So just got back from Vancouver doing a first aid course in preparation to head up north. Since Sun Peaks I have had to play it fairly chill due to end of season lack of fundage and a ton of commitments, still having an amazing time, but at a fairly reduced level of life. Then this last week hit, and life came back together for me in a big way. The last five days has been for me a combining all the best pieces, places and people in my life into one amazing celebration of life. Over this time I rode every day, started to see the fruits of my hard work, all my school friends came back to town, a couple of my closest friends had birthdays, Sun Peaks hosted a race, we had BBQs and dinner parties every night, I got to coach a bit and my best friend and I celebrated every bit of it before we both had to head away to work for a while. And a hundred other things. I don't like to push my body quite so hard, sleep so little or get hurt riding as a result, but it had to happen in this fashion. Life just encompasses that many amazing pieces, and we had to experience all of it and take a bit of summer back before it was time to move on and get serious for a while. I haven't ridden in town much over the last few months as I have been either away or at the hill, and being back riding in town has been SUPER FUN. My body has been doing decently, my bike has been feeling awesome, and I have been feeling super confident on it, so I have been enjoying pushing it especially on larger jumps. Saturday I sprained my wrist and pulled my back taking it down pretty hard on Rio, but I still managed another Beacon run that afternoon. Pretty intimidating challenging those lines while not being able to bend my wrist, but kept it in super in control and had a wicked time riding it with two of my buddies from high school. Had a pact to do it with the three of us there before we left so it had to happen. My one buddy had a pretty sketchy bail on it up top, missing one of the corners, clipping a rock wall and doing some steep flips for a ways but he was ok so it turned out alright. Sunday was the Gummy Bear DH at Sun Peaks which was super fun, but I was hurting pretty bad early on. I did a training run in the morning which did not go very well. On course I was extremely limited by my wrist, having to take it super easy and pretty much having no ability to recover, just a passenger on my bike. By half way down the mountain I was riding mostly with my good arm and by the bottom I could not hold on so I coasted sitting down with my one hand off the bar. I almost didn't run, but as it was the last race of the year I decided that I wanted to just have fun with it and race my own race. I decided to rest over the day, work on my bike, tape up my wrist super tight and pop a bunch of painkillers to make it happen. Pretty irresponsible really. For the course I decided on a strategy of being super smooth, braking super early, carrying speed out and hammering on straights, and generally not taking to many chances as I really had no ability to recover if things went sideways. I felt strong mentally in my new approach, my wrist felt fairly supported and not in too much pain, so I hit the race prep as ever. The run went ok, I was happy to be riding and I put down a consistent run given my limitations. I didn’t think there was really a possibility of winning, but I thought that maybe if I was really lucky I might pull a top 3. At the bottom of the course we waited around for a fair while on the hill for results, and it was cool to see the crowd the chill local race drew. There were a bunch of younger kids there that are now inspired on racing, so I was stoked. When awards came and the last category was called I had my fingers crossed. When 3rd and 2nd passed by I was sure that I had missed my chance, but then my name was called for the win and I was equally surprised and stoked. It was super rad to win at home surrounded by friends, and it definitely made the trip to Vancouver a lot easier injecting a little flow into the tiny budget.
Peace, love and respect.
J
No comments:
Post a Comment