So its October 18th, end of week 2 training, and on Tuesday my worst fear happened. Not the crash as depicted above in the still of my epic wipe-out (viewable on my You tube Channel link http://youtu.be/ifk88uvuNmU) No...Crashes in GS and Alpine skiing in general I have learnt in 8 weeks, come and go. The problem is the physiological effect, which BS aside translates into what I am calling 'Lost balls syndrome' 3 days without skiing and non stop ice on the knee during my rest time
played hell with the mind leaving doubt about running down what is a pretty tough glacier run and training ground reserved only for the hardcore really...Lets not beat about the bush....El Grande Motte in Tignes is where without been sexist, a man (and woman) gets tested...there are no green runs for the 8 week Virgin Skier (Moi), not even red really, its in-between red and black with sheet ice runs that deliver varying gradients that culminate in a roller coaster ride that only levels out at the end, and during the journey down just gets steeper and steeper and steeper and steeper...forget your brakes and its straight off the end into an abyss of sorts. I havent even reached the downhill runs yet lol...
So anyway, i had 3 days off where each day i dont mind saying im thinking shit, what if the next run down is it, not in a life ending context, in a career stopped before it gets off context...Am a rookie Alpine athlete about to enter his first race season, where am not trying to get on top of my game now, but find my game so I can race in enough FIS level non cup races to get me into the Europa league and hopefully 1 world cup downhill circuit race before the season ends in 2015. A tall order by any stretch.
So today was the big day, I made it up the glacier on my own, and pretty much just free skied in my GS 191 length skis for hours (Thanks as usual www.skibartlett.com and Atomic). I was lucky in that I have become good friends with another underdog, or rather group of underdogs, those been the GB Telemark team made up of Jazz, Louis and Shaun and simply been around these guys was enough to allow me to keep pushing. So, no accidents today on day one back in the office, and thanks to singing a song from the film need for speed "come on lets fly like an eagle, let your spirit set you free, come on lets fly, like an eagle" at the start of each run, I managed to get past the daunting steepness, sheer ice, mixed with nasty snow in parts, and low and behold, I managed to find my Balls, and they were pretty darn big, i wouldn't say they had grown, but they were big enough to carry me through the day, get me off the glacier at the end, and mean that i can think about tomorrow and training not as a problem, but as another day with another challenge, push the limits, live, ride and be! Am still carrying an injury, and its early days in every context as i have to now get my race license sorted with the Jamaican governments ministry for sports, and ensure i have a high enough level of game to let me play with the big boys! But lets just say that, I thought I lost my balls, and am pleased to say that i didnt lose them, just misplaced them. Lesson for the day, when you misplace your balls doing something pretty crazy, the place where you will likely find those gems (for us men :-) is where you last think you saw them, in my case, on top of a glacier, and when you want to get them back, you have to go back to that dark place, face that fear, in my case, riding without balls, and they will reveal themselves, they may have shrunk, but its important just to locate them, so you can nourish them. So, that's the end of my day, and tomorrow i begin the task of feeding my balls by pushing limits. Pushing limits = Bigger Balls :-) Hope this helps others who may have lost there balls, or something similar that allowed them to be! will upload the latest video tonight to my Youtube channel after editing, and to those reading this, go and tell someone you know about the GB telemark team, regardless of whether your British, this sport needs a lot of support and takes a lot of technical talent, and of course Balls, or to be PC, if your a lady, maybe we can call it Mojo :-)
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