Snowboarding I

I took my first snowboarding lesson tonight.  Chris G’s girlfriend, Andie, has been snowboarding over 15 years and said she would teach me.  I borrowed a snowboard from my friend, Sarah, who is 8 months pregnant with twins and doesn’t need it at the moment.  Andie’s Dad works at Alpine Valley, so he was able to get both of us free lift tickets.  Yea!

When we were about 5 minutes away from the hill Andie took out a 5 hour energy shot from her purse.  I have always wanted to try one and she happened to have an extra one.  She only takes 1/2 so I did too.  It tasted weird but not horrible.

Andie started me off on the bunny hill :)  She showed how to stand when you are facing down the hill (heals down) and up the hill (toes down).  She helped me learn to leaf (go back and forth) and also make turns which is hard because once you start heading straight down you pick up a lot of speed.  I bailed a lot!  The other hard part was standing up on the board.  I just don’t have the ab muscles to get up from my butt.  So I had to learn to get up on my knees and then try to turn to face down the hill.

After what felt like 2 hours (actually only about 45 minutes) she took me on the ski lift.  Yeah, I fell down when getting off.  Embarrassing, but didn’t hurt too bad.  What should be a 2-3 min run took me about 15 minutes to get down.  A lot of falling and trying to get back up.  When we got to the bottom I had to take a break and give my legs a rest.  Then Andie had me go on the lift again and I fell down again when getting off.  Still embarrassing, but still didn’t hurt too much.  The second time down the longer hill was much better and I was able to do a couple turns without bailing. 

I was done after that and it had only been 2 hours.  I can already feel my legs burning and my abs aren’t doing much better.  This is definitely a workout and I used quite a few muscles I’m not used to using.  I did have fun and I will give it another try soon.  I think my balance from doing yoga helps me out on the board.  What I really need to learn is to let go of the fear, but I think that is why you need to learn this when you are a kid and are fearless, not when you are 32 and know how much this might hurt.

Oh, and I’m not sure if the 5 hour energy did much for me.  I think the adrenaline helped keep me awake tonight.  I guess I’ll find out when I turn out the light and try to fall asleep tonight.