So I finally made it into the condo at steamboat about 11:00 Friday morning. Which was fine because the race didn’t start until 2pm. Well, theoretically was supposed to start at 2. With timing issues I think that we finally started about 3:30. I was feeling all the travels to the events as I think it took a total of 24hrs to get from door to door Boston to Denver.

The first day was slalom. This is not my forte. There was alot of fresh snow from the night before so there was really no place to warm up either. So essentially my first race run was like a warm up run and it showed. When I saw my coach after the first run, he just laughed and shook his head. Lets just say the second run was a wee bit better but nothing spectacular. I was hoping that all my “lucky” shirt and watch along with the heaps of irish tea would get me through a day I was already tired for.

Now in the parallel events, there are 2 qualification runs. The top 16 women race in the finals, a dual elimination format. 

So I think I qualified 5th or 6th. Not great but ok. I raced the first girl and I seemed to finally find my feet. I got past the first girl, no problem. The second was a girl that I race from Canada alot. She is definitely better in slalom that me but that usually gets me fired up. the course was getting alot rougher and I was definitely tired from the travels. I was just a fraction of a second behind her on the first run. I knew I had to give it all i had for the next. Unfortunately all i had was not enough. I won the second run but not by enough cover the gap she had on me from the first run. Coach was a bit happier but knew I should have done better.

But we were both more excited about racing the PGS (parallel giant slalom) on the second day. I went to stratton earlier in the week to try a new binding system for my board. It was the best thing i ever tried. It is definitely not ideal to try something one day before a race and expect to feel totally comfortable. Nonetheless I was still excited to race it.

I was able to get a couple warm up runs in and I felt really good. I took my first qualifying run and it was apparent that I wasn’t totally comfortable on it but I won the first run. My coach was happy but said it wasn’t close to the was I was riding the other day. I took my second qualifying run and again, i knew I could have done better but won the second run as well. I was excited about this as I have had some horrible qualifying runs which makes it harder to win the overall.

I wasn’t happy with the line that I was taking through the course. I was way too straight.(straight is not always the fastest way)  The course was getting rutted fast which makes it even more important to take a good line. The first girl that I raced, I still couldn’t seem to find where I wanted to be, but i moved on to the next round. The next girl was a younger rider that is getting good quick. So I was starting to feel a bit of pressure but I started to find where i wanted to be in the course. SO that was 2 down. The next round decided who goes to the 1/2 round or the 3/4 round. 

I pulled out of the gate and started wrong from the beginning. I was slamming into every rut which 1) hurts like hell and 2)is not very fast. So after the first run I was .1 second behind. The next run I started off better but tried to go too straight toward the bottom and well as I won that run I only won by .08. .02 shy of what I needed to go to the winners bracket.  I was frustrated as I had won the qualification round by over a second. I felt confident that I could have won this. But I didn’t ride the way I was in training the day before and that cost me.

On to the consolation round, I again raced the girl from Canada that I always seem to race. We were both frustrated at this point as we both figured we would be racing for 1 and 2. Fortunately for me, I came out on top. I ended up 3rd but it was a large disappointment for both me and my coach. 

Well back on the plane for me and to work and hopefully get a few more days on snow before the next race in canada