day 1 of the CA state games :

 

SL and BX today.

 

rode around all morning, just doing jumps and some easy cruising.  it came time to do the SL, but nobody was at the course, so I took another run down the mountain.  get back to the SL course, and all of a sudden i'm late.  need to take my first run.  i take it really conservatively - not entirely on purpose - i simply had no idea what the course was.  anyway, that was slow, so i took the lift back up for my second run.  best time out of the 2 runs was the score, so i really needed to take it a bit quicker this time.  came out of the start - took the first turn - and i could tell this was going to be a good run.  took the 2nd turn - feeling fast.  3rd turn - just kill it.  4th turn - and i start skidding on the ice.  skidding so much that i had to sit down to avoid missing the gate.  nuts - there goes that time...  get back up and get back to speed.  finishout the run as fast as i can and that's that.  3rd place of 3 racers.

 

got over to the BX course as quick as i could and found out that i was too late to take a practice run on the course.  oh, wow.  my heat gets called - i'm feeling pretty no good - i mean - going down the course on its own at a fast speed without seeing it is hard enough.  but add in other guys that know the course?  forget it.  whatever.  heat comes up - 3 guys + me.  pull the start - i'm slowest out of the gate - i crash in the first turn. wow, need to work on riding those berms...  get back up and finish the course.  not too bad - time for the 2nd run.  so here we go - 2nd run.  i start slow again, and see the other 3 stacking up in the 1st turn.  they make it through, but 2 of the guys clash in turn 3 and one goes down.  perfect, i'm thinking - now i can cruise by.  but then he crawls up in the turn just as i'm coming by - oh, snap!  i'm able to go high in the turn and get by him just as he's getting up.  ok, now if i can just keep him at my back, then i'll finally actually beat someone at BX!  and then he passes me in the next turn.  huh.  finish out the course and that's that.  no injuries, so that's a success.

 

tomorrow is GS - that should be fun