Northern Exposure

I'm heading north to watch my girl race this weekend. She's doing another boardercross race at Stratton on Saturday then a giant slalom race at Mount Sunapee on Sunday. We're going to hang out at my sister-in-law's to watch the Super Bowl Sunday night then we'll both head back out of town. I'm just hoping that the snow they're calling for on Sunday/Monday will amount to not much so I don't have problems getting home.

In the mean time, some pictures she's sent me/I've taken off of Snapchat of her recently at races.

A bit warmer this day!

Heading up the mountain.

This was actually a couple of years ago at Wintergreen. Love this picture.

My girls 💖

When to Step In...

I may delete this post after I write it, maybe even before I publish it but I need to "think out loud" and vent a bit. It hasn't been the easiest thing this winter being a parent. There's stuff going on with the school snowboard team, specifically the coach, that leaves me wondering when to let Whitney deal with things and when we should step in. At the moment we are letting her deal with things but if the bullying and disrespect continues we may need to step in. It's very disappointing what's going on. She went to UMF partly because of the snowboard team and to have a coach that doesn't coach, doesn't act like a coach, basically bullies my daughter and uses the team as his personal staff for events that are supposedly for their benefit but are promoted more for his personal team rather than the UMF team, it's all really rubbing us the wrong way. We are left to wonder why the school is wasting their money paying this person. There's a lot more going on but I'll leave it at that.

First Races Done

It's still weird not being at races. Two weeks ago were the first races of the new season. The first two races were at Sugarloaf, last weekend she was in Vermont at Stratton. It seems Sugarloaf is an interesting place. There are several resorts out west that were closed because they have too much snow. The lifts aren't going anywhere when the snow is almost up to the top of the pylon at the top of the lift. WAY too much snow. The problem at Sugarloaf is often too much wind. The Friday before the races was supposed to be a practice day but it was so windy they had to cancel that. Hard to get up the mountain when the lifts aren't running. Eventually Sugarloaf finally got one lift open but it wasn't near the race course. Whitney said that she got in several runs then called it a day. She was cold, she had sat around most of the morning, and was ready to go back to school to get a few things done.

The races at Sugarloaf were run in some serious cold. It was below zero when she got there in the morning and it didn't warm up too much during the day. She hadn't had too much training before those races and there were several girls in her class racing. She raced well and placed 5th on Saturday and 3rd on Sunday. With more practice under her belt and some good coaching she'll do better.

Stratton was last weekend. Another semi-frustrating weekend for her. The weather was really poor, very foggy and also rainy. It seemed like all the pictures I saw on social media last weekend it was the same story everywhere - a couple of USCSA and USASA races had bad fog, the BX races at Solitude were snowy with a bit of fog, and I think there was another race that had a lot of fog. It was kind of crazy, especially how bad the fog was in places and yet they still raced. That was Whitney's issue - the fog was really bad, almost unsafe especially with the rain and yet they raced. She, as well as a couple of the adults, said something to the race officials but they said they were already racing and it was ok. Not really. She had a poor start on Sunday due to the rain and wet gloves, slipped in the start gate and hit her head. Thankfully it's required that racers wear helmets and she's fine. But since she slipped she didn't get off well and ended up in second. She finished first in Saturday's race.

Right now she's ranked 2nd nationally in USASA. This year it doesn't matter too much how she's ranked. She'll be going to Copper in March but it will be for the USSA/FIS race, not USASA Nationals, so her ranking doesn't really matter (she doesn't need to rank high to qualify for Nationals since she's going for a different race).

She's got this weekend off from racing. Enjoying some training and fun time at Titcomb today, Sugarloaf tomorrow. Next weekend is a BX race at Stratton and a giant slalom race at Mount Sunapee. I'll be heading north to watch those. After that she'll be coming home for BX races at Massanutten as she enters the busiest part of the season.

Winter Break

It's been lovely having my snowboarder home for winter break but her time here is drawing to a close. She's been relaxing, recovering from a tough semester, hitting the slopes at Massanutten a few times. Now it's time to finish the things that need to be done while she's home, do laundry, start packing, and on Monday hit the road to NH/Maine.

While we were at Massanutten she was able to ride with her old team. She went to practice with them a few times and enjoyed hanging out with the team and her old coaches. They were excited to see her and she found out she's got a reputation on the mountain. They're all proud of what she's accomplished so far and she's happy to say that she's from a tiny mountain in Virginia.

We had a long snowboard to-do list, most of which we accomplished. She reached out to a couple of new sponsors, tried to fix her Hook-It account (no success there yet), we'll be booking her flights home for the Massanutten race before she leaves, paperwork is done for CVA so she can hit the slopes with them when she gets back, and we took care of a few other miscellaneous odds and ends. We went over the USASA race schedule again; put it on a calendar she can take back with her and I kept a copy so we know where she's racing. Her coach at UMF wants her to race GS once so he can send her to the USCSA Nationals for that as well as BX so we had to find a race that would work in her schedule since BX is her priority.

She leaves Monday morning and will drive to her aunt's house in NH then on Tuesday head back to Maine. On the way she's stopping at Sunday River to pick up her new snowboard. It's really time for a second pair of bindings; having one pair with three boards isn't a recipe for success. But higher on the "need" list is a new pair of boots and pants.

She's heading back to school a week early to get some time in on the slopes as well as get to the first Maine Mountain BX race at Sugarloaf. She should get some training with CVA next week before the race. It's time to get on the mountains and get serious about race training. I'm working on my travel schedule to see her race and plan to head north to get to at least one weekend of racing.

It's time to get this season underway...she's off and riding!