My Snowboarding Adventure

aka..the most painful activity I willing have done.. yep worse than natural childbirth.. or running 13.1 miles.. really it was that painful!

So as most of you who know me.. know I like to do things..anything..and when I do it, I am usually successful. I was blessed as a child to have things come naturally, and so very rarely I had to work really hard at anything. Now that being said I am also very determined. I set my mind to do something and usually will persist until I have conquered it. With that being said, I have always feared snowboarding. I have skied since I was about 12.. and aside from a little break 98-07, I skied on a regular basis. I can handle black diamond, moguls, and catch a little air going off jumps.. I love to ski. I have also love a man who snowboards..

always has, always will. I must also mention he is a wake boarder too. When he learned to wake board I decided to give it a try and I did it.. got up pretty well.. stayed up on the wake board for a decent amount of time. Now..its not my preference, I enjoy water skiing.. I don't stand sideways. Anyhoo.. this winter we were spending 6 days up at Solitude, with 4 days of mountain time. I decided there was time to try this snowboarding thing. I heard it all.. its easier, its harder, its fun, its hard, it takes 3 good days so your 4th will be the best..(not my favorite bit of advice). Now I went into it open minded.. but confident I could do it. Clay thought it was funny that i just assumed I could do it. Power of positive thought keeps me going most of the time. So I recruited 2 of my sis-in- laws to start out and we took snowboarding lessons.

Clearly this picture was taken at the beginning because you can see we are still smiling.. that was to change!! We took lessons which required us to walk up this little with the board strapped sideways to the board.. try that one on for size.. yeah.. its not meant to do that. So that made your body contort and move in unnatural ways..at least in childbirth your body is supposed to do that.. snowboarding.. not so much.
So after practice.. and probably one to many funny jokes on my end with the teacher.. we took the lift to the top.. I was ready to strap both feet in and hit the slopes, and so I did.
Hit the slopes that is.. hard on my butt falling backwards.. then hard on my hands arms shoulders falling forward.. rinse repeat.. you know the drill. Didn't matter which direction, my head was whip lashed into place (thank goodness I wore a helmet).. back and forth.. snow in face.. snow down neck. Get the picture!
So I was determined not to give up..and made it off the bunny hill with Clay and Pete (both expert boarders) and up the mountain we went with a new found confidence and skills, so I thought. They were both very patient as I slid and skidded my way down the mountain, I got in a pretty good groove, and then I started to get tired.. and when you get tired you get sloppy.. and then you catch and edge..well repeat above.. fall fall fall. But all in all.. caught some good runs.. felt pretty good..was really sore and tired and went to bed, woke up all night because when I moved in bed and moved any muscle it hurt so bad it woke me up.. ouch.. on to Day 2

We had the whole family.. and we just decided to do it.. and headed up a big lift.. not the bunny hill.. big mistake.. Reagan got off the lift fine.. and as I was strapping in and showing them the way to go..off she went.. straight down the mountain.. as we yelled .. pizza wedge..she went tumbling into the snow.. ouch.. then I am trying to catch up to her.. but that dang board doesn't go straight very well.. and well Clay ended up walking with his board, Addison and Broderick did fine.. Ski patrol scooped Reagan up and and I followed them on my board.. so needless to say.. we didn't start on the right foot. Reagan and I ended up on the bunny hills again till lunch and got her going into lessons again. I hated not being able to help her.. now I know its not an excuse.. but I knew that me on a board as a beginner would not work with her skiing.. and so I knew for her benefit switching to skis would be safer for us together. We checked Broderick and Reagan into school again for the afternoon and took back to the mountain. Now when I fell.. it hurt more..every fall before came shooting right back. Then the fear of falling knowing how sore I already was.. mostly my tailbone from falling and my right shoulder..(ended up straining my shoulder) and every time I caught an edge that panic of falling was starting to stress me out. I wanted to just fly down the mountain like I did on skis and well.. I forgot I was still a beginner. Did I mention the constant strapping and unstrapping onto the board.. arh.. I was trying to enjoy it but then the final straw happened as we, Clay, Addison, and I were heading down.. they went left so of course I went right..arh... and as I tried to get left I couldn't..so I finally just took the board off and walked up and over to where they were.. Santa had skied by and Addison got to chat with him and take a pic..

and I missed it..I was miserable, I hurt, I ached..I fell hard and even Addison realized how bad it hurt..I think the tears were welling up before I even realized how bad I hurt.. I was done. I think I quit.. I never quit, but I was done. I couldn't get where I wanted to .. I fell hard every time I tried. I think I have tried to convince myself I gave it a good try.. I did.. 2 full days.. and to be honest I would try again.. but at 2 o'clock that 2nd day.. I snowboarded myself down to the rental shop and turned in that board for skis...

and life became good again!! Hit the slopes with speed.. and didn't fall again!! Woo hoo!! So all in all.. I came away.. tried something new.. and realized I cannot do everything, well I can some of it.. just takes time and practice.. I am impatient. I will try again, and I guess I should be grateful that I had skiing to fall back on when I was done with the snowboard! Took me 15 years being married to a snowboarder to try.. don't know why it took so long..maybe those 3 kids..but the best part was riding the lift with my family.. chatting on the mountains and spending the time with them experiencing the great outdoors!!! Worth the sore muscles any day!!