All over again

On the way to Aspen
Silverthorne Colorado

The average amount of taping needed for my knee

Well hello!

Today was an important day! Today was my first race back in 19 months (a year and a half)!!! It felt scary and great to be in the start gate this morning! It felt really normal and I was very comfortable about how to get ready to race...it was the actual going out of the start gate that made my heart race. Here in Aspen they injected the GS hill (which means they stuck tubes into the hill and flooded it with water...so the hill was a sheet of ice literally!!) so it was fairly intimidating when in inspection we were slidding sideways down the hill unable to stop! The ice made it really difficult to race on. I believe over half the field did not finish. before my first run I got the chance to watch a tiny section of the course. While I was watching a girl bailed really hard! She put her body through a panel and literally she exploded in a cloud of snow...after the snow cleared you could see that her helmet had flown off and was slidding down beside here. Not the best image to see before your first run! So getting ready for my first run iwas quite nervous. It was a difficult set, girls were going out of the course all over the place, I was starting 34th so not near the front of the pack and it was my first race! In the start I made myself take a second and said " I WANT to do this!" " I want to be here"...haha I think it helped a little! Needless to say I started and just thougth about moving forward and being on the gates. I slipped around a couple gates and went too round as usual but I finished. After the first run I was sitting in 23rd or so position. So I started 8th the following run as they reverse the top 30. Second run was better as I had already done it once! Again I went too round but I finished and skied well despite it all. It was a confidence building day and definately a starting point. I think i ended up 23rd. That may not sound great...are your right is it not the best but to put it in context the field today was stacked! Alot of the girls from the World Cup stayed and raced today. Lots of Europeans everywhere! Oh well! Tomorrow is another day.

Cheers,

Elli