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POC has a great trip each spring to Outer Banks for a little sun, surf, and sail. The guest list is a wide group from the ski and action sports community, from POC athletes to regional and national reps of various companies to the director and instructors from the Aspen ski school. There were also some world class kitesurfers, ensuring none of the winter athletes in the group actually thought they were good at getting out on the surf. Add a couple of base jumpers to the mix, and it was officially a motley crew. I was lucky enough to get down there for a couple of days, and although the knee prevented me getting onto any kiteboards, I was able to do a bunch of swimming and some saltwater rehab. This is the last of my end-of-season trips, but maybe the best. Thanks to Willie Ford and Jarka Duba for making this happen, I now have another reason to rehab so I can get out on a kite!

GoPro/POC skydive event at REAL Watersports

Pro snowboarder Chris Klug with his one-year old daughter, Bali, at the "8 bucks or less at the OBX souvenir store" party

Glen Plake!

It’s been 4 weeks since my first knee surgery, and today I am beginning a two-week process to phase off of crutches. It’s going to take a considerable amount of self control not to ditch the “sticks” all together and attempt to walk unassisted today, but I’ve been told numerous times by my doctor and by my physical therapists what a bad idea that would be and to keep the healing aspect of the rehab schedule in the forefront of my thoughts.

I have still been able to participate in some fun and meaningful end-of-season activities, crutches or not. I spent last weekend at the Mammoth Invitational, a fundraiser that supports underserved students and athletes in the local area (Mammoth Mountain Community Foundation) and top alpine skiers nationwide with disability protection (World Cup Dreams Foundation). The event is 3 days long, with professional skiers leading small groups of supporters, many of whom have kids ski areas or just wanted to have a great time. Activities ranged from a biathlon to a paneled slalom alpine race to Bavarian night to Monte Carlo night. I clearly wasn’t skiing during this time so once again I found myself in the timing booth as the announcer, and brought each racer in to the finish line.

The atmosphere at the event was fun and laid back, but the list of (other) coaches the Invitational assembled was nothing short of impressive: Daron Rahlves, Kristian Ghedina, Christian Deville, Mike Janyk, Will Brandenburg, Scott Macartney, Glen Plake, Sherry McConkey, the list of great skiers went on and on. Some of the teams assembled costumes for each event, both on the hill and at night, adding to the festive atmosphere. On the last day, the Invitational assembled a “Heroes and Kids” autograph signing session for the kids, complete with pizza, ice cream, and jelly bean soda. It wasn’t the most nutritional meal I’ve ever seen, but there was no doubt to how much fun the kids had.

The event was a huge success, the Invitational raised a bunch of money for the community and for World Cup Dreams Foundation. I felt lucky to help out the ski community and also see some of my best friends in the ski world at the same time. It was great to reconnect with so many people after ending this ski season on such a sour note. The support was encouraging, and it made me want to get right back out on the slopes. To make that final step takes a lot off little ones, so for now, I’ll focus on phasing off the crutches.

My next doc apt is in 4 more weeks, at which point I will find out how quickly I can get the next surgery to put in an ACL. Fingers crossed it’s soon!

Autograph signing at "Heroes and Kids"

Mending broken things is totally in right now. Since walking through the doors of Vail Valley Clinic a little over a week ago, I either rehabbed next to, talked with, or slapped hands with probably half of the my friends from the race world. The Steadman Clinic is the collision repair shop of elite skiers, and right now things are booked solid. Resi Steigler, Chelsea Marshall, Colby Grandstrom, Andrew Weibrecht, Tommy Biesemeyer, Nolan Kasper, Robby Kelley, Keith Moffat were all on hand to either have something repaired or to discus something in the near future. Even the therapists at Howard Head were surprised, I don’t think any of them will have their kids ski race.

My surgery went as well as it could. In post-op Dr. Millett told me that he wanted to fit everything into one surgery, but it just wasn’t possible. The tunnels made by the anchor points of the old ACL were too wide (a new ACL graph is smaller than a healthy one) and the re-(re-)tear rate would be too high to put one in now or drill new tunnels. He was however able to repair the MCL, perform a micro-fracture on the tibia plateau, remove two loose pieces of tibia found above the knee cap, flap back down a big piece of meniscus and sew it up, remove the torn ACL, take out the old screws and bone graph the tunnels (re: fill them up with bone dust and seal off), so it’s not like he wasn’t busy.

The timetable for the next surgery is somewhere between 2 and a couple more months, I can’t even say the number. The good news is however that it’ll just be an ACL. Doctors refer to that like changing a tire, and it should be a much more involved recovery since right now I’m severely limited to range of motion (0-90 degrees) and on crutches (4-6 weeks). The ACL likes active rehab, so that will be lots of fun (can’t wait!). For now, I was able to move into the guest bedroom of Team Leever HQ where my parents also just crashed at for the weekend to watch Kieffer at US Nationals and help me out.

On Sunday I got asked to announce with Peter Graves for the US Nationals men’s gs. It was a blast. We really found our rhythm in the second run and had a great time calling Robby Kelley into the finish for his first national championship. For those keeping score, Robby Kelley was listed above as well. The day after he won he went under the knife, talk about good timing! After the race I got a text from someone that read: Christianson/Nickerson 2014 Olympic commentators, haha. Only if we’re doing it while racing, move over Doug Lewis and Steve Porino!

The man, the myth, Peter Graves and I before the second run

The day was truly awesome when Peggy Smith and Peter Nelson, parents of the late Spencer Nelson, honored me with the Spencer Nelson Memorial Award, given to an athlete who has persevered through adversity. They presented me with my long lost belt buckle from my victory at Eldora in January! I was honored to be recognized, and even more psyched that the gold medal belt buckle had returned to it’s rightful owner.

Finally, I wanted to say thank you to all the support that I have gotten since this accident. People have been amazing and it’s been really helpful to hear from so many. Looking forward to some good news ahead, time to get some Vitamin D!

Spencer Nelson Memorial Award, with Peggy Smith and Peter Nelson

This is what it looks like from inside the booth during second run when 10th place is on course...

And this is what it looks like during the second run when the leader is on course: "Ladies and gentlemen if you love America then you need to cheer for Robby Kelley! He can hear you!!!"

Found the Kranjska Gora photo of me from the SR interview. One of the best this season, and good to see a healthy version of myself!

My season took an unexpected turn yesterday at NASTAR Nationals when I hurt my knee on the final run of the weekend. Starting dead last after being the top qualifier, I hit a cross rut on a left foot fallaway entering the turn that sent me a little back and directly into a large hole at the bottom of the next gate. It was about 1:30 in the afternoon when I ran and the warm weather played a big role in the deteriorating conditions; the course had changed quite a bit from inspection at 9 that morning. While airborn I saw the big hole and tried to avoid it. My inside ski landed first, but directly in the hole. It twisted, I felt things shift, and immediately pulled off course. I didn’t even crash, but I knew that something was wrong. Knee injuries usually happen to the outside leg, and are frequently accompanied with dramatic explosion-like crashes. This had neither. Throw in the fact that I was at NASTAR Nationals and you have the perfect combination of a very unlikely and horrible experience.

I slid down the side of the hill, possibly swore at the ski patrol who asked me to sit on her toboggan as a way of getting down, got help from my old college competitor and Swix rep Andrew Wagner packing my car and getting out of my room, and headed straight for the Vail Valley Clinic. As this isn’t my first encounter with injury, I already had Dr. Millett’s email and cell phone number on hand. He directed me to a fellow who saw me last night and helped set up an MRI for this morning. I met with Dr. Millett this morning and he informed me that I have a ruptured ACL, meniscal damage, and a fracture to my tibia. This was much worse than I had anticipated, and pretty much took my breath away. On top of that, because I have had that ACL repaired before I am going to need two surgeries: one to remove the old screws and ligament and do a bone graph, and another in a couple of months for the ACL replacement. There is some hope that he can insert screws for the new ACL in other places and combine the process into one surgery, but it is unlikely (I’m pressing hard for this). I told him that I was obviously very bummed about the news but wanted to get surgery/start the healing process right away. He told me that I could go under the knife today at 2pm…well then, here we go.

An ending like this to my most successful season to date has been pretty upsetting and totally not what I pictured. In total irony, I got an email while in the waiting room that SkiRacing had published a Q&A I did a week ago with one of their writers, during which I attribute much of this season’s success to staying injury free….too soon? On the plus side I had never seen the photo they used in the article before, and it made me feel a little better seeing myself back on skis (my knee looks so stable!). I haven’t really been able to wrap my head around what the hell happened yesterday, I feel like it was a real one-in-a-million type situation, but the only thing I can do is look forward and hope to heal up as fast as possible.

Finally, I need a way to get the bad taste of this what happened yesterday out of my mouth, because other than my knee injury the weekend was a total blast. I am very impressed by the enthusiasm of ski racing on the NASTAR level, and even though it basically kicked my ass (as opposed to the World Cups, ECups, NorAms, or whatever else I raced this season) it was an opportunity that I am glad I went after. Below are some shots from the weekend, hopefully they will illustrate what I mean when I say that the passion for ski racing was in full force. Hoping for a fast surgery and a good report from the doc on the other end!

Early morning at the bottom of the race hill, bring on the crowds!

Any time I can get a picture of Hulk Hogan at a ski race with his kids I take it! Super nice family.

Race day morning smoothie made by super hunk Steven Nyman: 4 raw eggs, almonds, spinach, feta Greek yogurt, nano green, apple juice, mixed berries, Nature Valley Granola bars (not pictured)

Awards at NASTAR Nationals...slight bigger than a FIS race

The winner of the male 90-94 years old category. Apparently they have to keep making new age categories for him!

Podium for qualifiers, with Robby Zehner (left) and Mark Dunsworth (right)

Meeting a fan and fellow racer!

Had to grab a shot of this, best shirt of the weekend

Guess whose bib this is?

A couple of weeks ago during my 48-hour trip to Kranjska, Ted Ligety mentioned at the pre-race workout that I should compete at NASTAR (NAtional STAndard Race) Nationals. The overall winner of the competition gets an all-expenses paid trip to Portillo, Chile to train with the USST. It is the largest value prize (or cash equivalent) in ski racing in the United States behind the World Cup at Beaver Creek. When Sasha Rearick, USST men’s head coach, entered the room Ted reiterated his case that I should not pass this opportunity up, and asked him if winning this trip would allow me to train with the Team. “Yeah, sure. I don’t see why not.” Wow.

A lot of work goes into figuring out fall training opportunities and the costs are hugely disproportional to the rest of the season. Most of the world’s summer training venues have caught on to how important skiing in the fall is to the ski racing world, from working on technique to figuring out equipment. In response, the resorts have spiked the costs of lane fees and other services accordingly, making quality fall training even more of a commodity. As a self-funded athlete, the ability to solve this issue and train under such ideal circumstances is a golden opportunity.

I had actually skied a couple of NASTARs earlier in the year out of fun, so technically I was qualified….was I really going to do this? Earlier this season SkiRacing published an article about the grand prize at NASTAR nationals, and claimed it to be the best kept secret of the event. The article went on to follow the story of Rob Zehner, 3x defending champion of the event and winner in 4 of the last 6 years. Clearly someone had been paying attention, it just wasn’t me.

The discussion was largely put to rest when I saw that NorAm Finals directly overlapped with NASTAR Nationals. Winning a NorAm title has more to offer than a trip to Chile, so it wasn’t really a discussion as to which one I would attend. However, about 10 minutes into my road trip up to NorAm Finals in Quebec I received word that the GS was cancelled due to warm weather and that it would not be made up. It was then that I started seriously considering heading out to CO earlier than scheduled. US Nationals will be held at the same site, Winter Park, as NASTAR Nationals so I had to be out here anyway. I’d even be able to make some turns on hard snow which is more than I could say for the racers stuck up in Quebec, and on the Nationals race hill no less. With that I called Peter Lange to ask him if this was a totally crazy idea or a good one. He thought I would be crazy not to go.

Nothing is guaranteed. NASTAR courses are very tight GS courses with little or no offset, sometimes with huge bogey gates, and anything can happen. Whatever comes of it will be an experience for sure. There is an awful lot of passion for ski racing and for NASTAR out here, it’s pretty nuts how many competitors there are in this event (did you see my bib number?!). It’s also been fun to hang out with Steve Nyman and the rest of the Pacesetters team Doug Lewis, AJ Kitt, Heidi Voelker (still a babe), and Jake Fiala. Fingers crossed for the weekend, I have a bone bruise issue from last week’s race at Stowe that I am hoping calms down soon, but after getting it drained earlier this week, pool therapy sessions out here and a Compex muscle e-stim machine I think it will be manageable. Bring on the competition!

The passion is undeniable!

The NASTAR godfather of pins

Earlier this week after the NorAms wrapped up in Stowe I headed over to Richmond, VT to the official HQ of America’s most successful ski family, Cochran’s Ski Area. Started in 1961, the ski area has been the training grounds for the Cochran family whose war chest of medals includes everything from the Olympics to World Championships to the Hahnenkamm to NCAAs to World Juniors to whatever else they gave out over the last 40 years. It’s absolutely ridiculous when you think about it how successful one extended family has been in this sport. I had been to the modest ski area only once before and had yet to see the younger generation’s newest development, a sugar house.

Fellow racer Jimmy Cochran, along with his cousins Roger, Tim, and Doug, started a sugar shack using the property’s thousands of sugar maple trees. Aptly titled, Slopeside Syrup is about as homegrown as it gets. While I was there I learned all about the sugaring process, how much work goes into making maple syrup, that I should never mention I grew up putting Mrs. Buttersworth’s on my pancakes, and most importantly that the spring season at a sugar shack can be a busy place. Over the winter the crew was able to lay 15,000 taps across their property and they were eager to reap the benefits of their hard work.

The spring weather heavily dictates how much sap, and ultimatley syrup, can be produced from the trees. As mentioned earlier, it was a busy (and slightly stressful) time, so I was eager to help out between breaks of product testing the maple syrup and lend a hand wherever I could. Roger Brown, the NCAA Champion, good friend, and father to be, was only too happy to put me to work.

The next morning Jimmy asked Will Brandenburg and I if we wanted to join him for a work out. In the spring time it can be hard sometimes to motivate to get a full workout in, but Will and I figured we should probably do something more active than sample maple syrup and said yes. What Jimmy showed us is probably one of the coolest things I have seen all winter. Located on one of the side trails at Cochran’s, Jimmy had used the low snow levels to his advantage and had already set up his summer gym. It turned into a lot of fun, and made me want to set something like this up at my family’s fishing cabin in Sitka. Let’s hope the weather improves for the next week’s worth of races. At least I know I’ll be in shape!

Happy birthday to me…

Yesterday morning I was minding my own business, training GS at Burke with a mix of their athletes and the USST C Team. Today (my birthday), I am in the airport waiting to jump on a plane to Kranjska Gora to race in the World Cup GS on Saturday.  What happened in middle is nothing short of crazy/ridiculous/totally awesome.

As training was coming to an end yesterday I decided to take a break, grab a snack and some water, and check my phone. Kieffer, my younger and now-barely-not-as-fast brother, had just skied the race of his life at World Juniors that morning in Italy. We were trading FB messages before training, and I wanted to see if he had written back. My phone told me that I missed an international phone call. I was sure it had come from Kieffer’s agent (our mother) or maybe the man himself detailing what had happened. But when I checked my email and saw that Mike Day, the USST men’s head tech coach, wanted me to call him immediately the gears began to turn. I then checked a voicemail from the mystery number and confirmed that Mike was in fact the person that called, but he left no clues as to what it could be about.

No chance, right? Last Friday I was told that I would not be racing in Kranjska Gora, and that someone else was using the spot. I was bummed to hear the news, but that’s life when I don’t have a spot carved out with my name on it. Also, it was Wednesday. The race is on Saturday. Considering that I was about 5,000 miles away it was awfully close to be calling about a change of plans, but not totally impossible. I left the training hut and called Europe. Mike Day answered and confirmed my crazy suspicion that the spot for Kranjska Gora was mine if I could get there in time. I told him I would look at flights to see if it was doable, and that I would get back to him in a bit.

The next couple of hours were filled with tuning skis, laundry, packing, and trying to get a little closer to an airport than East Burke, VT. As it turned out, I was unable to get to a flight that would get me to Europe that night; I was simply too far away. Instead, I found a US Air flight for the next day, and began to slow my hectic pace just a little.

I emailed Mike and told him I was on board, and asked whether I could use a USST vehicle (preferably one of their Audi Q7s with the ridiculous sound system) or if I needed to rent a car. I then called my girlfriend to tell her that I would have to cancel on my own birthday dinner she had arranged with a bunch of friends, that it qualified as extenuating circumstances, and to share the good news (nothing like dating a skier!). After that I placed a call to super bud and WC rock star Warner Nickerson to ask him for a course report on the hill. Because I won’t be at the venue until Friday afternoon I am missing the hill ski that morning. I packed it in during the hill ski at Bansko so I’m not too bummed, and to supplement the experience I’ll be watching a lot of Universal Sports during my 5-hour layover in PHL.

This officially qualifies as my craziest birthday to date. I am actually embracing the roll of heading to Kranjska Gora like a hit man: get in (Friday), execute (Saturday), get out (Sunday), and race a NorAm GS at Stowe on Monday. When I think about what is actually happening right now I can’t help but laugh. I am excited to race such a classic hill, and really happy to be doing what I love. Thanks for all the notes thus far, everyone (including the gf) has been really supportive. Off to Kranjska!

Well, well, well.

Last weekend while at a dinner for the Dan Nagy Memorial I made the decision to head out East for a couple of GS races at my old stomping grounds, Burke Mtn. NorAm Finals begins on the 12^th of March at Stowe so the decision meant that I was headed out East a week earlier. However, it also meant that I would now need a car out East for nearly a month.

That’s when I looked to my right and spotted my good friend and car aficionado Warner Nickerson. Given our well-documented history of car sharing over the past few months, I began explaining my situation out loud to him and asked if he had a car that I could borrow “for a bit” while I was out East. Knowing that Warner’s car died about a year ago, I wasn’t expecting a helpful response but decided to ask the question anyway. “Sure, no problem!” answered Warner without batting an eye. “My Dad just went sailing for the next 6 weeks and no one will be using his truck. Go for it!”

I sat there in shock thinking about when I loaned out my car to Warner (both times) and the internal struggle that came with it. While my car was on loan, each time I checked my email and saw that Warner had tagged me in his newest blog post I would literally started to feel faint, and for good reason. Now the shoe was on the other foot, and while the car W is lending out isn’t exactly his, it’s close enough. I thought about why he was so willing to do this, and decided that his motivation to put himself in such a vulnerable position could only be explained a few ways: Warner lacks the ability to remember anything beyond two weeks (possible); he severely underestimates my capacity for vindictive behavior (does he know what he put me through?!?); he feels guilty about his previous transgressions (I highly doubt this, moving on); he’s a good friend and wants to help out (probably).

As it turns out the vehicle, a 2003 Toyota Tundra with rear-wheel drive, is quite a gem. I have yet to get some sand bags for its bed to increase traction in the snow (much needed), but so far the thing has performed wonderfully. One could argue that I have a 1700-mile credit to put on this thing while its mine, but I’m pretty sure my travels are going to be far more benign than what my Passat endured. Not to worry though Warner, if something happens I’ll be sure to let you know!

It was great to be back at the Dan Nagy Memorial in La Crosse, Wisconsin for a second year in a row. The competition was a very high level, the atmosphere was great, and Damnation was as challenging as ever. Sadly, I did not defend my title as the overall champion but I still skied well and was happy to be a part of it all. And as many people so vocally pointed out, I was able to hold off my younger brother and his much improved (but still not improved enough) slalom skiing, allowing me to continue ski racing until we meet again.

Racing in the Midwest is a little different than other places, and I was able to snag a photo while getting ready at the start. Apparently the owners of the mountain want to buy the farm in the background to make a couple more trails and even hold a FIS GS. Talk about vision!

A huge thanks to Mark Navin and Tom Rolfs, among others, who worked really hard at making the Dan Nagy Memorial such a great race. They had a goal to make it the best it could be and they did not disappoint. Hell, Warner was out there just to announce. I’m looking forward to what they have in store for next year. Night slalom? It could become the Schladming of the US. Those Midwesterners already have the party part down, all they need are the lights!

After a small training block in Innerkrems, AUT with the two USST GS specialists, Tim Jitloff and Tommy Ford (Ted Ligety stayed in Russia to train and Bode decided to go boat shopping in Turkey), I joined the other ski racers in bombarding the few flights that day heading to Sofia, Bulgaria. The Bansko venue is apparently different than most other World Cups in that all of the athletes’ transport and lodging at the hotel are the same. We were loaded onto different busses, each with a 3 or 4 national teams (our bus was Canada, USA, Sweden, Germany), and were driven 3 hours to Bankso where we all stayed under the same roof, the Strazhite Hotel. I was paired for the week with former college skier and World Cup staple Jimmy Cochran, and after some creative furniture rearrangement in our room we were both able relax, unpack, and not worry about rolling onto each other throughout the night.

As this was the first ever WC GS race held at Bankso, everyone was essentially a rookie racing on the hill. This was pointed out to me by my former ski coach and current Universal Sports commentator Steve Porino in a nice note he sent me earlier in the week. It was comforting when free skiing the race hill the day before the race. One thing that caught most people off guard was how flat the light was at 10am, the proposed start time the next day. Ted was very active in trying to move the start back an hour or so, citing that it would be an unfair advantage to those that raced later when the sun made it over the tall trees bordering the race run. During the warmup it became standard practice to take 5 or 6 turns and then shut it down, start again, stop again, all the way down to avoid getting thrown by all of the sidehill and micro-terrain that was unseeable.

For the second warmup run I brought up my race skis, and managed to somehow hit a rock on the race course. The damage was directly under the ball of the my right foot, and extended on the base edge about 3-4 inches. In the finish arena I ran into Leif Haugen’s technician Nicklaus, who helped me take it down as best he could but it was largely unchangeable. I don’t know what the odds of hitting a rock that large on the race track are, but they can’t be good. No one else I talked to touched a thing. Determined to take one more run on the hill I switched my edges, putting the burr on the outside left edge, and took another lap. I was feeling much more in control of my equipment this time down the hill and was starting to relax when my burred outside edge gave out, knocked out my other ski, and I went down hard.

The mental full body systems check I performed on myself was not good; my left shoulder was in a lot of pain and my right thumb had been bent back pretty far. I also managed to break the zipper on my training shorts…not bad for a crash while free skiing. I saw Mike Day on the side of the hill and told him I needed to see the team doctor. I couldn’t much raise my arm and my thumb wasn’t doing anything. I couldn’t believe what was happening: had this ridiculous chain of events really just taken me out of tomorrow’s race? For about 10 minutes there it wasn’t looking to good. I’ve had two shoulder issues before, both on that side, and both times the pain that I initially felt upon impact only got worse. Luckily, this time it got better. After about 10 minutes and a healthy amount of Aleve things started to reverse. The thumb and shoulder were sore but they weren’t really that hurt. I found a way to grip my pole that was a little different, and actually went and took a couple free runs afterwards. The race was back on!

Race day was snowy and windy, and there was some talk that it would be cancelled. To get away from this talk I largely kept my head down and focussed on the warmup courses and taking free ski runs. The body parts were still sore from yesterday’s crash but nothing that was affecting performance. After getting a couple of solid laps on the training course I was happy with the way I was skiing and excited for the race.

Even though it was windy, people were going at irregular intervals, and light was coming in and out, the guys who were skiing well were still the ones that were moving up. I came out of the gate charging and skied well up top. I got a few gates of wind and lost a ski on one turn but carried good speed through the first sidehill section of the course. Into the next fallaway section I had a pretty large mistake that ended up sealing my fate for the afternoon. I got another blast of wind on the bottom flats which definitely didn’t help, but I could have skied faster and made things a lot easier on myself.

One thing I was trying to do the whole time over in Bansko was to enjoy the experience and take in how lucky I was to be doing this. Crashing on the warmup day, hitting a rock on my race skis, and battling bad weather diverted from that focus, but I still ended up having a lot of fun and it was definitely one of the more memorable trips of my life. For starters, my Williams teammate and good friend Tavis Moonan surprised me at the Sofia airport, saying that shortly after he found out I was racing he decided to book a plane ticket and offer his support. The other USST guys were shocked I had a friend who would travel this far to come cheer me on, everyone realized what doing this type of thing meant. More than just vocal support, he was always on hand to help me out with my tuning duties. Since I was probably the only guy in the race tuning his own skis and was using another technician’s bench (thanks Pepo!) I always did my skis later at night when the bench was free. Tavis would accompany me to the tuning compound each day, and even ended up taking over scraping duties on race night since my thumb couldn’t zip up my jacket let alone push a scraper. I’m pretty sure that would have been a low point had it taken me an hour to scrape two pairs of skis, but instead it was something that we laughed about and just chalked it up as another ski racing experience.

Also, as Will Brandenburg and I were waiting for our flight home in the Frankfurt airport, we met Staff Sergeant Brian Nash who was returning back to the States after 6 months in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Staff Sgt. Nash is in Infantry in the Army, and stepped on an IED 3 months ago. The 1.5 lb IED that discharged was siting on top of a 25 lb IED, but luckily the wiring was faulty and the larger bomb never went off. He had surgery 3 months ago to repair his compound fractured foot with the hopes of finishing out his tour. The surgery did not go well, the bones didn’t heal properly, his nerves got pinched, and he has no feeling in his foot. He spent the last 6 weeks taking morphine pills to make the problem go away. It didn’t and eventually he was forced to pull the plug and head home. From Georgia, Nash is heading to Ft. Carson in Colorado Springs where the doctors will re-break his foot and start the healing process. He had no regrets about his experience and ended up telling Will and I story after story about his time in Afghanistan. Talking to him, my shoulder started hurting a lot less and I decided to not worry about my sprained thumb anymore. It is times like these where I am especially grateful to have the opportunity to do what I love. Worrying about other things is a waste, because you never know when things are going to change. Meeting people like Staff Sgt. Nash only drives home this point. I invited him up to Vail whenever he wants, and I hope he takes me up on it. Next stop, La Crosse, Wisconsin!