Tomorrow's the Day

Saturday we had more of the same. Training in the afternoon, put my big kid pants on and went over the jumps by myself. We found out after dinner that on Tuesday we would run time trials to decide who the World Cup spots went to. Two runs in the morning and two in the afternoon and they would combine our best time from each to rank us. Sunday was a day off for the team. We went to Mackenzie again – this time more to just connect with civilization again. As soon as I got into cell service, my phone started going crazy. After dinner we had a National Development Group (NDG) photo shoot. After standing in a freezing cold snow bank for half an hour when the photographer decides it would be a good idea to have everyone lay down and have a snow fight was fun for only so long. I really hope the pictures turn out! Today was the last day of training before we have our time trials for the World Cup spot in Telluride. I'm going to do two timed runs in the morning and two more in the afternoon. The combined time is what will be used to compare us for the starts.

Another day of training

We had the course all to ourselves over lunch so we had to be there by 11. This meant that I took the opportunity to sleep in. My whole body is sore today, not just my arms this time. That might have something to do with all those hard landings yesterday. I sat on the spin bike for a bit before I left just to get the muscles warmed up. I heard yesterday that the forecast called for 3 cm of snow today. Well, we got a little more than that! It was windy up top so the t-bar was closed most of the day - there were two snowmobiles taking us to the top of the course instead. The course was running slower today because of all the new snow so it meant we had to pop that much harder to get over some of the jumps. The upside of the new snow was that all of the knuckles were a little softer to land on. Today was the day I was going to do the whole course. I was still a little unsure of how fast I needed to be going in order to make the big jump, the hip jump and the jump at the end of the course. One of the boys (they trained earlier in the day) was nice enough to help me and another girl on the team. I am a terrible judge of how much speed is needed for jumps. He let us follow him through the course and if we were going at least as fast as he was we would go over everything he did. That helped a lot! I not only went over all of the jumps on the course I started doubling some of the rollers. (That is when instead of pumping over two rollers you just jump from one to the other as if it were only one big one.) I ended the day on a good note and went for a spin and stretch to make sure I am not going to be too sore for training tomorrow. After dinner, I waxed, scraped and brushed my boards then had movie time with some of the team. It’s only 9 right now, how is that possible? It feels like it could be at least 11. Oh well, off to bed then.

The Easy Way Out

I woke up with sore arms this morning! Take a guess as to what that's from, I guess that means I worked hard on my starts yesterday.

Finally we get some time on the course today. We head up the chairlift for the first time since we've been here and I'm both excited and nervous about seeing what's in store for me for the next week. But before we can get up to see the course we have to go up the t-bar here at Powder King. That sure reminded me of growing up in Nakusp, going up to Summit Lake Ski Hill on the weekends and braving the t-bar up the side of Suicide. On my first inspection run of the course (just going through slowly and not doing any of the jumps or other features) I'm not going to lie, I was a little intimidated. The course looked fast - the rollers quick and aggressive and the jumps were bigger than anything I've hit so far this year. The burms looked awesome though, fairly steep and not a rut or bump in sight.

When it came time to train I was nervous about the first feature. It was maybe a 15ft jump, but the way it was set up made it look a lot scarier than it was. I watched a few girls go and knuckle it pretty hard (when you don't make it all the way to the transition where you should land, you come up short) and that didn't help me win over that part of my mind that is constantly telling me I'm crazy for doing what I'm doing. At first I just pulled out of the start gate to make sure that when I'm ready to hit the first jump I'm going to be solidly on top of my board and not on my toes/heels/front or back foot. Finally I just had to go for it, everyone else had hit the jump and it was time to put on my big-girl pants and go over the thing. I wish I could say that I went over it no problem and the rest of the day was a breeze! But that's not the case. I came up short and because I was nervous I stiffened up which just made it worse. When I hit the knuckle I bounced and fell down the landing. But, for me that was probably the best thing I could've done. Because I was so scared of hurting myself by coming up short on it when I didn't make it and I didn't hurt myself it helped me get rid of some of that fear. I then proceeded to knuckle it at least 5 more times before I made it over enough to be able to set up for the next feature (another intimidating looking jump). I spent my entire morning working entirely on the first two features of the course. I haven't even started on the doubles, step downs or banked jumps.

After lunch I came out and I wasn't as nervous about the first two jumps and I actually did way better as a result. I did a few more runs, and since I didn't focus all of my energy at the start of it I was able to run through the whole course. There were still a few features I felt I wasn't ready to tackle but I've got another seven days on the course. I have time to save it for fresh legs tomorrow and not risk an injury because my legs were tired. Called it a day, helped prep the course for tomorrow and went back to the dorms for a spin & stretch.

There was a point this morning where I felt so scared that I was thinking up exit strategies about how I could get home. Now that I'm thinking about it, it seems so silly that that could even go through my mind. I'm doing something that a lot of people never get a chance to do - I've been snowboarding all over Canada, in the US, Italy, Japan, Argentina... and I'm going to let something like fear stop me from doing this? Not only would I think about that decision for the rest of my life and wonder 'what if', what else would I let fear stop me from doing? I'm not saying that I'm going to go out and do all sorts of crazy, risky things and I don't think I'd share this if I didn't feel like it was really important. Doing something outside of your comfort zone and knowing that you could've taken the easy way out but didn't is so rewarding - no matter what it is.

First Day at Powder King

Got up early for breakfast at 7:30. Not getting on the course today. Going to work on starts as soon as the other half of the start gate gets set up. We have a start gate with four rollers just outside of the "dorms" that we're staying in. Worked on start technique as well as the movement over the rollers for about 2 hours. It was fairly warm out today, warmer than I was told to expect at Powder King anyway. So after we stopped for lunch a few of us made the half hour drive to Mackenzie to get some food for the time in between our buffet-style breakfast, lunch and dinners.

At four the Canucks game was on, they played. Since I'm a fan of hockey and the Canucks in particular I sat down to watch the game before dinner - quickly getting food in between periods of course.

This Powder King camp has been great so far. It's nice to go to a training camp and not have any distractions, it really helps me focus on what I came here to do. There is no cell service and a very limited internet connection. We eat, snowboard and sleep.

SunPeaks Opening Weekend

It was a great opening weekend at Sun Peaks. Didn't have to download, had some fresh lines in the morning and didn't have to bring out the rock board!

Spent a lot of time this week waxing snowboards getting them ready for the season. The new board (Burton Custom X 158) is going to need about 6 more coats now.

2009-2010 Count: 12 Days

Summer Training

Woke up early to get ready for my two day travel down to Argentina.

The line is sooo long at the Vancouver Airport. Bought a new book, something to help pass the time, 'Daniel X' and some sushi. The sushi had the weird little roll that looks like rice rolled up in fried egg, I haven't had it since Japan. Unfortunately it was a veggie sushi mix, so no fish. = (

11:18am - Vancouver

Still waiting to board. They've already called my row, but I wait till the end so I don't have to play the waiting game inside the airplane when I could sit in the oh-so-comfy airport chairs. I've filled up the empty water bottle I brought with me, it's so easy to get dehydrated when you fly and water isn't exactly cheap in airports.

7:21pm - Houston

Have less then 2 hours until my flight now. It's a looonnng overnight flight - hope the plane isn't crowded.