Coaches World - Issue V - University of Colorado Athletics

Assistant Coaches Dan Weinberger and Jed Schuetze will post weekly diary entries to update Colorado ski fans on the progress of their training towards the 2006 NCAA Championships, to be held at Steamboat, Colorado, March 8-11. This week Dan fills us in on the great snow we've been getting in Colorado.

Welcome again to all of the followers. By now I am hoping there are at least 3 people reading this, but please pass on the word to those who are interested so they may be able to follow our actions.

The big news was the amount of snow the mountains are receiving. Winter has finally arrived, and our alpine team welcomed the snow with a training camp at Copper Mountain this past weekend. This was the first time the coaches set gates, but unfortunately the conditions were less than ideal. There was too much snow on course so and it made training difficult. In addition, Coach Rokos and Coach Schuetze now have HUGE left arms from all of the snow they shoveled. Despite the challenging conditions, the athletes were very excited to get out there.

On a more serious note, team captain Rachel Roosevelt has been unable to train due to an infection. Her health is improving though and she is looking forward to getting back on snow. Additionally, Pat Duran, a key member on the alpine team broke his hand biking Friday when a truck hit him. These are definitely setbacks for the team, but Coach Schuetze said, “Despite not having all of our athletes training and adverse snow conditions, the athletes that were on snow were absolutely ripping!”

Next up for the alpiners is strength testing, and J.F. (Jean-Fran?ois Ferreira) our new recruit from France proudly told me his bench has increased 35 lbs in the past two months! The results will be forthcoming in a later article.

As for the Nordics, it was a normal week with a running time trial on Friday. Henrik Hoye and Jana Rehemaa were the individual winners. Everyone gave a solid effort and there were a number of personal bests. They are all anxious to head to West Yellowstone over Thanksgiving for an eight-day training camp, their first time on snow, and their first races.

Stay tuned for the next article!