dad of a ski racing son. He is a U10 this season and has been skiing since he was 2 or so. He didn’t have a choice when it came to getting involved in skiing and racing since his dad, yours truly, was a ski racer at one point. I suspect there are many kids out there that fall victim to the same fate. Fortunately for both of us, he has really enjoyed his time training and making new friends in his racing program. When we (the wife and I) embarked upon bringing up a ski racer, I made a commitment to my wife and son that the most important thing was that he have fun. I knew that if he was enjoying himself then the rest would fall into place. So far, so good.