Going the extra mile (or kilometer in this case!)

Saturday, Jan. 21, I headed up to Bear Valley by myself. The drive was uneventful, but man was it a long drive to make by yourself! I made it to Bear Valley in good time and had ample of time to rent my skis and get a few practice runs in before practice officially started. The day was gorgeous. We have been so lucky with our team ski days! The weather was close to 45 degrees and sunny! I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. With all that said, I knew that I had a hard day ahead of me. From what I had heard, Saturday was going to be the day that we had to ski a 20K. I was mentally trying to prepare myself for the the strenuous day ahead of me.

As we all gathered our coach mentioned that we would be on our own, unless we felt like we needed extra help from the coaches. All the coaches would be out on the trails with us in case we needed them. He told us that they had mapped out a 15K, much to my surprise. I had been mentally preparing for a 20k, so hearing that we had a 15K instead threw all of us.

Coach Scott went through the trails that we would be doing and described in painful detail what to expect. We started off on a trail that was pretty flat and easy, but then we were to cut up another trail that had a LONG wind up the mountain and the long downhill that had a few twists and turns along the way......after hearing the first 40 minutes of our day I started what I now call the "Stuart Smalley Affect" (see my previous entry for the explanation!). After the full detail of what to expect we were on our way. The first climb that we had was hard, but I made it with no problems. The downhill was another story!

I got halfway down and then freaked myself out, I hate it when I do that....and I started to fall. Of course I was trying to continue with the "Stuart Smalley Affect" and give myself positive affirmations as I started to freak myself out. Of course I fell and I fell hard...and what is even better? One of my coaches caught it on tape! As I got back up I was telling him to turn off the tape! He was laughing the whole time!

As I continued on the trail I caught up with a few guys on my team and we pretty much stuck together the rest of the way. I would pull ahead sometimes and they would pull ahead sometimes. But overall we stuck together. We started our next ascent and descent, I didn't have very many problems thank goodness. The whole time we were on this trail I was thinking, the mother of all ascents and descents was around the corner two trails up. Our coach had warned us about the one near the end. And if you know me, you know that I am a worrier....so the whole time I was worried about the what-ifs! I know lame, but that is me! :)

So finally the time came to come to the dreaded mountain that we needed to climb and ski down. I made it up with no problems. It was hard, but I did it. When I got to the top we had to veer to the right and go down and do the loop and then come back up it and then proceed to the right once we got back to the top. That hill was the mother of all hills. I was so scared on this thing! I literally was yelling, "You can do eeeeetttt!" at myself. I had one major fall on the steepest decline I have seen this whole time. The decline at the tail end of this hill was almost at a 90 degree angle. So I am sure you can imagine what I was thinking...."Crap, I have to get back up this thing too!" I made it down after falling once and did the loop and then started the climb to the top. Which for the record, was one of the hardest things I have done to date. After making it to the top, again, I had to veer right. This part of the trail had a few downhills and some uphills.....the very end was a downhill that lasted forever. I started off okay but then hit ice and went out of control. To be honest with you, I have no idea how I fell, just that I fell so hard that I thought I ripped my toenail off. Okay, I know gross, but I did think that. I got back up and had to ski the rest of the way down, hoping and praying that I didn't do any major damage to myself!

I got down the mountain from hell and continued with my loop. After another 5K or so I was at the lunch spot. It was around 1:15pm and we had started around 11am or so....and I found out that they had given us extra mileage by accident so instead of the 15K that our head coach told us that we would be doing, we did just about a 20K. Nice!

After I grabbed a quick bite I took off with another group of people and skied for another couple hours. This time I was taking my time and enjoying the scenery. At the end of the day, I had completed a 26.4K....which means I skied 16.4 miles. WOW! Not bad for someone that had never been on skis before this season!

Tomorrow is a non-team day. One of my teammates and I are heading up to Bear Valley anyway to get more skiing in. We have decided to ski the 40K in Alaska....so we need to get in at least a 30K tomorrow. We are both also looking into buying a ski package tomorrow (skis, bindings, boots and poles). We found out this week that the pickings will be slim in Alaska to rent....so we need to either rent here and take them up to Alaska or buy them here. And since I love this sport so much, I think I am going to purchase a package!

I'll have more to share after tomorrow.