I hope everyone back home is sinking into their winter comfortably and your boots are holding up!
We have had nothing but rain all last week. It threatened to kill our snowpack and there was no powder to be found anywhere. It was quite depressing andit obliterated our MLK weekend. (I hope this wasn't the case for the Mt. Washington Valley.) This put a halt on my terrain park lesson, becasue the snow was bullet-proof. I figure since I want to learn how to jump and grab my board, I will be falling a lot. Having powder instead of rude ice catch my fall is the better of the two scenarios. So I went Nordic skiing instead.
I am pretty sure I lost 65 pounds doing that. It was quite the work-out. I was originally going to go for skate style over classic, but I was told that skate skiing might kill me my first time using it. Skate style though is much more intense and I think I do wantto try that my next time out. Since I grew up skiing, the motion is intuitive for me, much more than Classic.
If you were to see me when I first began though, I was the girl waving her arms frantically down the little bunny slope to get to the Nordic trails. And at the very end, I got lost and had to hike up a little mountain to find my way again as the sun was setting. All in all though, I will probably invest in my own Nordic equipment in the next two years.
Coincidentally I met a guy on the trails who had graduated from UMaine in the early 80's. So we made out and then got married based on that commonality.
JUST KIDDING! I just wanted to make sure you're paying attention. (Although after watching a lot of Teen Mom, aren't a lot of relationships based on even smaller similarities than that one?)
As I was Nordic Skiing though I realized that I am the most happy and productive when I am physcially active throughout the day, everyday. So that is one realization I can check off on my list of figuring out what I want to do with my life. I need to be sure that it has the flexibility for me to be outside and break a sweat!
The snow finally returned and it came down for 3 days straight! We have a whole new blanket and it was awesome trying to find all of the secret stashes. So my terrain park lesson is back on and I will be catching air and more likely than not, landing on my butt...for the first few times.
I pushed myself and I went out and did some black diamond tree snowboarding. It was amazing. At first, I was terrified. You never know when the trees are going to get more narrow and whether there will be a patch of ice to throw you off and Tree Wells catching and suffocating you are always a distant possibility. But I did it and I loved it. I went down Kathy's Yard Sale and Glade-iator, which are Schweitzer's CEO's least favorite tree skiing trails. I however, cannot wait to go out and do them again...and again.
Look at all the snow!
I finally bought a helmet. When I was a younger kid on the ski team I was forced to wear a helmet. As an adult, I don't wear one. I hate the way they feel and how they look. And for the record helmets don't decrease the rate of ski and snowboard related deaths. The amount of helmet sales have increased, but the amount of deaths each year has stayed the same. This is b/c if you're going down a mountain at 40 miles per hour and you hit a tree it is internal bleeding that is going to kill you first. So I never wore one out of spite, but of course, my Mother is on my case so I finally broke down and bought one. I look like a bubble head, but b/c of it I don't care how crazy I get on the slopes.
Now that I know my head is protected it gives me reign to bomb down the hill, b/c I don't have to worry about anything anymore. (Besides other skiers and I am always on the look-out for them.) I never really cared if I broke a bone b/c it didn't matter if I was laid out for 6 weeks or so b/c I had nothing critical to do. Now that I leave for Germany at the end of the month, I can't afford to break anything. So my helmet makes me feel invincible and my snowboarding has gotten a lot better because of it!
No comments:
Post a Comment