In the Spirit

Hey guys this is Colin, I am currently at Spirit Mountain in Duluth, MN at an FIS race. As a first year J2 I'm just learning the ropes and trying to get the year going. I'm super ecstatic with my finishes so far this year and how I was able to drop my slalom points down to 75 and GS points down to 105 at the beginning of my first year.

The races are a totally different thing though, what with all the new rules (hiking when you lost a ski and what not) and the depth of competition. One of the most memorable races so far this year was Loc Lomond, Ontario one of the steepest GS hills I have skied on.

School is going great as too, I just finished mid-terms with all A's and am hoping to keep it up.

.)) Colin Vogel

Summer in the Mid-West

Hey guys, this summer has been pretty awesome and now I get to share what I did. First of all, I went back up north with my friend and guess what? I got a quarter of the flip more, on the back roll. I also learned how to wake surf, basically surfing behind the boat.

I came back and a couple weeks of conditioning and I'm heading back up north with the family to have a vacation in Door County. It was legit because they had a jet ski and well jet skis are just fun. :) We also went rock climbing, but not big cliffs. When I came back it was basically just conditioning, and hanging out with friends. I'm going to the Loveland camp in October with Team Central for a GS camp. Then a few weeks later I go back there for the thanksgiving camp my team has. The thanksgiving camp, is one of my favorite camps because I've been doing it for so long and well I'm skiing in Colorado!!

I look forward to moving back to Marquette, Michigan when I get home from Colorado again so I can train every day with my coaches. Looking forward to the physical assessment and of course skiing with all the SRD Team.

 .)) Colin Vogel

Vogel's Voice: Top in Central

Hey guys, so it's been a pretty eventful month or so, with all the races going on and travel etc. At the qualifiers at my home hill in Marquette Michigan, everything came together and I won every race except slalom. It's even more fun when you win by one 100th against a good friend..... which I did in 1 of my GS races! How crazy is that? One 100th? On the last night, we had the dreadful awards that last like 3 hours of listening to Brewster McVicker announce all the events and winners and finally the overall winner! I hit my 1st goal of being the overall winner in my division.

After all that, we started to drive to Aspen 4 days later which is such a boring and long drive. When we got to Aspen, the place we were staying at was amazing! It was 30 minutes away but that was ok because we were able to eat at home every night and save a ton of money.

As always the first morning of an event is the hardest with waking up so early. It usually gets better though, the training was decent for downhill. I tried my DH skis the first day but felt I could do better on my SG skis so I switched for the next training run and the race. It paid off, for the race I was winning all the splits when I ran 21st but 2 gates before the finish I got launched into some of the soft snow and had to stand up to pull out of it. Still not sure how I made it. That bobble cost me the race putting me in 6th. SG had no major struggles and went home with a 7th, I was pretty fired up. For GS I decided to go for broke and even though I managed to boot out, I still got 15th on a really technical course so I was pretty happy with myself. It was by far the coolest GS course I have ever skied.

All I needed to do now was have a good day of Slalom which seemed to be going great after training on the day off. That night though I caught the flu and had a really high fever until about 2am the day of the Slalom. As bad as I wanted to race, I had no strength and didn't want to risk injury. There were a couple of guys who I normally am very close to that ended up in the top 5 or 10 so that may have helped my overall a lot. Oh well, welcome to ski racing right?

I really liked the skiing at Aspen and it was fun to hang with fellow SRD member Andrew Hancock a little at the awards. Andrew and Serina did really well, I hope to bring more to the SRD table next year in J2's. The Aspen team ripped it up and I am happy that I was at least the top kid from Central. Next year is a new year and lots of things change every year. I look forward to training harder and trying to improve on my results. What a crazy sport, 1 tiny mistake and your back a couple spots. I guess that's the fun of the Championships.......everyone is a really good skier.

Then to top things off, we get home and I find out I made the print with a cool picture in Ski Racing magazine for the DH at my qualifiers that was pretty cool.

I hope everyone has a GREAT summer and look forward to more blogs of summer activity

.)) Colin Vogel

Vogel's Views

Hey guys, so my life has been pretty uneventful lately, I have been training non stop for a few months now which is totally awesome! It's a different feeling that I already have more training days than all my training days total from last year, for a lack of ski hill in Wisconsin where I live. Instead of driving 4 1/2 hours I only have to go 4 - 5 minutes.........

I went to Topolino Trials which is really Slovenia Trials now because they had to change it because of conflicting dates. I wish I could of done better but nobody skis their best at every race. So I took it as an experience and just more training! My coach got great video of many skiers so it has been awesome to review with Dartfish. I can definitely tell all this training is helping, it feels like I'm improving a lot.

I am doing another speed camp with Carolyn Lalive next week who was my coach in November at Copper so that will be a ton of fun. My next real race is championships in mid February so I have a lot more training and definitely a lot more conditioning in preparation for that race. Ski fast !!!

.)) Colin Vogel

Colin's Fall Camps

Hey guys, over the last 2 months I have been doing a lot of fun things to help my skiing. I was out in Colorado for 2 weeks for some awesome training with my coaches and the central division. At first I was training at Loveland, 9:30 chair lift ride till 11:30 with just drills, then we had an hour break to eat, change, etc. Then we would head over to the basin at 12:30 to do some gates and other things like apex drills and stuff like that till 4:00. The best part about that camp was that I got to train with my own coaches, which is more comfortable than training with unfamiliar faces.

After the Loveland camp I drove over to Copper with my Dad for some speed training with the central division. For that camp it was really cool because I got coached by a world cup speed skier, which really made the whole experience that much better. This camp was exhausting though, with the 6:30 am chair lift rides, and the freezing weather, I was sure glad when I was able to just go to sleep, only to do the same thing over again.

Of course skiing always intervenes with my school work so, I had so much to catch up on when I got back. Fortunately my teachers gave me some of my homework before I left so I wasn't totally lost when I got back.

Racing has begun with great results but I know I left a ton of time on the hill........ always room for improvement..........

Hope everyone has a great holiday and best of luck to all this season !!!!

.)) Colin Vogel

Our best from the Midwest...

I moved to Marquette, MI this past weekend so I could live and go to school closer to where I train with Great Lakes Ski Academy at Marquette Mountain. Today, 11/8, was my first day at my new school, MSHS or Marquette Senior High School. Everyone was very friendly and all my classmates welcomed me into their school. It wasn't like going to a school where I didn't know anyone, most of my teammates from GLSA go to this school too. Its funny because for my classes to switch over between schools, the counselors had to match classes and at my new school I am in a junior and sophomore class where back home they are freshman classes. I'm in a junior world studies and a sophomore biology even though they were both freshman classes at my other school. So a lot of the people think I'm like some brainiac student or something which is kind of funny.

Yesterday I took my second physical assesment test. It was just as "painful" as the one I went to earlier in the year but I was determined to do better even if it wasn't a drastic change. I did better in every category so I was happy I did it again. What I don't really get is, why we don't just do the box jumps and/or pacer first so we have all the energy for those two excersises.

It will be a lot different living up in Marquette only minutes from training every day compared to a 5 hour drive one way to train a couple weekends each month if I was lucky. I am really excited to be with all my teammates that I have raced with for like 10 years or something. We don't have snow here yet so I'm doing all I can to help my skiing whether its working out or helping out around the house. I cant wait to get back on snow and promote SRD in the ski racing world! I leave for 2 weeks of camps at Loveland and Copper next Wednesday, I hope to run into some of you if you are there too.

.)) Colin Vogel

First report from Central

Hey SRD, I’m new to the team and not exactly sure what to do with this blog and all, but what I have read in the past blogs is that I basically write about what happened during the summer or over a certain amount of time. For me, this is kinda cool to have like a second team, with a whole bunch of new teammates that share my same interests.

Over the summer I was able to go up north with my friend and go wake boarding. Although…. It was like the coldest water I have ever been in and it was pouring cold drops of rain for the first day. We still had the best time ever learning new tricks. I’m not that great of a wake boarder but that doesn’t stop me from being stupid in my sports. I basically tried to do a back roll (like a back flip) but it failed and I landed right on my face on the freezing cold water. That was the last wakeboarding for me on that trip, my face was stinging and my hands were already blistered from holding the rope.

When I got back from up north, I jumped into my fall dry land training and started my freshman football season. Our record so far is 6-1. We have one game left in our season so I’m hoping to help make our record 7-1 which is a realistic goal for our team. My dry land all led up to the physical assessment test I just had which I did decent in but I really think I could of done better, so I’m doing another one in Norway, Michigan in early November.

I hope I get to meet everyone at some point during the season.

.)) Colin Vogel