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!