It's Early Still

So now she's got a few practices under her belt and she's feeling it. She spent her summer outside, very active, but apparently snowboarding uses different muscles than hiking, biking, and horseback riding do. The coaches have been pushing her, which is good, and she's feeling it. She was pretty sore last Sunday and a visit to the chiropractor helped, especially since he gave her some good stretches to use to help her stiff legs.

Now she just needs to get on the slopes more often. She's been down for three practices and except for a few runs after practice, she hasn't spent much time on the slopes. She'll be able to spend a lot more time there after Christmas, we'll be down for the week plus after Christmas. Not all the time will be on the slopes, but there will be plenty. The first competition isn't until the end of January but she's got a long way to go to get into competition shape and be ready for it.

To add an interesting twist to all this, I've decided to get back on a pair of skis again after 20 years. Bob and I skied quite a bit before the girls were born, but hung up the skis for several years. He started working with the youth at our church and one of the things they did was go on a day ski trip in January every year so he started skiing again. When the girls were old enough, even though they weren't youth, he took them with the group. That was the first time Whitney was on a snowboard and Sarah gave skiing a try. They've enjoyed it since. The last few years I've been the one taking Whitney to her competitions and mostly I can hike up the mountain to watch her but there's a few resorts where the race course is pretty high up and not easily accessible unless you're on skis or a snowboard so I've decided it's time to get back out there. The other thing I realized I missed was the view. I really like being on the top of the mountain surveying God's creation. I loved taking the lift up in Colorado and besides watching Whitney race, just taking in the view was amazing. It's not quite the same here on the East Coast, but it's still pretty spectacular. We went to the Fall Fest at Massanutten a couple of years ago and were able to ride the lift up (then hike back down, the line for the lift down was long!) and the view was pretty great. So I've got a pair of skis at the ski shop, hopefully ready to pick up tomorrow, apparently a helmet and goggles are under the tree, just need to get a season pass and I'll be set. Hopefully I'll be able to walk after my first day back on the slopes.

We're Off!

Massanutten opened Thanksgiving weekend and the first team practice was the following Sunday. By the time last Sunday rolled around though, a lot of the good snow had already started melting. They had some really nice cold weather, blew a lot of snow, then it warmed up. The report I got from Whitney was that the slope conditions were kind of dicey, bare spots, thin snow. They closed during the week and now that it's gotten cold again they've been blowing snow and it looks like things are good for this weekend.

There's six kids on the snowboard team this year and at least one of them is planning on competing in boardercross with Whitney. He was going to last year except he broke his arm in the trick part after practice just before Christmas and was out until mid-February. There's going to be a rotating group of coaches, which could be interesting, but there will be two at every practice. Hopefully that means that they will divide the group up either by skill level or interest or some way that will let Whitney and Alec improve the skills they need to compete and give the other kids time in the trick park or to improve their riding skills.

It is really (really) nice to have a house down there. Both Whitney and I enjoyed being able to sleep in a bit and leave at 8:40 to get to practice on time. Way better than having to leave home at 6:15 to get there! We will enjoy that aspect of having a home down there all winter. I'll also like not having to drive home two hours after the weeknight practices. That makes for a long day.