I just concluded two University races at Jiminy Peak, MA. I was really psyched to get back onto the uni circuit and spend some time with all my normal friends who have decided to go to college. They were the first races I’ve done since returning from Vail Nor-Ams. Working on a video of that, (they ended up not going much better than the others. Shoot!)
Anywho, it was a Slalom and GS this weekend. For college races the running order up to 30 goes by how many carnival points you have. Unfortunately, this being my first winter carnival race of the season I had 0 points on that end so I had to battle my way up from bib 34 in the SL and bib 31 in GS.
The slalom went well, had an okay first run and fast second run, ending up 9th over all and scoring a 25 which is not to shabby as it is a score for me. If only by a little.
The giant-slalom was much the same. Had a medium first run and had another pretty good second run. Ended up 5th overall, scoring a 28.
Even though the races went pretty well driving home I realized that, like with most of my career, I wasn’t exactly happy or content with my results. I always find myself wanting more and expecting better things out of myself. While I believe this is a good quality in essence since you are always striving to better yourself, I am starting to realize that the overuse of that quality is faulty.
When I do well, like this weekend for example, I end up thinking “damn, I wish I had a faster first run. I could have had a really good race if I didn’t mess up that turn. What was I thinking?” You can imagine that train of thought might get exhausting after a while. It doesn’t allow you to take pride and happiness in the fact that even though it may not have been a perfect race, it was still a pretty awesome day.
Today after my second run my sis came up to me to congratulate me on the 5th and instead of being happy I was all grouchy about not winning the run and being further out overall than I would have liked. Needless to say, she rebuked me for my bad attitude and this blog post came into being. (Thanks Chels, I was being silly.)
So in conclusion, don’t take yourself to seriously. Celebrate the small victories and learn from the mistakes of the past. It was really uncool of me to be bummed out at all these past two days. This weekend was awesome. I skied well and got to hang out with some seriously sweet people. In Vail I couldn’t put a whole run together but now I’ve got some second run swagga! I’ve got a good feeling in my chest and I am psyched on life. When’s my next race?!
Life.Love.Skiing. 