RECIPE-

Twenty-four years on skis, 
Ten years on the US Ski Team,
Two Olympic Teams, 
Three World Championships 
One Hundred Forty-Nine World Cup races. 
One Million Smiles
One Thousand frustrations
An Ounce of belief
A Dash of Magic

That is precisely the recipe it took for me to achieve a World Cup podium, twice actually! WOW. WoW, Wow, Wow. What a journey.  And the best part is that my feeling right now is that the journey is just beginning! 

I look at those numbers and realize some people would think I am crazy for holding on so long. Skiing isn't an incredibly popular sport and the payoff sure doesn't compare to many other professional sports these days. But I know I was bound to face this journey in some face of life and I am grateful learn so much about the world and myself while doing something I absolutely love. 

I have doubted that I would ever reach some of my highest goals, but I have never stopped working hard at them no matter how big that doubt was. Maybe my belief was stronger than my doubt even though I didn't always realize it. Maybe I was just always blessed with the right surroundings at the right times that kept me going. As much as I think this is my own journey, I know it hasn't been a journey on my own. If I tried to thank everyone who has helped me in any shape or form along the way, I would (1) forget a ton of people because I have hit my head too many times along the way and (2) I would eat up all my website space because the list would go on and on and on. You all know who you are, and I am forever grateful to you. 

Thanks so much to my sponsors for your endless support and belief in me. I ask my friends and fans to support my sponsors as well as it is always good to support companies that have kind hearts. Thanks to my parents for never asking when they are going to have grandkids, among the other things I am grateful to you for, my family for being just plain AWESOME, my friends for making me realize skiing isn't the world when I get too narrow minded, and to all my fans, old and new, for showing so much love! 

I have more conquering of the world to do, so I will write more later... in April probably! 

Stacey

In summary-
I have had successes, I have struggled, I have nearly given-up, I have learned, I have changed, I have struggled some more, I have learned some more, I have always loved skiing, I have been blessed with some incredible people in my life.

I have been asked A LOT lately what I thought of the London Olympics. These games, just as I hope all Olympics do, have really seemed to inspire a ton of people. The truth for me is that I didn't really get an opportunity to see much. The first half of the games I was in New Zealand which is 1/2 way around the world from London, and therefore on a very different time schedule. The second half of the games I was at home without a TV. I followed what I could on the internet and checked to see how Team USA and some of my favorite athletes were doing, but I wasn't very involved. I love the Olympics and everything about it, so I have thought a bit about why it didn't spark a big desire in me to watch this time around.  Then this blog came to my attention
http://blog.oplopanax.ca/2010/02/on-olympic-aspirations/

I had never seen this until this week and it really brought back some memories (or lack thereof since I don't remember much of this incident).  It did make me mad a bit and it lit more of a fire in me that the London games was able to. Seeing this made me realize why I, subconsciously, may not have been watching the Olympics. It is too close still and too emotional. I have one goal in mind in the next two years and I know obtaining too much emotion is not the way to go about it, so I removed myself from it. I really want another chance to go for Gold, I want a fair chance this time with no fences or helicopters, I want to do everything I can before then to give myself the best opportunity. That is about all the emotion I can put into my current life, so adding the incredibly inspiring stories of the summer athletes to that was just too much.

With that said, I am extremely proud of Team USA, especially of my friends Meb (4th place, Marathon) and Allyson (3 Gold medals). I also look forward to a time when I can watch the Olympics as an outsider and cheer as loud as possible, but that will have to wait 18 months or so. 

I love exploring. There is just something about seeing our diverse world with an open eye that really lights my spirit up. Maybe it is the humbling fact of really learning how small we are as individuals in this great big world that really fires me up to try to always be bigger and better. Mother Nature really has a way of making you feel small and not in control, the stubbornness inside me is always trying to beat that! I never will, but hopefully my stubbornness always keeps trying. On the way to New Zealand this year, my teammate and friend Laurenne Ross and I made a pit stop in Maui to visit another teammate and friend, Julia Mancuso. Julia invited us to her home to show us a bit of her world. Julia is a very impressive person, very real and generous, and her free spirit is contagious. She spoiled Laurenne and I by going over the top as a host. I have lived in Maui for a few months before, but Jules really knows how to explore and there is always new experiences out there. We explored some awesome lava tubes and cliff jumps on a hike, and had a really early morning to watch the sun rise on top of the volcano. Time in the ocean was part of the daily program as well. I am truly grateful for a few "wild" island days and thank you very much Jules for the opportunity. 
After the pit-stop, it was time to head back to winter down under. Laurenne and I stayed in Auckland for 2 days while Jules continued on to the South Island. Our city time wasn't too crazy, but we got to see a bit of the city and we really did go on a all out search for the best food. I can't really report Auckland as being a culinary destination, but it is always good for this small town girl to get to a big city. It really makes me appreciate getting back to small towns!
Finally it was time to get on snow and winter didn't seem nearly as cold and unfriendly once the skis hit the snow. Our team did 2 solid weeks of GS training. It is good for speed skiers like myself to practice GS and move a little quicker then we are used too.  A solid turn performed at the quick GS tempo is easy to translate into a Downhill turn at higher speed but slower tempo. The other project for the camp was to start adapting to the new, larger radius equipment we will be using on the World Cup this year. The skis are different, but not in a bad way. They force the skier to be more precise and you cant really get away with technique flaws like the old skis allowed. I am happy with my Rossi's and think with more time on snow everything will become second nature again, but I do worry about 16 year olds having to use these in the future. 
Besides a large bruise on my hip, a sprained thumb, and 3 purple toes, I left camp feeling progressive, happy, and healthy. I can't wait to get to Chile and start going fast again. Until then, I am sure going to make the most of every California summer day I can. 

There are few experiences in life that we can call life changing.  Those events are worth writing about hence the reason I am back on my blog after a long summer hiatus.  Most that follow this blog may already know about my time with the Navy a few weeks ago and many of the activities that transpired while I was there, but I would like to put the experience in my own words since so much can be lost in translation with the media. and also to help me remember it all. I believe you can learn from everything and everyone, but the amount I learned on June 18th and 19th has taken a few weeks to gather into real thoughts and memories.  I know this experience has changed my life for the better although time is the best testament as to how I can use what I learned, felt, and saw.


The question I have been asked most since being at the Fallon Naval Air Station is not about the flight or the people I met, but instead how on earth I got to do this. The answer is that I am extremely lucky and am surrounded by incredible people.  I went to a mothers day party in Mammoth with many of my friends whose mothers live out of the area.  We were celebrating our favorite in-town "Mama"!  I met a new friend at the party briefly but had no idea who she was or what she did.  The next day I found out via email that she is a commander in the Navy and she asked if I was interested in such a project.  Of course I was, but I doubted the reality of something so cool actually occurring.  Being a teammate in the shadows of a couple of super stars has both its pluses and minuses.  The pluses being that I don't face the same pressures and commitments that they do (which I am thankful for), the minuses being that almost all the cool experiences off the snow go to them.  I guess I am use to reading about Lindsey and Julia doing stuff like this, so I doubted a bit that it was my turn.  I learned that the Navy is true to their word and the pieces quickly fell into place.  Kelly Clark happened to be in a coffee shop with me during some of the correspondence and I asked if she was interested to be my "wing man".  We always talk about trying to close the gap between skiers and snowboarders and this was the perfect opportunity for that. Before we knew it, the two of us were in Fallon, Nevada wide eyed and ready.  

It felt like true military style to be waking up at 3:30 in order to get both of my workouts in before I had to meet NBC at 9.  My trainer informed me that even an experience like this didn't justify a day off in the gym!  The Navy ran this project through its Public Relations department and the US Ski Team helped insure their time, effort, and money was well spent by having NBC come and film.  The footage will be used as b-roll in the Olympics and for segments in USSA produced events that air on NBC this coming winter.  

Our first official duty was a meet and greet with sailors on the base.  We were lightly briefed on the ranking system and that each sailor wears an emblem that displays their rank.  I thought that would be cool to know, but once the sailors started showing up they were all just men and women in uniform and equally as cool as the one before them.  Of all the meet and greets I have done over the years, this was easily the best.  It was small enough that we actually got to talk to each sailor and learn their stories. We met everyone from janitors to the Rear Admiral and they all are so nice and interesting.  After the meet and greet and some lunch it was down to business in our modified flight training school.  Thank goodness we did not have to go through the simulated drowning like we thought.  Instead it was death by powerpoint in order to save our lives if the unexpected occurred.  I loved that we were given tools to evade the enemy on the ground if we needed to.  I quickly asked if there are "enemies" in Nevada we should worry about.  They said it was all clear other then the mountain lions!  Most of what we learned was what not to do in the cockpit and what to do in "just in case" situations.  I enjoyed learning all of this even though it kind of freaked me out.  We learned about the safety gear, the cockpit, and ejection seat.  We also talked a lot about the jet and what it is capable of.  Our training was put to an end for the day when it was time to head off to our next meet and greet at the Teen Center on the base.  

Kelly and I have very different Olympic experiences.  She has won medals and I have hit fences, earned helicopter rides I don't remember, and fought to just compete.  Our stories complement each other and our shared belief that it is important to give everything you have to a task and to push yourself constantly to be the best you can be.  But at the end of the day an athletic achievement doesn't define you.  What defines you is how you carry yourself as a person through the good and the bad, and how we can give and share with others to help them be better people as well.  It was really fun sharing this with the teens.  

It was another early morning on our second day but there was zero concern about oversleeping the alarm.  I felt like a kid on Christmas day I was so excited.  We checked in at the base at 5:45.  Since it was a $10 fine to quote the movie Top Gun, my favourite quote came when Kelly said "one day hanging out with a skier and I am already up before the sun!".  We got outfitted in all our gear to make sure everything fit right, just to take it all off again. We also did another cockpit familiarisation.  Even though I met my pilot Lutenient Commander  Adrian Calder, call sign BOA, the day before in the meet and greet, I now had the opportunity to meet him in his element.  We went over our plan for the flight and he gave me the best description of what to expect even though, as I know now, it is really hard to describe the feeling of flight to someone who has never experienced it.  He was so thorough and professional that I never once felt nervous or scared, much to the disbelief of those who have flown commercially with me.  My feeling was pure excitement and embracing the unknown.  Just like in ski racing, the hurry up and wait lifestyle had its place here also.   We got to wait in the waiting room with all the Top Gun pilots and instructors.  Even though there is a clear order of rank in that world, it is so hard to tell from the outside as the professionalism of everyone is over the top.  This waiting area was identical to the feeling of the athlete lounge at a World Cup Downhill race.   Everyone has an aura around them of extreme desire to succeed and a wealth of knowledge and experience to do so despite the risk involved in the future task. This is where I first learned how much my teammates and I have in common with this group of people from a crazy different world.  It was so inspiring to just be around this group of men (there were no women pilots in the room at that time, but I did meet one after my flight).  The word came that it was go time and reality sank in about what I was about to do.  That reality was even more clear when the mechanic that helped strap me in informed me that even he had never had the chance to fly in this jet.  Wow.  

We were in the air for an hour and a half although it felt like 5 minutes.  We did everything I could have imagined.  It was so cool!  Even though the manuvering we did was nowhere close to what these machines and the pilots are capable of, it was all I could handle.  I LOVED the manuvering part of the flight and trying to watch out the canopy and see the manuvering of our wingman from that point of view was  so unique.  The power of the jets becomes very clear when you see them so gracefully defying the rules of gravity.

The awareness of the pilots is so crazy it is hard to explain.  I think I have good body awareness as an athlete, but their awareness in space is so much more advanced.  Knowing where you are in space is one thing, controlling a $20 million dollar jet at the same time is another element and doing that at the same time as battling all the unnatural forces just makes what they do incomprehensible. The forces literally plaster you to your seat.  I reached 6 g's, so imagine six of you sitting on top of every part of your body and then someone trying to drain all the blood out of your brain at the same time and that is what it feels like.  I didn't even have the strength to lift my finger up a inch while the g's were upon us and meanwhile the pilots every movement is controlling the plane.  Does that explain it well enough? Still no....

We did a Mach run and broke the speed of sound going mach 1.08 while in a dive.  That kind of speed is my new goal on skis!  We did a valley run where the plane is flying at a low level and following the contours of a valley.  The valley we went through had a road winding through it and we flew 500 feet over two cars.  Imagine their shock!  We got a birds eye view of Mammoth and Yosemite  and then all the way up the Sierra's past Lake Tahoe and Truckee and did another low level run through the valley that my parents live in.  I thought it would be cool to fly over Tahoe upside down so headed back south and did that then had one last treat doing a carrier break which feels like buzzing the tower but actually is the fastest and most efficient way to get the plane on the ground.  Then we did a carrier landing.  Told you I did everything!

Kelly had her turn next and it was just as fun watching her get ready and take off.  While she was in the air, I got to see one of the Navy's helicopters up close.    Those are very cool machines as well and I am thinking we should organise a heli-skiing project in the Ruby mountains next spring! Post flight interviews lasted almost an hour, I had so much to say! Maybe I was subconsciously trying to draw the experience out as I didn't want it to end.  My new friends were hard to say goodbye to.  I am so proud of them and what they do for our country, and getting to see the inside workings of the Navy only increases that pride.  I can not do what I do with out these men and women fighting for the freedom that allows me to chase a dream of my choice. We both represent our country in very different ways, but with the same pride.  Everyone has said that the similarity I found between the personality of my teammates and I and the pilots is probably because we both have "a need for speed" or we love the adrenaline rush, but I believe it is because we both live our lives with so much passion for what we do and use that passion to overcome the negatives or fear involved in our jobs.   That kind of passion and zest for life is rare, but I found it in Top Gun.  

I am so thankful to have been blessed with this opportunity.  I can't imagine anyone enjoying and appreciating it more then I did!  A big thanks to everyone who helped make the experience so special, to the Navy for enlightening me to what you are doing, and to all that serve, especially the members of my family, for believing in how great freedom can be.