This past Monday I attempted to ski Cascade, a large peak near Provo, with teammate Brett Denney and though we eventually did some time on skis we also hiked and ran a fair amount.  http://app.strava.com/activities/54075722

It was certainly fun but a sure sign that summer is on the way!

On Tuesday we rode bikes for nearly 6 hours

http://app.strava.com/activities/54272529

 and finally on Wednesday we did some rollerskiing… 

http://app.strava.com/activities/54347167

We also lifted very heavy Monday, Wednesday and Friday this week and the pinnacle of my favorite Roosevelt quote came on Saturday when our team did a fun local fundraiser to support local education called Running with Ed.  We split 38 miles into 10 segments and did 2 each.  Now having not really run at all yet made it incredibly painful but to try and make it a longer workout we also rode our bikes between each leg.  While I don’t have an accurate Strava I can sum up my own day as such:

9 miles of running about 1/3 trail and 2/3 road with 1200’ of elevation gain while doing about 20 miles of cycling in between.

Adam Loomis tagging me

2nd place out of 170 teams. 38 miles of tough running in 3:49

with Bryan Fletcher, Adam Loomis, Nick Hendrickson and Tyler Smith!

Well, I’m a bit late on this update as we are well underway in our prep phase for Sochi, but I’d like to share a few thoughts and memories of our pre- pre-season.

Beginning in early April we started laying a foundation of endurance and strength that supports our more quality efforts, which will come later in the training year. Basically our first three months are spent increasing total weekly volumes of endurance training and strength as our bodies adapt and we can handle the increasing load. This past week, for instance, I’ve built up to the point where I am doing 18 hours of cardio training, including one “race pace” effort and one sub-maximal workout, with the rest being primarily easy (or as we call it, level 1) training

Now that snow has left the foothills, we are breaking our training into running, cycling, roller skiing and, if we feel like getting up really early and driving to the mountains, some on-snow skiing as well. Now 18 hours does not sound like a lot but....

to read the rest visit:

http://www.teamusa.org/Team-USA-Winter-Bloggers/Billy-Demong/Spring-Into-Training.aspx

I was the 29th skier to ski jump in the round and I executed my best jump of my year.  I turned to look and I was in third place!  With only 25 skiers left to go, I felt that I was going to put myself into contention in the cross-country race for my first individual podium of the season.   I think the smile showed as I walked past media, friends and family and they asked questions thinking the same good thoughts as I.  Then five skiers later, the wind changed.  Massively....

http://www.teamusa.org/Team-USA-Winter-Bloggers/Billy-Demong/Outdoor-Sport.aspx

In my last post I spoke about predominantly two things: the ability to peak at the right time and the importance of performing at the biggest events.  This past Sunday both of these things came to the test and my teammates showed their mettle.  We have had a solid year as a team with our youngest members, Bryan and Taylor Fletcher, earning....  (read the rest at TeamUSA.org)

http://www.teamusa.org/Team-USA-Winter-Bloggers/Billy-Demong/The-Magic-Of-Stache-Tats.aspx

Inline

Annually, we compete in over 20 World Cup competitions and the rigors of so many events spreads the urgency over month, and form comes and goes, but, like the Olympic Games, the World Championships focuses the athletes attention....

Read the rest at TeamUSA

http://www.teamusa.org/Team-USA-Winter-Bloggers/Billy-Demong/One-Year-To-Go.aspx

Yesterdays trip home from Sochi was uneventful as a triple connect from Sochi thru Zurich, Amsterdam, Minneapolis to Salt Lake could be be but time enough to cement one's clock being thrown off big time and here I am at 5am ready to train or do something to make myself better.  In fact I just fnished watching Ted Ligety win his opening event at the FIS World Alpine Champs in Schladming, Austria in Super G and that in and of itself was inspiring. 

Add that to having just had a lackluster weekend in the pre-olympic venue and I am starting to salivate at the prospect of climbing the result list.  If you read my last blog you know that I believe our Nordic Combined team is very close to to some very good things and like clockwork my teammate Taylor Fletcher raced onto the podium hrs or days later.  Our last trip was fits and starts with some good and some ugly but overall showing that we are amongst the teams that are fighting to win.  Home now I have a couple weeks to really try and automate the things I know can bring me to the podium in Val di Fiemme, Italy for our own World Championships later this month and especially lay the foundation for next season. 

My last trip I finally jumped at a level that  qualified me into the individual events each weekend and was good enough to place 12th in the Klingenthal World Cup.  Despite a less than perfect event in Sichi on Saturady I managed to find some form on the jumphill Sunday which helped our team jump close to the contenders.  I am an optimist and find solace in the small things but the urgency of the situation is not lost me and I am processing all this into clear tasks and goals to make changes that will put me back where I want to be.  All this aside I am enjoying watching both Fletcher bros continually push toward the top of the field and can only realise that them being where they are only gives me better targets to train with. 

It is like it has always been in Nordic Combined USA.  A team environment which breeds success as long as someone is always out front and setting a bar high enough for the rest to chase and also to realise how good we can be. 

To my teammates, lets make the next weeks training camp count and get'r done!

After suffering from whooping cough (yes whooping cough! Like cough til you gag, whooping cough.) for over a month I've started finding form on the cross country tracks again and the jumping portion continues to be my achilles.  Recently I've taken some pretty good jumps but the day to day reality is that I need to bring up my level.  I'm home now to try and do that.

After ringing in the New Year on a plane from SLC to Paris our team headed to Schonach, Germany for the historic Schwarzwald Pokal.  While Schonach has historically been a good place for me I failed to qualify in the individual event ski jumping provisional round.  On Sunday we had a Team relay and I was back on the start list.  Jumping for the team is a different feeling, instead of trying to qualify for my own I felt the pressure of making it happen for my boys.  That day I produced my best jump of the season and helped land the team with Bryan, Taylor and Todd in 6th place a mere 30 seconds behind the podium. 

Heading into the race we knew we had a chance and as the cross country track was reduced to boot deep slush we started licking our chops as those tough conditions have always favored us.  We sent Bryan out first followed by Taylor, a tactic designed to allow Taylor to try and bridge as much of the gap as possible.  Taylor delivered tagging Todd in 5th together with 4th place France.  Todd skied a smart race and left France's maxime Laheurte behind giving us a crucial gap over France and behind Austria in 3rd by only a few seconds.  As I was tagged any plan to start a bit easy went out the window and I put my head down catching Bernard Gruber quickly as we left the stadium and pouring on the gas to make Jason Lamy Chappuis pay as he tried to close from behind.  After several kms of hard skiing I felt Jason fade behind and Gruber breathing hard and I knew it was time to attack.  If left it to a sprint both of them could best me and my insurance was to go hard enough, early enough to make it clear.  I started with over a km to go and went into a pain so deep I thought I might fall over but the sound of Gruber falling behind was motivation to keep going.  Finally crossing the finish line I fell over harder than I ever have before and was greeted by my team exhuberant over the first Team USA Relay podium in a World Cup and the first since the games in Vancouver!  It was a huge day because although we did well we also knew we could have done even better.  A confidence boost for the whole squad as we start preperations for the World Champonships in Italy. 

Last weekend in Chaux Neuve, France Taylor again showed his strength by skiing the fastest time and moving through the field from 35th to 10th in the cross country portion.  On sunday we a Team Sprint event and the Fletchers Teamed up against myself and Johnny Spillane.  We skied most of the race together and in the end Taylor skied an amazing final km to land Team Fletcher in 7th out of 20 teams.  Not the best results we've ever had but solid stuff and something to build on.  My feeling is that we are closer than we even know.

A picture from the Team Sprint in Chaux Neuve courtesy of Jessica Walker

Col du Madeleine, Col du Glandon, l'Alpe d'Huez, Montee de Courchevel (some on rollerskis), Cormet de Roselend, Col du Petit St Bernard, Col de la Croix de Fer, Col du Telegraphe, Col du Galibier

for a grand total of 14,500 meters of climb over nearly 600km. 

This year we also had fellow Nordic Combined Olympians Jed Hinkley and Carl Van Loan, the proprieters of "Olympian Tours" bring several guests who rode with us and made some helpful donations to the National Nordic Foundation. Also supporting this effory was Fast Big Dog racing who through in some sicky kits and water bottles as well as Park City Cole Sport and Honey Stinger. 

Now the B team is training in Oberstdorf, Germany for several days and the A team is headed to Sochi to try out the new jumps and compete in some comps this coming weekend!

Here is a little video that mr @skifletch made to commerate our epic week.

Looking for the US Noco boys to fire it up in Lahti, Finland tomorrow at 9am est in the 2 man team relay.  Team 1 is Bryan and Taylor Fletcher, USA 2 is Brett Denney and Nick Hendrickson.

Go boys, go USA!

Best punch line for:

What do you get when you put a Biathlete and a Nordic Combiner side by side on a treadmill doing classic?

Win's a 2010 Bjorn Dahlie jacket from me and some kind of squarehead triple stripped Adidas thing from Teela.

Ever since we switched our nationals to fall it has become a more serious competition as it is the first test heading into winter for all the new found form instead of an april after-thought.  It has also opened the door for us to put the event in some places that could not typically host a spring tourney.  Norge proved to be a great host club and saturday was a really successful event.  We kicked off with the small hill jumping championships and with over 75 competitors it took some time to get through 3 rounds.  During which hundreds of people came to partake in the festival atmosphere around the base of the ski jump.  Though not the crowds of 5k+ they command in the winter it was pretty good for football season!  

Bryan Fletcher really showed his strength on the jumphill outdistancing Johnny Spillane and I by enough to get a 30 sec head start for the XC race.  And though I was sure we could catch him in the challenging 10km, which wound relentlessly up and over the back of the jumping hill, he managed to increase his lead by 10 sec over the first 5km.  So with half the race over and nearly a 40sec advantage I thought Bryan would take the title easily but Johnny and I were able to pick it up enough as Bryan faded to make contact with just a km remaining.  From there we all backed off a bit to try and recover for a move and in the end it was a 3 way dash for the last 200m.  I managed to edge out Johnny at the line!  Its a good motivation for the beggining of the last prep phase to know you are close to where you want to be.  What was really great about the weekend was seeing the strength of our up and coming junior squad.  Alec Gantic of Steamboat jumped to 2nd place in Nordic Combined and 17 year old Eric Lynch had a great jump and a fast race managing to outsprint Taylor Fletcher to take 5th place right behind Todd.  

In any case a former Nordic Combined Development athlete Dan Englund has put together a really neat video of the weekend.  His companyAerial Vantage Productions gets some really unique shots using a remote control helicopter to to follow jumpers through the air and skiers on the course.  Enjoy!

 It started saturday August 27th in Oberwiesenthal, Germany with my first Summer Grand Prix Nordic Combined event in a couple years.  A normal gundersen competition with one jump on the k-90 followed by a 10km pursuit.  I finished a lackluster 30th after blowing up mid-race trying to keep up with Taylor Fletcher but the day was highlighted by older brother Bryan's 8th place and near podium.  Also we had a youngster Eric Lynch a second generation Nordic Combined talent ski in his first A level competition in which he really held his own with a solid performance.  

Day 2 was Sunday another competition in the same venue but instead of a pursuit race we did the first ever Nordic Combined "Penalty" race.  in this format the winner of the jumping got a 10 sec head start on the field and the other 70 of us mass started for 6 laps around the 1.75km cobble stoned hilly nightmare around downtown.  The kicker is that depending on how you jumped you had to do a certain number of Penalty laps during the race as such: jump 101 or farther: 0 penalties  

jump 96-101: 1 penalty

jump 91-96: 2 penalty

and so on up to 6 laps!  Oh, and if you fail to have a telemark landing add one penalty or worse crash, add 3!

The penalty was a lap around the inside of an outdoor hocket rink off to the side of the course just past the cobbled section and you could choose when to do your laps 1 at a time or all at once on any lap.  

I wanted to hate this race when I heard about it but honestly it was pretty interesting and the tactic of when to take the penalties added alot to the race.  I had 1 penalty and I chose the 3rd lap to do it, I went from leading to 5th about 25 sec back.  After a couple more guys took their penalties I was in 3rd and there I stayed danging 25-30 sec behind the leading duo and pulling away from the field slowly.  Ultimately I finished on the podium my first since 2010.  

It was off to Czech Republic from there to play 18 holes of golf (walking with my clubs on my back) in a little NC get together on monday followed by another competition in Liberec on Wednesday where I skied a strong race but finished in 24th.  All in all it was some solid contact with the other teams and decent results in a very strong field.  After the race I beat for the Prague Airport to try and make it home in time for race #4.

Thursdays travel was long but I made it home by mid-afternoon after catching the Paris-Salt Lake direct.  And Friday I was back on my bike for the 2nd time since Leadville to preride the opening 10 miles of Park City's infamous Point 2 Point race.  Brutal! Those opening 10 were mostly hard single track and I hoped that later in the race it might ease up....

Saturday morning I walked outside at 5:45am after a mostly sleepless night (indigestion, baby up, etc...) to find that my windshield was iced over and it was pitch dark.  I rallied with my buddy Bryson Perry to get everything ready and out the door to get to the start line.  We were lucky that we could park at the US Ski Team training center by the start because most of the field had to ride out in the dark from town!  And seeing as it was 36 degrees at 6:30am it was not that nice to be sitting around in spandex.  We lined up at 6:55 and race director Jay Burke informed us that the race would commence after 100m of neutral around a gate.  With that said it was on and though I tried to move up the strong group of frontrunners quickly had the race going full gas onto the single mile of 2-track. After hitting the single track of rusty shovel in about 30th I knew my chances of winning were about done which I quickly became pretty happy about.

PCP2P, if you haven't heard of it, is about as pure a mountain bike race as you'd (n)ever want to do.  Among it's 78 or so miles is about 76 miles of singletrack and 14,000 ft of climbing (and gnar-kill descending).  It will beat you up, make you cry, and when it turns uphill once more 3 miles from the finish line will make you murderously unhappy at the volunteers pointing you up and away from the finish line.  

It requires the utmost fitness and focus and ton of food and drink.  Without getting overly detailed into my own personal religious experience I'll tell you this:  I consumed a camelback of water, 4 bottle of sports drink, 4 bottles of water, 2 cokes, 3 probars, a sandwich, a HoneyStinger Waffle, multiple handfuls of Stinger chews, 20+salt pills and a 7-11 Hotdog with ketchup.  All of which and especially the hot dog I aquired from my good friend Jeremy Teela, who I anxiously await feeding in next years PCP2P.  I rode for 8 hours and 17 minutes rarely stopping except to eat/drink and stave off cramps.  And I felt GOOD most of the time!  Good being a relative term, but since I did not chase down the likes of Alex Grant and Tinker Juarez I settled into my own pace thereby eliminating a lot of pain.  In short I thought people were crazy when they called the Leadville 100 a "road race," but now I'm definetly gonna say "Leadville is a (really hard) total road race!"

Needless to say I took 3 days completely off and just now am considering getting off the couch to try and start putting the pieces back together for next winter! 

Don't worry we've being doing our intervals on rollerski's.

   Truth is that as much fun as this summer has been I'm truely looking forward to skiing for a living again.  I'm hankering for Sochi and everything that lies between now and then.  Long ass bus rides, strange hotels, ridiculous foriegners yelling at you about something in another language and you have no idea what?!  Then the good stuff, awesome days racing, training, just out and about in other cultures.  I want it all (for at least a few more years) but right now I need like two extra weeks before Suomi. 

    This past summer I rebuilt my WHOLE(of a) house in Park City.  Somehow managing to toss that in between post Olympic madness on the road, a few NRC stage races, and of course slowing down for just a few to marry my sweet heart Katie Koczynski Demong!  New windows, doors, floors, additions, decks  all day everyday for many many days.

In any case, we finally got on snow.  5 days in a row even!  After doing a fair bit of skating out at Whitepine, a back country day at Alta and some intervals I'm starting to finally feel a flow that has been missing of late.  

Hopefully the snow holds up, I'll do the best with the time I've got before heading out.  Regardless, I am amped about Worlds in Oslo and especially the prospect of skiing for four more years!

Enjoy this:

As fasterskier.com has already pretty much covered pre-race I will simply add that local favorite Duncan Douglas is according to my phone call last night, "too busy counting calories down in a Hospital in Newark, NJ covering 80 hrs of shifts a week!" to some defend the title.  Looks like whoever wins this thing will need an * denoting the lack of a full field.  That being said the Biathlon team is also out in Park City, Utah for their annual camp.  

Yesterday the US and Australian Nordic Combined squads had a little "fun" comp that culminated with a race up the shorter albeit steeper side of whiteface.  Yes thats right the Aussies have decided to take up the sport!  With veteran XC skier Ben Simm leading the charge with 17 year old prodigy Jackson the two have joined us in Park City and now Lake Placid to learn the ropes.  While they jumped the 40 meter here in LP we put them into the pursuit race at appropriate intervals.  The Camerota bros Brett and Eric nearly tied for the win in the jumping with yours truely trailing by 0:28 and Bryan Fletcher another 0:18 back.  Ben Simm was thrown into the mix starting 2:00 min behind.  Good for me seeing as Ben recently swept all 4 races at the Aussie Championships and has been flying in recent intensity sessions!

After 9.3km and about 28 min of racing I was able to hang onto a 0:15 advantage over Simm who had mowed through the field and he was closely followed by Taylor and Bryan Fletcher for 3rd and 4th.  So high hopes for the budding team from down-under.  It speaks well to the future of the sport that a new country is joining the fray, as well as jumps opening and reopening across the country like the new venue slated for Aspen, CO.

Following tomorrows slugfest we will be having our annual Flaming Leaves jumping and Nordic Combined Comps on Sat and Sun at the Olympic Jumping Complex.  Jumping starts at 11am both days and the Nordic Combined portion will take place on the rollerski loop at 8:30 am Sunday morning.  If you want to watch the NC skiers duke it out prepare to park at the Horse Show grounds across the street as the gate to the venue won't open until 9:00am.

Hope to see you out here!

First off I want to point out that Dewey Mountain is probably the most challenging ski area in world as its narrow trails wind and dive through the woods in a manner that requires fierce concentration.  Though it's primary 8 kms or so of skiing lie on a mere 30 acres, the heavily forested slope on which they meander offer brief glimpses of upcoming corners and diving downhills mere seconds before you find yourself cutting hard and dropping in.  It is the perfect venue for teaching young kids how to ski and get their survival skill set. As an adult I ski Dewey for an hour or so and ive done it all, albeit each steep uphill gasping for air and trying not to break into a snow plow screaming down the descents.  Much of this definitely contributed to a foggy memory I have of walking down the trail after getting the worst of a tree stump during a game of Chinese Downhill (which was the Thursday night high-school practice routine) one broken sacrum, and I believe a good friend of mine by the name of Mike Stemp may have had a concussion.

But as we reflected over lunch there is a lot of history that went into Dewey Mountains existance as well the history made by the boys and girls who grew up skiing there.  The Mountain was originally set up with a rope tow in 1941, but after a season of nearly no snow and with WWII coming on the operation shut down.  In 1980 the town invested in starting a trail system and by 1981 the trails designed by Craig Ward from Aspen, Co opened up and under the lights a lively scene of youth programs and races grew on cold Adirondack nights.  A whole host of young families with kids from 4-10 years old rallyed a few nights a week to Dewey Mountain for practice.  Among that group of kids many of whom continued to ski through high school and beyond were a few who made a career out of Nordic Skiing.  I was one of those youth as I started skiing at Dewey in 1985 as well as Timothy Burke, both of us have for the past 25 years made skiing our lifestyle and our pursuit.  And last season both of us did something no other American has done.  I won a Gold Medal in Nordic Combined in Vancouver, and Tim held the Yellow (golden) Bib as the World Cup Leader for a chunk of the season.  Two big firsts for American nordic skiing, from two little boys who grew up skiing the World's toughest Nordic Venue!

This afternoon I attended a kick-off party.  It was a huge gathering of people at Dewey Mountain.  Since 1981 very little has changed at Dewey, and although the youth program is strong and building this group of people is gathered to kick-off a drive to rejuvenate the mountain, it's facilities, and it's trails.  The people collected here range from Congressman Bill Owen and ski Historian Nat Leduc, to the next generation of lollipoppers and bill kochers...  The parents of the new generation are meeting the parents of my generation.  It is a reunion of all those that have called Dewey home in their lives and a union with those that will call it home.  I am so eager to see how this project will grow and develope.  It will in many ways be much like when Dewey was first built in 1981 when the town, the village, the donors, and the volunteers came together to make it happen. 

Right as I was leaving Dewey Mountain this afternoon a little boy came up to me and his mother asked him, "what do you want to be when you grow up?"  He replied sharply, "I'm going to ski like Billy Demong!"  That's kind of creepy to hear if you are me.... But such a huge start toward building the next generation of Dewey Mountain Olympians!

Hammer Down!