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.
