Disco Feet

Well, its been a crazy few weeks. Since I drove out west a month ago I’ve been a snowmaker, athlete (first and foremost of course!), filmmaker, and have also been becoming quite proficient in gypsy life, couch surfing pretty much night to night for a while now. It’s certainly exciting, never really knowing where you will end up next. Haha.

But lets rewind.

In mid October I drove out here to Colorado to help out at Echo Mountain in exchange for training privileges. The job description was “help get the mountain open”, so thats what I did. It was a learning experience to say the least. Anything from snowmaking to getting the lift ready, or chainsawing and moving trees, anything that needed to be done, had to get done. It all eventually did, but one lesson I learned in that time was to NEVER say yes to a night shift. Going out in freezing temperatures at 3AM in the morning to check on the snow-guns is really even less awesome than it sounds. Not a bad view once your shift ends though.

After the mountain opened on November 1st I got some great training in. The nice thing about Echo is that it has night skiing. Which means if you are feeling run down you can take a whole day to recuperate, sleep in and prepare, and then go up at night so you don’t miss a day.

Most of my training so far has come from the generosity of other teams who are willing to let me jump in with them per my request. I want to thank all of those who let me infringe on their training lanes these last few weeks. Without them, I would be a lot worse off. Colorado University has been extremely helpful, as has the Australian National Team, Burke Mountain Academy, Treble Cone Race Academy, my own program of GMVS, and last by not least, team Hailey Duke.

Hailey Duke is a former US Ski Team slalom specialist who is still kicking ass and taking names. Last winter while competing, doctors found a large tumor in her brain. She stopped skiing to get that taken care of, (good call), but now she is back with a vengeance and setting her sights on Sochi. From what I have seen these past couple weeks training with her, she’s got a pretty good shot. Please go check out her website and give support where you can!

Thanks to all of these peoples help, my skiing has been progressing quickly. I made and released my first video blog of “season 3” last week, which received just under 1,000 views in 24 hours. I am extremely happy with all of the positive feedback it has been getting and I am glad people are sharing. Today it was put up on the Ski Racing website and more people than ever are hearing of my story which is something really cool for me.

If you missed out on that video, check it out.

I’ve got 5 days before the first races of the season. NorAms in Loveland. I am excited and look forward to racing, as always. I am hoping it will look a little something like this…

Slalom, Echo from Tucker Marshall on Vimeo.

Until next time,

Tucker