New website

It's been 4 years and I finally re-did my website. Head on over to www.jamessoutham.com

A good read

A good piece about the financial situation of most post college athletes in Olympic sports. Don't forget to support your local ski racers!

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2009/09/08/sports/8-solomon.txt

Injured

For the last 4 days I've been nursing a pulled intercostal muscle. Not quite sure how it happened but on Thursday as I was starting to ramp back into training after a few days off I found myself nauseous with pain. I went to get accupuncture that afternoon and some active release in the evening. The pain was down a whole lot the next day and I've been getting treatment daily since.

The training has been a little different that I am used to. It's been stationary. I've been hitting the elliptical or the stationary bike 3 times a day pretty hard to keep the fitness up while giving injured area little time to heal. Thank God for college football and the US Open to keep me company.

Grinding

Summer is over. Crisp mornings and changing leaves. This week I am enjoying a few days off after the summer base period and before the intensity kicks up next week. A little time to look back.

Two big pieces of news for the summer. We moved into a new house in the mountains. After two years living right next to the airport the quiet is amazing! The running from the house isn't too bad either. And the big one is I have a new sponsor! Alaska Waste. Alaska's recycling and waste management company. I recycle. Do you? alaskawaste.net

Training has been rolling along quite well, although last week I started to feel like a flat tire so the time off started a little earlier than planned. With the Olympics coming up and looking at the Pursuit and the 50k as my best events this summer has been filled with a lot of what I like to call grinding. Nothing overly complicated just steady, hard training to get ready for the long stuff. A few interval days thrown in but simply put, as fast as I feel I can go and be ready to do it again the next workout. Pretty simple. The glacier is fantastic for this and the three camps up there were outstanding for both the fitness and technique. Extra blue in August would be nice but it's hard to get many days of the kind of tough klister skiing that can be found on occasion in Whistler. It's a different kind of skiing and I've got 75 hours of it so far this summer.

I've got one more month of dryland now here in Anchorage before I head to Park City for my altitude camp in October. Now some pics.

The glacier

The new neighborhood

The baby girl

Nasty

Bird Ridge. 3 miles, 3400 ft uphill the whole way. Throw some wet, wind, and cold and that was nasty. Brent and I took off from the start and I felt super comfortable for about 15 minutes until last week caught up I couldn't match the pace. After about 25 minutes some of those classic skiing muscle that I abused last week started to cramp up in the cold and I was waddling up the mountain with my feet two feet apart. Trying to keep moving just hoping they would come around so I could hold on to second place. Luckily for me once Tor Kristopherson (3rd) got to within 5-10 seconds the course started to level out enough that I could run and the cramping let up and was able to pull away and save second. The best effort of the day had to be Rob Whitney who was 6th or so, that man can suffer!

Next up, a couple days of rest working down at the Raven before getting back to it on Wednesday.

Eagle 1

Yesterday I dragged my body out of my bottom bunk. Shoved down some more food and coffee before heading out for the last ski of the first Eagle Glacier camp of the year. This morning I woke up to the chirps of baby Hazel and gave her a bath before I ate breakfast. A whole other world...

My rest days are a little different than the rest of the team this year due to baby care which means the rest of my training week is a little different as well. This means that this was the first time I was back with the full team for the summer. This is the third year of the new APU team and you can tell that the whole crew is working really well together. Super good to see. This was also the first camp up there with Mark Iverson and Mike Hinckley. Two guys with quite a bit of talent that have been a good addition to the team.

Camp was a little different than usual thanks to the volcano. The ash that blew in March definitely left its mark on the glacier with a nice shade of gray. We woke up to snow a few days up there and the glacier would be white for a few hours before the gray would come back to the top. The loop we skied was much cleaner than the rest after the PB moved the surface ash to the side but the fat rills I put in my rock skis were no where to be seen after a few days.

We also classic skied a ton. The PB had some mechanical issues after a couple days and the snow wasn't setting up thanks to the ash and the weather so the snow machine set classic tracks for most of the week. Ski training is so varied with training options that we never do the same thing all that much. This week with only classic skiing was tough. Sore in all kinds of places and my feet were killing me by the end but my classic skiing is way better than it was seven days ago!

Up next is Bird Ridge on Sunday. A 3500 or so ft uphill race along the Turnagain Arm. Luckily I managed avoid hiking out yesterday so my legs at least aren't sore. Who know's how the rest of my body will take it. Big thanks to Keith at Alpine Air for getting Laura and I out of there and Jay for getting us back to town!

May update

Since the last time you heard from me I spent two weeks on Kauai, 3 days driving my new (to me) car from Utah to AK, had some sweet spring skiing and now I am just finishing up my 5th week of training for the year.

After a great week in Fairbanks to end the season I enjoyed doing absolutely nothing for a week before Annie, Hazel and I got on a plane to spend two weeks in Kauai. The last time we were in Hawaii we were on the go pretty much the whole day. This time with the addition of a 5 month old definitely made us adjust the pace. We got in some sweet hikes and saw some amazing things, all a little closer to the car that we had before.

There was another big life change this spring when the 1987 VW van that I have driven since I learned how to drive retired. It has been replaced by a 2001 Audi A4 wagon that I bought down in Salt Lake and spent three days after Hawaii driving the 3000 miles home. So much more fun to drive and this winter is going to be a whole new experience with a heater that works and the sweet bonus of heated seats! Still the van will be missed...

The first training period of the year is 3 days from completion before I get my first week off. We hit things off pretty hard with the first training and testing camp starting April 27. There was some great crust skiing down in Turnagain Pass that we got to take advantage of to make the break in to training much easier on the body. Plus the chance to watch a bunch of people who aren't the greatest tele skiers unleash their skills on race skis is a blast!

Since then I have been settling into the routine of summer. Training, working, and spending time with baby Hazel. The pace of life has had to adjust a little bit. Not quite as much down time so my time management has had to improve a little. It makes me focus more on what I am doing and I think for the training it is a good thing. Something I like to think I have been pretty good at, but it has been forced to a new level.

During the week off I get to spend a day or two helping coach the APU juniors at the first APU Death Camp down in Girdwood. East High's xc team used to have a Death Camp back in the 1990's and Charlie Renfro decided to bring it back. Not sure what the details are but there will be some sweet adventures.