In Abtenau we had
loads of snow and rain unfortunately, races and ski days got cancelled.
But on Saturday
(January 21) we got some sweet powder turns.
Weather was still
pretty good on Wednesday (January 18) we trained GS gates and super G free
skiing on the race slope. I actually had some pretty good GS runs, I start to
move quicker in GS so that’s a big improvement. I also had good super G runs,
the race slope felt good and I felt ready for the next day, my first IPCAS super
G race.
Thursday was race
day; super G, 2 races on one day I had bib 12 in both. Since I had only free
skied SG so far and no gates I skied the first race like a training run, I need to
build confidence and my first time in the Super G gates being a race wasn’t
ideal for sure. I skied safe, much to safe but it gave me the confidence I
needed to get in the second race, and I skied 7 seconds faster in the second
race. Yeah I learned. And it was so much fun, I like the speed and look forward
to race and train more super G and get faster.
First super G race
After the second Super G race
It rained on Thursday
and that night the rain turned in to snow and the next morning the snow turned
in to rain again, this gave some very bad slush puppy snow and the race was
cancelled. Because of the heavy wet snow we didn’t free ski that day.
wet....
On Friday night
we had a opening ceremony with the local ski club kids, they made a great show!
Japanese guys in the back of the van....
Well the rain
turned into snow again and it kept snowing that night (Friday). Saturday we had
loads of fresh powder, race was cancelled, too soft. So we free skied, the snow
was great and it was so much fun! (see the 3rd video in my previous
post).
Later that
afternoon it started snowing again.
Saturday night
they cancelled Sundays race because it was raining again. Sunday we didn’t free
ski because of the conditions but we played in the snow, build DAAST (Dutch
Adaptive Alpine Ski Team) .
Sunday night I
took a flight home. It was a great trip, I'm looking forward to my next
trip to Chamonix in less than 2 weeks. The last week at home I have been busy
studying, had a test on Friday. It’s cold in the Netherlands at the moment and
finally not raining J had a nice ride on my bike Friday afternoon.
Yesterday we made
the trip from Sestrietre to Abtenau and today we had a restday and went to
watch the first training run of the men’s downhill in Kitzbühel.
It was cool to
watch the training I have never been to an actual World Cup even got a chance
to take a picture with Ted Ligety.
After the
training we had lunch with the team, it was a good rest day better than just
hanging around the hotel the whole day. Tomorrow GS training and some SG free
skiing and Thursday Super G races. Rumour has it Heather Mills is going to race
the Super G’s.
About the slalom
Sunday; same old story, crashed the second run after a decent first run. Did
won crash of the week though with my superman dive and we got it on video.
Today was the GS
race and I finished, both runs, impressive, not really but after my track
record of the first 3 international races I started not finishing one single
one it kind of gets to be a big deal, to me anyway. Could have skied much
better I was skiing to conservative giving too much time away on the steep
part. The flat went pretty well, in the end I came in 6, not great, but the
weight of the DNF’s and DSQ’s is off my back and that’s a relief, today was a
good day!
Yesterday I got
to forerun the European cup slalom, that was a good experience learned a lot
and I finished those 2 runs to, let’s hope this becomes a trend ;)
Yesterday we
arrived in Sestriere after a smooth trip. We left rainy Holland for sunny and
white Italy, nice!
Today was our
first day of skiing, I did some GS free skiing and a few runs in the gates, it
was an awesome day with bluebird conditions. It was good to be on my GS ski’s
again after almost 2 moths and I was able to continue where I left off. Also
today was the European cup slalom. Tomorrow is another European cup slalom and
hopefully I get to forerun the race, fingers crossed. I have a Giant slalom
race on Saturday and slalom on Sunday.
Yesterday I met a
girl she asked me about my orthosis, I was wearing a skirt so it was visible, and
about my leg. She told me she had a similar orthosis for her arm because it's paralyzed, but she didn’t wore it anymore. She told me about her accident and
all the research she did about her disability, it was a nice conversation and I
recognized a lot in her story. She is a swimmer but doesn’t want her upper body
to become more unbalanced then it already is, her right arm is clearly a lot
thinner then the left arm and she is also missing a muscle in her chest. She
doesn’t like it when people notice it and stare at her. My right leg is a lot
thinner then my left leg but that doesn’t bother me much because of the
orthosis it isn’t visible, but I limp and that’s visible. The limping itself
doesn’t bother me because I’m used to it, it doesn’t hurt and isn’t that hard,
it’s just part of my walking, when I’m tired it gets worse. What does bother me
is when people stare, people you can ask me but don’t stare, I can understand
it if children stare. Of course there are moments that I don’t notice or don’t
mind it. Last Friday night I was at a friend’s place in the Hague and when I
walked back to my car I was pretty tired, had a headache and I was limping
pretty bad, it was 1 am, three boys on the street thought it was funny to
comment on my walking, well it wasn’t funny at all! I was tired it was a long
day and sometimes things like that just get to me. What I would like to say is
everybody has their story, some things are visible some things aren’t but
please don’t judge, you don’t know the story.
I
have been fortunate enough to be able to tell my story to all of you via the
blog. So thank you for giving me a chance to share my story with you!It
was not always something I wanted to share but I have found that speaking about
the surgery, the fear of not being able to use my leg and becoming a challenged
athlete has empowered me more than I ever thought!
Part of me thinks that
when I ski, ride my bike or work out in the university gym I am also telling my
story.
On another note I
found a new favorite blog http://canceratemyfoot.wordpress.com/The adventures of a
paratriathlete. This girl writes about her training in a funny and compelling
way. She also is a member of CAF (challenged
athletes foundation) this year she received a grant for a running foot. I also applied
for a grant for 2012, for training and it would be great if I get it. The grant
could really help my skiing but it would be even more great to be a part of
the CAF community, the events are in the USA so I probably won’t be able to go
but I can share their story over here and tell people about the great cause of
CAF. http://www.challengedathletes.org/
What have I been
up to these days, well training, studying, hanging out with friends and family.
December is a party month everything is nicely decorated and I have a lot of
parties. Last year we had a lot of snow this year it’s warmer. I celebrated Sinterklaas
5 times this year so I have enough of (crappy)gifts to last me a year. My
Brother and Sister had their birthdays and mine is Friday.
Sinterklaas at a lecture
skating ring in Leiden
Celebrating Sinterklaas at my place
I’m studying hard
at the moment have 2 big test coming up on December 23 and January 6, it is
going well. And after that I will get back to the snow to race! Great reward.
Since a week I’m
doing my physical training at the university sport centre, to be more precisely
at the so called ‘testosterone corner’ where all the boys hang out, pumping,
that’s where the weights are that I use for my exercises. I was nervous getting
in there for the first time, because they don’t like girls in the testosterone
corner, I did my first squats one guy came to me and said you are strong for a
girl and with that I was accepted in the testosterone corner ;) He actually had
to take some weight off before he did his squats. And I picked up swimming once
a week, it’s nice and a good way to recover and train core a little
differently. Yes the university sport centre, I’m a fan.
Well where to
start. Let’s just say it, I had two races in Landgraaf and I managed to get
disqualified in both races in the second run for missing a gate, impressive,
right?! Yes made the same mistake twice, didn’t learn, blabla…. And cried… twice….
It sucks.
We arrived in
Landgraaf on Monday and trained slalom on Tuesday and Wednesday, I had good
runs during these sessions and especially my last run on Wednesday, everything
felt right (for the moment) so that was a good way to end my last training
before race day.
After skiing we
went cycling in the gym and did some core and stretching and off course we did
our ski’s. It was fun hanging out with the other teams we even watched soccer
the Netherlands against Germany sort of together with the Germans, but the
Netherlands lost 3-0. On Wednesday I put
a lot of work in prepping my ski’s for the race and I was happy with the
results, my ski’s where fast! After dinner I got my bib, 15 and I felt relax and ready to race.
After a good
night of sleep I woke up excited but not nervous, I did the inspection and the
first run looked pretty good. I skied the first run and it was a good run I was
happy with my time, off course there were still things I could do better, but I
was happy. My time was good, I sat in 6th place 0,5 seconds behind
number 5 and 2,5 seconds behind number 1 (the world champion!) my gap with number
7 was 2,5 seconds as well.
After the first
run my mom arrived and a friend, it was great that they came to watch me!
During inspection I noticed the turns in the second run where sharper. In the
first run we didn’t use a start interval and started when the girl before had
finished but because it was a big field and they wanted to speed things up they
used a start interval for the second run, I didn’t know that. In the start the
starter started to count down, but I saw the person in front of me still
skiing, and I lost my focus…. Even so I skied the top part pretty good, I
was attacking more than in the first run, this was a better run. Until I got
pushed back, and in the backseat I got shot out of the slalom, damn. Getting
pushed back is a big problem for me because my orthosis pulls me a bit to the
back and I have weakness in my foot lifter muscles so I can’t pull myself back
to the front that easy.
Well I finished
my mom was there so I cried, like a little girl, which helped I got it all out
and I knew what the problem was.
The rest of
Thursday I spend just chilling and prepping my ski’s for the next race on Friday.
I remember I
wrote on twitter, turns out 15 wasn’t my number. After dinner I got my bib,
yeah 15… There was a little pink tea cup hanging on the wall in the kids corner
and if I finished the next day, Sven, one of the trainers would give it to me as a
reward, finishing would have been a big enough reward but I like the tea cup.
Next day, Friday I finished the first run but the disqualification of the day before got to me a
little bit, so I held back… My time was still pretty good considering it is my
first race, again sitting in 6th place, only the gap to number 5 was
a bit bigger (0,9 second) my gap to number 7 was (2,76 seconds) and the gap to
number one was (2,9 seconds). Second run, inspection I had my doubts about the
gate before last (27) I even walked back to see how the others did that gate, the
rest of the run was fast. I skied and it felt good, I got rid of the feelings I
had during the first run, I was almost in the finish, confident I skied right
but when I was next to gate 27 I realized my mistake…. I cursed and got really
mad with myself. I hadn’t tried to ski that gate because it didn’t look right
at the time, the lines where straight to the finish, it wasn’t clear at all! So
I missed the gate and got disqualified….. again. Just at that moment my dad arrived, too bad he didn't see me race.
me realizing my mistake....
As it turned out
I wasn’t the only one who got disqualified at that gate, in total 8 out of the
11 athletes that got disqualified in the second run got disqualified at gate 27. My roommate Anna got
disqualified at gate 27 as well, she also took the straight line and she called
it a ‘Sven Kramertje’ after the Dutch speed skater who didn’t switch lanes in the 2010 Olympics, he got disqualified while he would have won gold if it hadn’t
happen, I think it’s a good name for what happened.
To top that day
off, I slipped while walking in my ski boots and I fell on my head, hard….
Later that
afternoon we had a little photo shoot for profile pictures and a group
picture, curious how those pictures turned out, posing all dizzy and with a bad
headache.
We also had a ski
session that afternoon but I felt a little foggy in my head so I went inside
after a few runs. After a shower and 2 hours in bed I felt better so I went to dinner
and the party that night. We had cheese fondue and fun with the Suisse team and
2 balloons. I didn’t stay long at the party my head couldn’t deal
with the music, I hang out with a few of the Suisse guys in the hall for a
while and went to bed early. I woke up disappointed and foggy in my head the
next morning but I had a good time anyway. It’s too bad that I got disqualified
in both races because I was skiing good and I would have qualified for the European
cup, which is a goal, but I know it's a reachable goal now. Because I didn’t qualify for
the European Cup my next races are in January and I have December at home, time
to study. My head is getting better, I have a bit of a concussion that’s also why this
blog is this late, but it’s a lot better and getting back to normal.
