Two snowboarding sessions in 8 days and I’m loving being back on my board. Things have been tough on the snowboarding front this season, work has been hectic and not only did I not get away to the mountains but I haven’t even managed to ride indoors on a regular basis. Freestyle sessions are normally on a Thursday or Friday night, which makes it hard for me to get to a slope, I’m either battling work or traffic and it’s meant that I’ve only managed to sneak in a couple of Saturday sessions.

We decided to take the opportunity gifted by the bank holiday for #thatwedding last Friday to head up to MK SNO!zone for the Friday night freestyle session. It was fairly quiet (most people seemed to have decided that street parties or the pub were a better idea) but this meant the park stayed in good condition and we got plenty of runs in. It was good to be able to spend the evening sessioning the kicker and I managed to get a few grabbed spins down without picking up too many bruises.

Last night I managed to escape the office a bit early to miss the traffic and headed up again. I really had a brilliant evening, although the kicker felt a bit whippy the rails were spot on. For the first time in ages I actually enjoyed myself and felt like I really progressed. I have a genuine dislike of gas pipes and they seem to be the favourite toy of the UK scene right now, so it was great to ride a park that had a good mix of rails, boxes and pipes. Not only that but it wasn’t all side-on hits for a change. I’ll admit it, I struggle with side-on hits, it’s taken a while to get my head round the technique for them and also to calm my flailing arms so I don’t fall off the moment I get on. Not riding them on a regular basis as well means that each session I go to I’m battling my nerves and it takes a while to get settled back into it. Last night though I managed to pull myself together and not only hit the side-on gas pipe but step it up to hit the side-on bench as well. Best of all though was the gap kink bench! It’s been ages since I had to gap a box, everything always seems to be either side-on evilness or ride on beginner stuff sunk deep into the snow, so it was great to see the park team at MK put out a decent gap on to something that was more than 6 inches out of the snow. I’m not saying I wasn’t scared (I was) but it was good to step it up and push myself on something I knew I could do.

It seems that even though I haven’t been getting much snow-time the work I’ve been doing on the mental side of things has worked. My arms are much more relaxed, and if they do lift as I pop onto things they return to relaxed position much quicker than before and I just feel more positive. I managed not to get myself into a negative thought process loop yesterday and it really made a difference, instead I managed to beat the fear and try stuff that a year ago I would have bottled out on.

I was also really impressed that not only was the slope freshly groomed for the session (meaning no icy patches or skier moguls on the run-ins), the snow was super fast AND the toys held up well. The park team are obviously putting in a lot of effort to get the features built and iced in well and I for one appreciated the fact that everything wasn’t destroyed within half an hour.

All being well I’ll be heading up again this week, not only is there the standard Friday session but Saturday sees the monthly Park Strife session (a bit later in the month than normal because of the bank holidays and some ski racing), and here’s the park plan.

You can also meet the Park Team behind the set-ups at MK SNO!zone in this short video:

Park Team Interview #1 from SNO!zone Milton Keynes on Vimeo.

I really need to blog about the sports psychology books I’ve been reading,  I went on a bit of a mission after the Big Air comp where I got into a negative spiral of self doubt and rode way worse than I should have done.  Long story short though I’ve been feeling a lot more positive and I’m starting to settle into my riding a lot quicker and I’m feeling more confident about hitting gas pipes (probably my most hated park feature) from the side.

Jools got some nice shots of me, and it’s good to see that I’m keeping my arms lower and generally looking more relaxed (although I do still have my “rail-face” which makes me look like I’m not enjoying myself – I am, I just don’t tend to smile when I ride).  I think my favourite of the set is this one, I love the way he’s caught the snow spray and I’m pleased to have some proof that I don’t always have my arms flayling above my head.

and here are the rest

You can also see some of the other shots Jools took that night here.

DSC_7147, originally uploaded by plasticsnow aka Kat.

Jools & I were invited to the recent night shoot by Maverix Snow Camps to get some shots of the instructors while they did some videoing for their promo movie.

Acting as flash-monkey for Jools I didn’t get a chance to ride but I did use it as an opportunity to test out the face wraps I’d just been sent by my latest sponsor, Laurus.  Not only were Jools and I both kept toasty warm while in a giant freezing fridge but even when the snow blowers were running the fleece lined wraps managed to avoid getting soggy and freezing to our faces.

Here’s one of Jools’ test shots of me in my Uni-Sexy Swagger Long wrap.

The shots he took for James of Maverix can be found on Maverix Snow’s Facebook profile

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!

Saturday was another fun day with coaching on kickers and rails, the kicker was quite small which made it hard to really get my knees up on my spins without me feeling rushed and panicked so I took things steady and just focused on getting the take off right (which in turn meant my arms were mostly below shoulder level).  The afternoon was spent on the low box rail and I worked on making sure I managed to get some new tricks under my belt.  I’d tried frontside noseslides at Castleford a few weeks ago but wasn’t really committing to get them fully tweaked out.  Yesterday I was really pleased because not only did I manage to get a regular frontside nose with my board at 90 degrees but I managed to get the same trick nailed switch!

I was even more pleased that I was really going for the tweak and getting the board at right angles rather than the 45ish degrees I was getting at Cas.

This week’s going to be a busy one, I’m in Nottingham on Tuesday for work and then back over to Hemel on Friday for a shred with Anna who owns Sputnik Snowboard Shop (and sponsors me).  We’ll also be heading over to the shop so I can check out the shiny new toys that have been delivered so far!  I’m just waiting for some new boots to come in as I noticed at the weekend that mine are starting to come unstuck around the edges, and I’m hoping the Burton Molotovs will have arrived by then too…..I love this time of year!  Add to that the fact that my snowboards from Humanity are being pressed this week and I think it’s going to be a good month on the new kit front!