First Norams of the Season

The prep period is finally over and the first NorAms of the season are in the books. After 4 prep camps (Mt, Hood, New Zealand, Chile, and Colorado) I was finally able to compete in my first races since February 2014, almost 2 years ago! Since then, I have had ACL Surgery, hip labrum surgery, and Meniscus surgery. My first races back were 2 GS NorAms on Monday and Tuesday at Copper Mountain. I couldn’t have been more stoked to be back on the race circuit. I was so happy I couldn’t get the smile off my face in the start gate! Sounds a little corny, but it is true!  I finished the first race in 28^th position, starting 53^rd and finished the second race in 16^th, starting 47^th. Really excited to be in the points for these first races, as they will give me a better start number at the Panorama NorAms in 2 weeks.

It has been one hell of a comeback, and I want to thank everyone who has been a part of this crazy ride! Next up is Lake Louise Downhill and Super G!

Here are my 2 race runs from my 16th place result on Tuesday. First run I finished 24th with a big mistake near the bottom of the course. On the second run, I was 10th fastest. 

Early Season Copper Training

We have finished our last fitness block and we are finally skiing in Colorado! Copper Mountain has provided us with full length GS runs for the past week, and the snow is only getting better. In the past few days, Colorado has gotten over 20 inches of fresh snow, and Copper still has the snow guns blowing to get the full US Ski Team Speed track open by early next week. So far, I have had 4 days of solid GS training, and tomorrow we finally get to run some Super-G! Check in for more video next week.

Mt. Hood, Oregon

I guess it is time to revamp this blog, because I am finally skiing again! After a looooong hiatus from the ski racing world, Nick Krause is back in the game. Since my last post, I have been putting in an absurd amount of hours in the gym, and fine tuning some small things with physical therapy. A couple weeks ago, I finished my first full camp with the US Ski Team in over a year. Words cannot express how excited I am to have skied seven pain free days in arguably the most challenging snow of the off season--Mt. Hood, Oregon!

When we got to Hood, the plan was to ski 4 days of Slalom and 3 days of GS with a focus on fundamentals. After the first day, we realized skiing GS or Slalom gates was going to be quite difficult with the crazy high temperatures and mushy soft snow. So, we decided to ski 7 straight days of Paneled Slalom! Now we have a little over two weeks working hard in the gym, and then we are hopping on a plane to New Zealand! Here is a little clip from our camp in Mt. Hood, Oregon.

Meniscus Surgery

It has been a while since I have posted here. My apologies. I said I was going to start posting every week, but since that post, my season really took a U-Turn. Along with my bone bruise, they found a tear in my lateral meniscus.  The doctor told me that if I could deal with the pain, I could ski for the rest of the season without any risk of injuring it further. I would then have to get a surgery to fix it in the spring.

I tried to ski on the torn meniscus for about a week, and realized that I would not be able to go on with the pain I was having. So, I decided to get the surgery as soon as possible. I got the surgery done this past Tuesday by Dr. Cooley in Park City, Utah.  All they had to do was go in with a scope to see if there was any more damage than they thought, then smooth out the damaged meniscus. Fortunately, they couldn't find any further damage. The standard recovery for this surgery is 4-6 weeks. It was definitely my easiest surgery to date, as I walked out of the hospital just an hour after I woke up from anesthesia.

I hope this surgery will solve all of my pain issues to be back on snow in 4-6 weeks! I will post some pictures when I take the bandages off!

Continued Therapy and Fundraising

For the past 2 weeks, I have been going to physical therapy 3x/week and working hard, trying to get stronger. A bone bruise is a tough injury to handle. At this point in my recovery, I feel like I should lift as hard as I possibly can, because my body feels like it is physically capable. But, if I do this, I run the risk of re-injuring the bone. So, slow and steady it is. Hopefully I will be back on snow within a week or two!

In the mean time, I have just kicked off fundraising for my 2015 training/competition season. Unfortunately, ski racing is an expensive sport, and I rely heavily on fundraising to support my Olympic dream. If you are in a position to donate, please follow my link below to contribute. If you are not able to help out financially, please share my link through email or social media to get the word around!

2015 Fundraising

Some Nagging Injuries

Hey guys, now that finals are over and winter is in full swing, this blog is about to get ramped back up! Expect a post at least once a week from now until April.

A little update on my injuries: I got back into GS gates at the beginning of December and the knee felt great. I then upped my training volume and started some full length GS just a few days after that. One day after training I felt a little pain in my knee, so I decided to take a couple days off. When I returned to skiing after a break, my knee still hurt quite a bit, so I took another day off. When that didn’t help my pain, I decided to go to Park City to get it checked out. After an MRI and a couple visits with Dr. Cooley at Park City hospital, I found out that I have a decently bad bone bruise. Treatment for this injury is pretty simple- rest, spinning on the stationary bike, and icing the knee quite a bit. Unfortunately it’s a slow healing process (3-4 weeks), but I should be ready to go to Europe on Jan. 1!

I am planning on taking my training a bit slow right now to prevent any further injuries.  For now, it’s a lot of training and a lot of gym time, trying to get strong! I don’t plan on racing until I am fully up to speed. I will keep you posted.

ITS THAT TIME!

You know its time to start slicing some turns when you scroll through your instagram feed and see 9/10 of the most recent posts are of people shredding in Colorado. Last week I had physical testing in Park City, UT. Before I can go skiing, sports science wants to make sure the injured leg is within 92% strength of the non-injured leg. Problem is, I injured both legs… so I guess I am pretty damn even! Nonetheless, I am the strongest I have ever been, and I was cleared to go skiing. I spent 4 days in Copper Mountain, Colorado free skiing with coach Ian Lochhead, just going through the movements. I am now finishing up my fall term at Dartmouth and will be heading back out to Colorado on the 22^nd to start my winter!

Here is a little throwback to the first NorAm of the season last year, where I went from 23^rd after the first run to 11^th overall and a 4^th place on the second run, competing against multiple top 30 World Cup racers. 

Here is me doing the infamous 30-30-30 last week. The test consists of 30 jumps as high as you possibly can, followed by 30 seconds of rest, and then 30 more jumps as high as you can. The line that attaches to the harness around my waist runs into the ceiling to measure how high each jump is. First 30 jumps are easy… second 30 is stump city. Also, Simon Dumont comes into screen halfway through the video to scope out my hops. Pretty chill.