New Board

I thought my coach was crazy when he told me that I would be riding and racing on a 162 cm board this season. We measured my height when I was at my fitness test in November and I'm only 162.5 cm tall! Regardless, we went up to Sun Peaks and I was to ride this new board. I loved the board, it had all the qualities of a raceboard that I love but it was for softboots! It didn't take me long before I felt completely comfortable moving this monster of a board around. Sun Peaks was beautiful that day too. Clear skies, maybe a little bit of cloud... groomed to perfection as always and barely anyone at the hill. It gave me a chance to bomb down the 5 mile with coach inches behind me to work on riding and not being distracted by other racers that are potentially right behind you. Normally I don't like riding near other people, especially when you start going faster. However, it is part of the sport and something that I do need to work on it. Hopefully I'll have some photos to post of it soon. 162cm Volkl Coal

Fitness Testing Results

Vertical Jump		VJ L	VJ R	5 Hops	Left	Right	Pull Ups
cm	W/kg	cm	cm	m	m	m	#
45.0	89.0	39.0	28.0	10.26	5.05	5.1	1
Horizontal P.Up	Sit Ups	Prone B	Box Jump		Leger	Squat
#	Stage	sec	15-30s	45-60s	Stage	kg	ratio
9	4	120	22	35	9	70.5	1.18

This testing was done in November in Kelowna. I'm pretty happy with my results. I improved in the areas that I was supposed to work on, strength and cardio. My squats were done without my knees dropping in, the imbalances there are much better; this was quite a weak area for me. I do have some more work to do here as I can't quite do a full squat with my hands straight above my head. The result from the beep test I was particulairly happy with, in the past I had only been getting about 6.5 or 7. I improved there by a full level. I'm hoping that I can get this up another level (to 9) for the next test. If I had to pick the areas that needed some work it would be the Box Jump Test, the pull ups and maybe the vertical jump. The box jump test is a box, roughly the height of an overturned laundry basket, that you stand on and jump side to side off of - we do this for a full minute. I find it FAR more exhausting than the beep test and probably the toughest part of the fitness testing. I've got some more explosive exercises for the gym to help me with it, these will also improve my vertical jump. For the pull ups, I do know that my upper body is not as strong as it should be. So I'm going to continue working on it and see the improvement at the next test date.