Hello again, dear city.

I find myself in San Francisco once again. The reason I'm here isn't so pleasant (my grandma passed away and I'm here for the funeral), but being in the city is. I do wish I was snowboarding right now, but it's kind of nice doing something different for two days. I've ridden every day for the past 48 days and now I'm figuring out what people do all day long when they're not on the hill.

Spending time with my family is nice, even if it's because of the funeral. Breathing the city air again is nice, even though I've sworn by how wonderful the fresh taho air is. Walking around and seeing all sorts of different people again is nice, even though they're not people I know. I like the hustle and bustle of the city, the tall buildings, the dirtiness, and the vibe. I guess I forgot what it was like to be home. There's so much more life here.

I'm leaving the city tonight and greyhounding back to Truckee in the morning. I'm stoked. All I want to do is snowboard. But I'll keep thid memory of San Francisco wrapped up in a corner of my mind and hold on to it until I come back here in May. I'm going to go wild with all my old city friends that month and it will be exciting, incredible, and awakening. In June it will be back to snowboarding for me, but that month I spend in the city will be the best. I guess once you're a city kid you're always a city kid. Why can't SF be covered in snow???

Open class, and open for improvements.

I don't know what I was thinking Friday night and set my alarm clock for 6am, thinking it'd give me an hour to get ready before I had to meet Jake and go to Sierra. I woke up at 6 to a text message saying "Hey I'm at Safeway" and almost crapped. I was supposed to meet him at 6am at Safeway! I flew out of my apartment like a bat out of hell and had this horrible feeling that I wouldn't be able to get in the event because of my own dumb move.

Well we got to Sierra at 7:30, and I was the first to get on the wait list. I was also able to register for the Superpipe event the next day. I didn't feel too worried about the course; it was pretty average. Flat box, down-flat-down box, and then a two jump line with different options for the jump size. I saw the other girls throwing threes off the big side but most of the time they weren't landing them. I figured I'd play it safe  and do a line I knew I could land in case the other girls didn't have clean runs. My first run I did a 50-50 to nose slide on the first box, 50ed the down flat of the kinked box and then slid off, did a sloppy front 180 on the first jump and then went for a tail grab on the second but couldn't find my tail. Yuck. I was planning on doing a front 3-revert-cab 3 for my second run but since my safety didn't go the way I wanted I thought I should do the same run again. Second run I only 50ed half of the flat box tail grabbed over the knuckle, 50ed the whole kinked box did a clean-er 180 and got my tail grab on the second jump. Playing it safe didn't work out though because the other girls were able to pull off their runs and score higher than me. I placed 6 out of 7 and I was only 3 points behind the girl ahead of me, so if I had done the run I wanted or at least did a cab 1 on the second jump instead of a tail grab I could have grabbed fifth.

Superpipe day. I felt good about pipe. I like pipe and think I'm fairly decent in the stunt ditch. Well the four girls I was up against were good, not fairly decent. During my practice I was getting above the lip just slightly and these other girls were a few feet above the lip. I rode the best I could and ended up fifth. It would have been nice to at least beat one person but I didn't really mind too much. I've only been riding pipe for a month and the girl who placed above me told me this was her sixth season riding that semi circle. I looked up my four competitors and they've all been riding big contests and placing high for a while. This was my first non-USASA event.

Even though I didn't place the way I would have liked, I had fun and learned a lot. I learned that if I keep practicing more I can hold up in open class. I learned that competition isn't the place to hold back and play it safe. And I learned that I need to step it up because the girls I'm going to be competing against in the future are more experienced and are pretty solid riders.

The DC park at Northstar is open today so I'm going to head out there to ride the big boy park.
Until next time,
CKOS

Spoke too soon.

Well I guess I'm doing Free Flow now.

I went to Northstar today to practice pipe stuff and my coach told me half way through the day that some lady who has stuff to do with Free Flow told him there's already been a few girls who have dropped out of slopestyle. Meaning, if I got to Sierra by 7am and got on the wait list I'd probably get a spot.

So now I'm competing in slopestyle.

Did I practice slopestyle at all today? Of course not.

I did nothing but jumping Monday-Wednesday this week so I don't feel too worried about that. I mean, I should be fine on the jumps as long as I don't psych myself out. My mind messes with me so much when I ride. There's so much that I know I could do if I let myself. But I get psyched and hold myself back. Can't let that happen tomorrow though. I think the jumps are going to be a little bigger than what I've ever hit. But it'll be okay. If I put my mind in the right place I should have no problem with a straight air- front 1 line. Should be easy...

My concern today was half pipe. I really want to do my best in pipe, which would be airing out and doing 3s and switch 3s above the lip. Today started out real bad in the pipe. I kept quitting after my first two hits. No bueno. During lunch though I changed my stance up and tried to put my head back in place. When I went back to the pipe everything felt better. I started getting higher. Then I started airing out. Jeeze. Getting air the the pipe is such a weird feeling. It's different than anything I've felt before. It scares me. But I like it. So anyways, I did that all day.

One of the ski coaches is picking me up tomorrow to bring me to Sierra, which is apparently farther away than I thought. I would really like to be at Sierra when registration starts at 7am, but Jake isn't picking me up until 6am. Mapquest says it will take an hour and a half to get there. I'm really hoping it doesn't take that long. Or if it does, I hope there's not a bunch of other girls already there on the wait list. Tell me again why there's only ten women's spots? It'll suck big time if I get there and can't compete. :/

So I'm crossing my fingers that it takes less than an hour to travel 57 miles, or that there're more spaces open than there are girls on the wait list. All of this would be a lot easier if I had just made up my mind earlier and registered when it was open. Ugh. Okay, gotta pack my overnight bag now. I'm going to either stay in a hotel or at a friend's house in south lake so Sunday isn't as difficult as this.

Indecisiveness strikes again

I decided to compete in the Gatorade Free Flow tour at Sierra.
The Stash Gathering at Northstar is the same day.
I decided to compete in the Stash Gathering.
No. Free Flow.
Nah I don't stand a chance in Free Flow. Stash Gathering.
Thursday Morning: Okay okay. I'm doing Free Flow. It'll be a good experience and maybe I actually do stand a chance now that I'm getting more comfortable on the bigger jumps.
Oh. Wait. Registration closed last night. Wow. Really? Yup. 8 hours ago.
Maybe I'll do same day registration. Oh. There's only 10 spots available for girls. They must be full anyways.
Guess I'm doing the Stash.

That's pretty much how it all went. I really need to make decisions earlier and then commit to them. Kind of like in snowboarding how I get screwed over when I make decisions about the trick I'm doing when I'm already in the process of doing it or how I only commit half way to tricks and then wreck myself. I spent so much time thinking I wasn't good enough for Free Flow that by the time I got stoked on it it was too late.

It's not like I'm totally missing out on anything though. I'm just gonna do the Stash Gathering and hopefully pick up some swag. It's also the Burton Demo Tour at Northstar this weekend so I'll be able to check out some of their gear and maybe find out about getting some (crossing my fingers with this part).

Nicola registered for Free Flow slopestyle and half pipe ages ago. I talked to her today and she said she's not going to do pipe anymore and I can take her place. Since I can't just "take her place" I have to show up at Sierra at 7am (or earlier) and make sure I'm first on the wait list. Now the problem of not having a car comes up. But if I can figure that out I can compete in a real competition and see how I hold up against other girls (since I haven't gotten to really asses my skill with the USASA comps).

My history has proven that things just kind of work out over time so I'm going to assume I have a way of getting to Sierra-at-Tahoe and practice for pipe. I haven't ridden pipe much in the past couple of weeks and I usually use my no-edge park board. However, I'm determined to ride my pipe board and actually get air on Sunday so I guess I'll just be lapping pipe all day tomorrow. The x-games got me all stoked on pipe and I really want to push myself to at least do half of what all those girls were doing.

Wish I was doing slopestyle, but I'm going to go into the Stash Gathering and Half-Pipe and do the best I can. I love snowboarding so much and just being able to do it everyday is the best thing in the world, even if I suck at making decisions.