"Hard core" boarding

I haven't written much here in about a week - once again I had a week filled with good and bad. Luckily it was mostly good, unfortunately the really bad at the end of the week is making me feel awful...but I won't go into that here. Anyway.

Today I decided to hit the slopes with a few pals - and of course attempt to snowboard, something I've only done once before in my life over a year ago! So I borrowed some sweet sweet equipment from my friend Alison and I went.

The day was good overall - we got there in really good time, and we managed to get on the hill just before 3 pm. Of course, our first run of the day was down a much bigger hill than I was on last year and to my surprise I didn't fall down getting off the lift. Challenge number one conquered! Woo! That definately boosted my confidence. I couldn't believe it! I could actually keep myself standing and concentrate on working my toe edge. That was the first run!
Now, part of this I generally attribute to having much better equipment than the crappy rental I used last year, but obviously I learned something!

For most of the day I kept a good just above newbie pace with my friend Paulo and my new friend Sam. We pushed ourselves to go on the bigger hill and to work on the right technique. Sam was super impressive - she'd never been on a board before and was keeping up to everything going on! Wow. Paulo was working it really well too. It was good to feel like I was doing to right kinda steps (yes, not too much but still babysteps). But of course, we did end up with a few bumps and bruises. My crowning moment was when I was just getting the hand of a toe edge uphill turn around a snow bank - I was doing really well then overcompensated by putting too much pressure on the edge. I slammed foward into the snow bank, smacking my eye and leaving a mark. (See picture - and yes, that is a real scratch!) I definately looked more hard core after that!

So, yes, I had a really good day! Nearer to the end when my friends KJC and Adam finally met up with us, I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty tired and my legs were starting to rebel, but we pushed on! I got in a few more runs before we had to leave to get Sam back to Toronto to catch a bus at 10:30. Ha! We left at 8:30 and didn't think we were gonna make it - but we did, with literally 30 seconds to spare - she got the bus and it was a good end to the day.

Now I'm here, blogging, nursing/counting my bruises and I'm ready to go to bed with just enough good memories to get me through tomorrow.