Forever Inspired

This past weekend John and I had the pleasure of participating in the 35^th Wells Fargo Ski Cup Challenge weekend at Winter Park. It is 3 days filled with skiing, racing, eating, drinking, old friends, new friends and laughter! My old friend Scott Franssen invited John and I to the weekend of events and Audi invited us to ski with the Henry Wurst Inc Ski Team. So we not only got to ski in some great snow, we got to hit the gates on the race course and experience a tiny bit of what it must be like to fly down an icy alpine race course!

The Wells Fargo Ski Cup is a fund raising weekend for the National Sports Center for the Disabled. If you want to learn more about the vast array of programs for NSCD check out their website at http://www.nscd.org/. The coolest part of the weekend for me was twofold; to learn more about the NSCD programs and then meet so many amazing athletes that are associated with them! The ski races are made up of corporate teams and each team is assigned an athlete from NSCD. The Henry Wurst team had the distinct pleasure of sharing the slopes with an incredible woman and athlete named Alana Nichols. Alana’s story is too long and amazing to tell you about here so check out her biography at http://usparalympics.org/athletes/alana-nichols Before Alana started to ski 2 years ago she won her first Gold Medal as a member of the U.S. Paralympic Women's Wheelchair Basketball Team in Beijing. Since then her skiing continues to get stronger and she will be competing for Gold in Vancouver! Needless to say Alana had the fastest time of all her male teammates! John, Tom, Bill, Bob and Tom were all great competitors however they did not ski strong enough to win anything except bragging rights! Dean Hruby was an awesome team coach and Deb and Audi were the best cheerleaders!

I have to say that dinner Saturday night was incredible. Not just because of the incredible pizza at The Pub in Winter Park…because of the incredible company we encountered at The Pub! Alana and some of her teammates were hanging out and having pizza too so we joined them. John and I had dinner with 3 Olympians and at least 1 if not 2 future Olympians! I am quite confident that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity so I want to thank each of the athletes for letting hang out with them. Of course they are young and full of life….but they are also disciplined committed and mildly crazy athletes who train and race with an energy and dedication that I respect and envy! Tyler, a 16 year old alpine skier, is the guy to watch in 2014 as he will be in Vancouver learning the ropes. Brad, a terrific guy who works at the Fraser Tubing Hill when he isn’t cutting trees or killing it on the alpine slopes, is an Olympian who will be in Vancouver. Greg Peck, you may have seen his classic crash at the X Games in Aspen on his mono-ski, has a look of Stifler in his eyes and a laugh that is infectious. John, a Veteran and downhill skier, may not make it to the Olympics because, like many of us, he has to work to support his family. Each of these athletes has their own story and I encourage everyone to learn more about the programs that support their efforts to achieve their athletic goals. I am so grateful for having met them… I am in inspired awe. We had them sign John’s race bib so when they are all in Russia in 2014 we can say “we knew them when…”

The rest of the weekend included connecting with my mentor and friend Bob Litchard. In fact it was an anniversary for Bob, Scott and I…8 years ago this same weekend I had my very own “yard sale” at the base of Vail Mountain while skiing with the Litchards, Scott and our old friend Dana. That seems like a lifetime ago and yet I still feel so connected to each of them!

Many thanks to Henry Wurst Inc, John, Audi, Scott, Bob, Alana, Kristen, Dean and Deb for a great weekend!