TJ Baldwin : September 2013

Hey Guys

As usual, it has been a while since I last blogged!

Loads of stuff has been going on, it has been an amazing summer, I got lots of good physical preparation done before I flew over to Chile. I even managed to squeeze in a short break to Barcelona with my very supportive girlfriend, to relax and keep the mind fresh before a long trip away! (Just earned myself some brownie points haha)

I have been in Chile for just over 3 weeks now and so far its been a great trip! My first destination was Termas de Chillan which is about an 8 hour bus journey south of Santiago. It's a really cool place, the mountains aren't as big and impressive as the ones further north but you are into volcano territory! In fact the ski resort itself is situated on a volcano, so if the wind is blowing in the right/wrong direction, you get a pretty strong smell of sulphur! The training there was fantastic, lots of speed training, on really good snow, with some other national teams (Swiss and Spanish speed men/German speed girls). I also had some races while I was there, two super combines organised by the Swiss national team. Both the sg runs went pretty well, I mixed in the top 10 with the Swiss boys which I was happy about! Sadly I didn't make any points, Patrick Kueng was on fire and smashed both sg runs! In the one super combi that I completed, I finished 6th scoring 29 FIS points. Not a bad result at all. Overall, a good 10 days training and racing!

After Chillan we headed back up north to a place called Farellones, for a week of races in La Parva. To some frustration, the weather wasn't on our side, so we had some delayed races and some poor snow conditions. Somehow though we managed to fit in two downhill races and a super combined. The first downhill didn't go as I had planned, I struggled in the tough conditions and wasn't very fast. For the second downhill I toughened up, charged as hard as I could and managed the rough conditions a lot better. It wasn't the prettiest of runs and it certainly didn't feel nice but I finished with a decent time in 10th place, scoring 22 FIS points. My best result in a SAC (south american cup) race so I am happy with it! Similar story in the super combined again, conditions where poor and it was really tough to be fast. I had an average run in the sg and then skied pretty well in the slalom to finish 8th scoring a 37. Not a perfect race but this result paired with my result from Chillan should now move me into the top 100 world rankings.

The weather has been terrible for skiing the last 5 days so I have been in Santiago taking a short break to rest up before another 4 week skiing block back in Termas de Chillan. So far the trip has been amazing, I have had some really good, hard training, been to some amazing places and am having lots of fun along the way! I have missed loads of stuff out, but you would be here reading till next week if I was to write it all! So instead I am just going to upload loads of pictures so you can see. Plus we all know the best part of a blog are the pictures anyway!!!

Thanks for reading.

Keep it real!

Tj