The Turning Point II

Ski Racing Championships #2

Aksel Lund Svindal (favorite ski racer)

Advice: If you are a new viewer of my blog I would recommend reading the post before this because this post is adding onto my previous post of last years ski racing championships that I attended.

The next morning it was a little hard to get out of bed due to all of the lactic acid building up in my legs from yesterdays shocking run.  Although I was sore I was still ready to rip it up and get another win under my belt.  Once again,  I did the same routine which is eating breakfast, stretching (a little bit more because of the soreness),  and last but certainly not least getting into my mental zone.

Twenty to twenty five minutes later

I began the what seems to be trek up to the lift from our team room.  I also put in my music once more to stay in that "mental zone".  Today was much warmer than yesterday which worried me.  When the weather gets too warm it melts the snow making it slushy and hard to grab an edge while going down the race course.  Despite the slushy snow I had to stay positive and believe that I was going to win.  I decided to take a couple runs on the upper mountain to keep my mind off of the dissolving snow (this was a very bad idea and will show later).

One hour later

Click Click... Click Click... "Ok you're ready Ben get in there!" said my ski coach Darryl.  I just kept telling myself that I was going to win and that I had to keep my head in the game.  At that exact moment I didn't feel that I was mentally ready.  This also worried me along with the melting snow that I could observe from the start.  I had to stop thinking about that and tried to keep my mind off of ski racing for the moment.  It seemed to be working and I got into the gate with a clear mind.  Racer Ready? 3... 2... 1... Go!!  Pulled with all of my might out of the starting gate pulling towards the first gate.  The snow still felt surprisingly firm to what I was observing from the start.  I could actually feel my edges grabbing in the snow and didn't feel any ruts in the line I was taking (a rut is basically a hole that forms from the earlier skiers).  The set of the gates was fairly easy that run and I got the luck of the draw pertaining to the snow and ruts.  I passed the finish with once again a winning run!  This time the gap between me and the second place finisher was about a second and three tenths.  I was completely and utterly astonished by this finish and to be honest didn't think I could achieve that but since this was GS I still had one more run to go....

To Be Continued