Sunday, December 10, 2006

Hitting the slopes - a little harder than I had hoped

This weekend was the first weekend of ski/snowboard season!!! We bought our season passes last week, and decided to give it a go with some night-riding last night. Now, because we haven't gotten much snow yet, the hill has been making lots but only a few trails were open. I think there were like five trails or something like that. But, two were easy, and pretty long, so we decided to get a jump on things and get me a-learnin'.

My equipment is friggin' awesome. In the past when I tried to learn I had always rented equipment, but always had problems with pinchy boots, ill-fitting stuff, wrong board sizes, etc. When I decided this would be my year to learn, I knew I should invest in my own equipment, and I am so glad that I did. I think i would have gotten more discouraged with equipment problems. Plus, my board is cute. Who doesn't want to look cute?

All in all, things went pretty well. I have semi-mastered my back edge, so instead of nice ess-curves I make kinda z's, cutting back and forth on the trail, but always facing forward or pointed down. I tried a few times to go on my front edge, but fell on my face, so decided just to do what I was good at and not force too much on the first try!

It was a pretty fun night, although with the whole not a lot of trails open thing came the problem of people off all skill levels riding the same trails. This is very annoying when you are learning, and you can hear someone whizzing down, coming towards you. It made me so nervous!!! I also had some difficulties getting off of one of the chairlifts - but the other one was no problem. I fell down WAY too much at the beginning, thus my arms are killing me. First of all, from being jammed so much into the snow, catching myself, and second from pushing myself up at such awkward angles. Today my shoulders are killing me. (My actual shoulder joints, not my back and shoulder blades). Also, my thighs are killing from always being crouched. SB said that when I start to ride on my front edge my legs will get less tired cause I'll be working all different muscles instead of the same ones.

I was so sore when we got home I had to lay on the heating pad before bed. We only did three runs in like three hours, but they were the long and windy ones, and the first one took super forever. The last one was actually pretty fast cause I didn't fall and was moving faster by that point, but my legs and arms were so sore I was ready to call it a day.

Can't wait til next weekend!

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