Happy New Year!

January 1st 2017... I have to let that sink in for a while still. The past month flew by in no time, because each day contained new experiences, lots of skiing and lots of fun, many celebrations, great people... overall a great holiday. But actually 2016 as a whole pretty much flew by with so many things that have happened. However, before I get into everything that happened in 2016 and my goals for 2017, I still want to finish the last blog about my Florida trip. This year feels like it just abruptly ended much sooner than usual, and thus I have 1 more blog to write before the logical looking back at 2016 and forward to 2017 blog!

Throughout the last week in Florida, I hadn't thought much about it being the last week. This was in the first place great, because that meant I could still enjoy everything I did fully without thinking about it being the last time and counting down the days till I had to leave. On the flip side though, that meant that the day I had to leave came around like a slap in my face. I hadn't packed, cleaned or prepared anything for leaving until then. The only thing I really treasured was my last ski set of this holiday, which come to think of it was also the last set of 2016. I skied longer than normally, just because I didn't want to have to stop, pack and leave. On the bright side, the packing was easy, mainly because its the way back, so there's no deciding what to take and what to leave... you take everything. Also I had more space and weight to play with because I took some presents that I didn't have to take back, and some Dutch essentials, like coffee and cheese, that by then had been finished.

Other than that Friday, it had been a week like the others, filled with training and other great trips, this time with many more people though! The Dutch squad in Florida had expanded by 6 people, 2 of which also ski for the national team, which meant more trainings buddies! Together, we spent 3 more days training with Vincent. I was improving a lot and we were hoping to land some tricks once or twice so that I know what it feels like. For my new sequence in hands, it worked well. However, my toe hold tricks were really close, but just not there, sadly. Even more of a bummer in slalom where I had a couple of really good starts at 13, one pass I even skied a great 1, 2, 3, 4 ball, got around 5, but not well enough to reach 6... I could almost touch it, but sadly I didn't actually run 13 for the first time. It would've been great if I did, since exactly a year ago was the first time I ran 14, but it's still promising for next season. All in all after all the training that I did, I'm happy at the level I reached within a month, especially after having not skied for a while. I hope this will help me improve quicker at the beginning of next season, so that I can start improving early on and peak at the competitions!

Like last week, this week we continued playing around with videoing and using the go pro in ski sets. One of the shots we took was from behind the boats, so we skied with 2 people behind the boat. It was weird to see myself ski from up close on the side, but also really cool. Since this was on Thursday, there wasn't much time to perfect these shots, but for a first try I still think they're cool. Also I couldn't ski too much anymore, since my arm is really sore, I'll be seeing a fysio this week to try to figure out what is wrong.

For now the best wishes for the new year!!