It’s also been great to give my 156 Plastictastic a really good test and I’ve been really impressed with how it performs. It’s been great on the kickers,which at 12-14m tables have been much bigger than I’ve been hitting indoors on my 150 but it’s also felt great in the pipe (much better than I’ve been feeling in it, that’s for sure!) and it’s been cutting through the slush and choppy snow as well.  So it’s certainly turned out to be my perfect all-mountain park board.

Tomorrow is the first day of competition, and so I’m hoping the super speedy base helps me get to the front of the pack in the boarder-cross, or at the very least lets me olly over anyone that falls in front of me.

Work’s been really busy, I’ve been travelling all over the place on visits to NHS Trusts to tell them all about the NHSE Membership scheme and that’s left me feeling tired and not really myself.  Sales isn’t something I love doing, I’m great at information transfer but actual closing of sales is something I struggle with.  Thankfully what I’ve been doing has been more on the info transfer side and because I really believe that the membership will make a difference, not only for the HR teams but the Trusts as a whole I think that that has come across in the meetings and I’ve managed to get quite a few Trusts on-board.  It still doesn’t stop me feeling a bit nervous and stressed going into the meetings though, and as January looks to be more of the same I think I’ll need to stock up on some more Bach’s Rescue Pastilles to try and take the edge of the fear off a bit.

Which brings me on to the New Year, yes we’re about to enter 2010 and I’d planned on it being filled with snowboarding and fun and big competitions, but as ever circumstances change and being a grown-up (well I try to be one sometimes) Jools and I have cancelled our unpaid month off in Laax this January and are staying at home to work instead.  This means no week of coaching and no Burton European Open (I guess 2nd time lucky just isn’t) for me.  We’re both pretty bummed out about it but I’m a strong believer that everything happens for a reason and so once 2010 officially hits I’ll be looking to the bright-side and making sure I get plenty of English shredding done so that I’m ready for the British Championships in March.  I’m going to miss being out there with all of my friends but to make up for it Jools and I are going to have a weekend break in the UK for his birthday.  It’s something we’ve been meaning to do for ages but never got round to so I’m hoping a weekend of fun and good food will perk us both up!  We’re also thinking that we might finally make it out to the board test this year, something else that’s been on the eternal to-do list but never quite made it to done.

In addition to exercising my body with snowboarding, Sports Active on the Wii and maybe even venturing back to the gym, I’m planning on exercising my brain a bit more too.  So I’m signing up to do a couple of short courses with the Open University.  I’m not sure if I want to do a full degree, I think I’m a bit lazy and not studious enough for that, but I like the fact that I can pick n mix a couple of subjects and who knows what will happen if I really get hooked.

As the New Year, and I suppose, new decade starts I won’t be making promises or resolutions to blog more or anything else really, what I will be focusing on is being happy, healthy and enjoying my life!

At this point I should admit that I hate being the first person to hit a toy, in previous years I’ve been able to rely on Jamie Nicholls or one of the other kids acting as a test rider and I can bow to their judgement with regards to speed, how the kicker’s riding etc, unfortunately though they were all riding in the 2nd qualification group so if I was going to step up and hit it I’d have to do it on my own. I looked again and after a bit of banter with Shiner the Technical Delegate for the day where we argued over the size (I said as far as I was concerned it was 9m as that’s what the plan said, he said 14.5m) I decided it was definitely doable, took a deep breath and dropped in. Straight off the drop in ramp, over the first lip, straight into the kicker (good girl, no speed checks) and up into the air……..oooooops! Yes the kicker was way whippier than it looked and the moment I was in the air it started to feel a bit wrong, my weight was too far back and I was tipping in the air. Anyone that’s been in this situation will know that at this point time slows down, I was a long way up and I realised that my best chance of surviving this was to tip my weight so I was going to fall on my front not my back, bring my arms in, relax and wait for the impact. It seemed like I had a long time to wait as I took up my “frog” position and started to plummet, then the ground hit, I bounced on my front, hitting my chin and then I must have bounced onto my back because I came to rest half way down the landing with my head pointing down and my feet back up towards the kickers. I wasn’t in pain, knew I wasn’t broken but I was totally winded so when I looked up to see people rush in to check on me I signalled I was ok and let them unstrap my board so I could roll over and get off the landing. A huge thanks to the First Aider, Col Mytton and Jools Smith who were all over to me pretty much the moment I’d landed. A pretty impressive feat for Jools considering he was on the run in side of the kicker capturing these shots…..

..he then had to pelt round to check I was alive! Thankfully I was and once I got my breath back I was back up the top grabbing a drink of water before getting back to it (all be it on the 5m kicker). I was quite gutted not to have landed it but I think I impressed (and scared) everyone by giving it a go. For a while I doubted myself and wondered if it was my mistake and whether I’d misjudged my ability, it turns out I hadn’t though as over the course of the 2nd qualification when the guys were hitting it, it became apparent that it was too whippy a kicker and a lot of people came a cropper much worse than I had. Numerous guys ended up visiting the local hospital and quite a few more admitted to being scared. These weren’t poor riders but the cream of the UK and it’s a shame that a quarter of all entrants took a bad fall on the main kicker! I count myself very lucky to have escaped with a slightly scraped chin and some aches from the impact.

All in all it was a fun session, even with the aches I was feeling and I was stoked to qualify for the final in 3rd place. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to hang on to it so finished 4th overall and 1st in Masters, still I figure I can live with being beaten by a 12 year old, a 14 year old and an under 30 year old!

To wrap up the day nicely I had a really nice message that put the icing on the cake and I’m pleased to announce I now have a new sponsor, Laurus. Laurus make handmade face wraps, and I’m looking forward to wearing them over the course of the Winter, not just on the slopes but on my commute to work if it gets cold enough!

The weekend kicked off on a scorching Saturday with the boardercross, which took place on the main Dendix slope, and we each took 2 timed runs. We then moved through to some races with 2-3 people battling it out at the same time. Don’t be fooled, Dendix is not easy stuff to ride and it’s diamond shaped sturcture means falls can get nasty, luckily though the slams I had in warm-up coincided nicely with where I’d placed my padding and I survived in 1 piece. I finished the morning session in 2nd place in the Masters (over 30) age group. The afternoon was spent sessioning the kicker for the (big) air competition. Unfortunately the slope was running quite slowly and so if you didn’t land in quite the right spot then your board stopped and you kept going….cue whiplash for me! I’d decided to try and step things up, with only 3 in my group I figured I might as well try the spins I’d been working on in practice. It didn’t work out though and although I did a really nice BS180 Method I sat down on my landing, my second run was even worse and I managed a big FS90 to slam. The way I see it though if I’d landed the tricks I’d have been in with a chance, both girls in my group are trying 540s so I had no option but to step things up.

Sunday was slopestyle day and it was a bit cooler, unfortunately the slope was still running really slowly, so much so that the judges had the toys swapped around as people weren’t able to get enough speed to hit the higher scoring line the way it was originally set up. After a few practice runs I managed to work out the line I needed to keep my speed and my first comp run was a smooth and clean frontside nose press, followed by a nose press and then a 50:50 to boardslide, switch out over the up-down shark’s fin. It all went wrong on my second run though, I did a nice tail press to switch over the first box, but slipped out on my switch frontside on the next box ending nicely in a perfect faceplant. Hopping up the slope to try and get enough speed for the shark’s fin, I tried but failed and made it half way up the up box before having to jump off. I just missed out on a place in the final by coming 5th overall but my first run was enough to get me 2nd in the Masters.

So I finished the weekend with 2 silvers and a bronze, not bad going considering the sticky conditions. The big air and slopestyle will both get me started in this season’s TTR ranking and hopefully my luck will hold for this Saturday when I head to Milton Keynes SNO!zone for the British Indoor Big Air championships.
Photos by Jools Smith