Settling in

It has been quite a while since I have written here. This is because everything is changing so rapidly and I feel like I am on a rollercoaster ride. I'm trying to let everything that happens sink in, but it is challenging at times. That is why I didn't put much priority on my blog, and more on settling in at school, in the ski team, in my house, etc. I want to prioritize building a life here, so that is why I might not be writing every week. I do want to update you though, because many exciting things are happening!

Most importantly, I have had my first collegiate competition! It was the farthest one we will have this season, a 9 hour drive... We went in a van, with the 4 freshmen on the back row for the first part. Luckily after a while, we got to spread out to more comfortable seats. We got to the hotel late Friday night, so we just had dinner and went to the hotel. The next morning we were going to leave to the lake at 7am, so after a welcome shower, we went to bed on time. We had been warned about the site, last year it was extremely windy and people were having trouble running through their first pass. Also someone crashed and the competition ended in the hospital, so we were warned to go easy on the jumping. Luckily the wind didn't look too bad, so we had a good competition day ahead. First up for me was tricks. In a normal competition, this consists of two 20 second trick runs. Here, it is only one. My toehold run is worth the most points and also the most consistent, normally, so I will do that run in the collegiate tournaments. I was first from our team to trick, however I fell too early and lost many points. Next for me was slalom, the wind was picking up, but still, I have skied in worse. However, because of the nerves, I didn't run my first pass with the ease I would have liked. It was all a bit stiff and I only barely made it. Again, at 16, my next pass, I made a mistake and had to fight to make it through the pass. Luckily I did make it, because I would have been very unhappy to fall on that pass. Then came 14, where I normally have issues. I had a nice head wind and figured that the way I ran the previous passes has nothing to do with this pass. I can still make it better. I was going quite well, but then I didn't fight until the end and didn't turn 4 ball well enough, so I didn't run the pass. Still, it's a score that I do on most competitions, so it is not too bad, even though I always want to run it. Finally, it was time for jump, they were alternating guys and girls, so I got to ski immediately after Tycho, which was fun. He was still skiing back when my boat pulled me towards the ramp, so we were literally on the water at the same time. I started with 2 single cuts, because of all the warnings about the ramp. These were fine, but not far. Then I had to do a 3/4 cut, to get a bigger score. Sadly I didn't ski away, so the score didn't count. I knew what I had to work on after this competition. Do my toehold run until I'm sick of it and will stand up through it all if someone dragged me onto the lake at 3am. Also, do 3/4 cuts from the first jump so that I will have 3 chances and also much more practice. And that's what I've been doing the last week. I did toeholds twice a day some days and start with my run twice every time. I also did a set where I started with a 3/4 cut from the first jump and managed to ski away on all of them. Next weekend, there is a competition in Arkansas, luckily a little closer than this competition, so I will show what I have been working on there.

Watch this university video where I am featured twice: Facebook: Liekewaterski