To All Our Family and Friends:

Happy Turkey Day to everyone.  We are thankful all our wonderful family and friends and their love and support throughout the year! Without you, life wouldn't even be half as enjoyable.  Thank You!

We had an exciting start to the Sprint World Cup season in Salt Lake City, Utah this past weekend with world records falling. Casey has posted times in weekend practice races in the upper 34-second range for his 500m races and mid 1:08 range for his 1000m races.  Casey has been optimistic about his season thus far and has been waiting for the chance to see where he stacks up against the international competition.

Casey and I met for steaks Friday night at the Texas Roadhouse in Salt Lake. A salad, steak and sweat potatoes were on the menu for Fitz.  We chatted nothing about speedskating and more about his second passion in life, land prospects! For many of you, you know Casey's dream is to purchase an extremely large chunk of land in the Madison Area that he can "give back to the wildlife.  It's his dream to do his part to preserve the natural wetlands Wisconsin is known for and revitalize his chunk of property for migrant birds, upland game and the deer population. He is very passionate about his outdoor dreams and he can talk for hours about it.  So to keep his mind off the pressures of racing we chatted about our dream of sitting on our back porch in our rocking chairs look west over our dream land with deer in the distance and the pleasant sounds of pheasants cackling and ducks quacking.

Saturday morning, Casey left the house cautiously optimistic about his skating.  He knew he had a long day of waiting for his races to come because it was the first World Cup competition and the skaters had not been divided into two groups yet. In Casey's first 500m race of the season, he was paired with Beorn Nijenhuis, a dutch skater.  He opened in 9.7 and beat his pair finishing in a time of 34.91.  This was good enough to finish tied for 5th place.  This finish was just tenths of a second from medalling and thus pre-qualifying for the Olympics.  His 1000m race wouldn't be so pretty. We found out later that day that Casey was having trouble getting an edge on his skates and he wasn't getting everything out of each of his pushes.  He worked for hours before and between his races trying to get 4 solid edges.  Casey had a solid opener of 16.47.  He finished his 1000m race with a time of 1.08.57 placing him in 11th overall.

Sunday, Casey would be paired with Kip Carpenter in his 500m race and Kyuk Huk Lee from Korea in his 1000m race.  Casey opened his 500m race in 9.7 seconds and finished with a time of 34.85 putting him in a tie for 7th place. Casey was still having trouble with his blades and had his coach work on them for over an hour between his races. His 1000m race would be the best race of the weekend for Casey.  He opened in a time of 16.44 with a finishing time of 1.08.27.  This would put Casey in 6th place for this second 1000m. 

Overall, Casey is sitting tied for 5th in his 500m race and 8th in his 1000m race standings. Definitely striking position for our guy!  He can't wait to be back in Milwaukee this coming weekend at the Pettit National Ice Center to compete in front of family and friends.  The second Sprint World Cup of the season will be hosted in Milwaukee over Thanksgiving Weekend. Races start at 12:00noon both Saturday and Sunday! The Fitz Fans will have a section reserved as you walk into the Pettit we will be down on your right!  You can purchase your tickets at the door, or if you have already talked with Ruthie or I, your tickets will be at the Will Call Window.   So far we have 80 family and friends coming Saturday and approximately 60 fans on Sunday! 

Come One, Come All:join the Fitz Fan Frenzy!

Thanks for all your support! Have a great Thanksgiving!
Jennifer Fitz