Tom Keefe Ski Life Diary

I'm finally back in Aroostook county Maine after a long four months of traveling and racing. The supertour race series is now over with the exception of spring series in late March. International Spring Series, the last of the point scoring races, will be held at the Nordic Heritage Center in Presque Isle Maine March 19th-26th. Until then I will be putting in some solid hours of training in hopes of racing well enough to get a podium finish...something that I have not been able to do on the national curcuit yet. The closest I have come to the podium was a 6th place finish at the Telemark norams back in late January. However, this year Spring series will be right in my backyard and I won't need to travel to the races, which is a nice advantage.

I'm planning on racing a few New England races here and there, but I will mostly spend my time training in the county. The ski trails come up to my back door, so I don't need to travel more than a few feet to find snow. These trails are aslo lit from 6pm to 10pm everynight, which makes double sessions a piece of cake! Also, within an hours drive I can find over 150 miles of groomed trails. When the snow is good in the county, which it has been all winter, then the skiing is tough to beat.

I ended up peaking shortly after nationals when I was able to get healthy again. I had a great time in the midwest racing the supertour series, and I posted the best results of my career so far. I've moved myself around 29th on the USSA ranking list from 54th. With a few good races at Spring Series I could move myself into the top 20. This was and still is my goal which I created for myself last April.

Now, I just need to train, eat, and sleep until Spring Series. I'm hoping to train alot for the next 4 weeks and then taper again for Spring Series. It will be nice to be able to stay in one place and not travel around the county for the next month. I'm looking forward to some hard training!

Tom

Tom Keefe is a member of the Maine Winter Sports Center team currently racing on the national circuit with goals of being ranked among the top 20 skiers in the US for 2005-2006 and to be chosen for the 2010 US Olympic Team. Follow Tom's ski racing adventures this season on SkiReg.com to get an inside look at his progress to be a top ranked US skier!