After another pants night of jet lagged sleep, Day 1 of Level 1 training has arrived and to prepare for it a good breakfast was in order. From the buffet I chose the healthy option of porridge and fruit topped off with a yoghurt. Pete selected the hot option of the day, only something which could be described as a sausage mcmuffin and chips. The diet of an athlete!
We dashed off in the snowfall and met our instructors, bizzarely both Scottish. The 13 snowboarders got split into two groups and Pete and I were both put in a group with an instructor called Kyle. The day was jam packed with info and exercises to learn the alpine code, learn about the safety of your students, a video analysis of your current boarding technique, some skill development such as riding switch and then we started part of the teaching syllabus with how to teach skating (or skaring as our instructor pronounces it) and a J turn. And then the fun bit – watching the video analysis back with the whole group giving feedback on each person’s technique. Not surprising Pete got some feedback about his uneven weight distribution between the two legs which will help to stop him kicking his back leg around -although even on that first day there is improvement already and in the video there was only one kick turn with another 10 good turns. Then my turn …… and no one could think of any feedback, the coaches agreed that it was a great technique – woo hoo! Pete was shouting out that I was the teacher’s pet – ha ha!
After a full on day the outdoor hot tub was calling – bliss. When it got too hot we found that a snowball on the head helped. That evening Pete hit the pub and I got to grips with an online supermarket order in Kamloops and a delivery service who will pick up the order and deliver it the 40 minute drive up to Sun Peaks the following day. How exciting ! The village supermarket doesn’t stock a huge amount of stuff and is pretty expensive so it’s good to have a bit more variety.
Day 2 is a day off as the interns have to go to Kamloops to get their Security Number and bank accounts sorted. Instead we are training on Saturday this week. Shame for the interns as there was 12cm of fresh powder which fell overnight so we couldn’t wait to hit the slopes.
Today the Morrisey side of the resort was opened so a big group of us headed there (skiers and snowboarders – yes we can all be friends).
It was so quiet on the slopes and the powder was really deep in places. It was fab! The only problem was when we found one run that had really deep powder and not alot of gradient – I was down on my bottom and then couldn’t get back up as the powder was so deep. I guess teacher’s pet can’t be good at everything. After five or six tumbles I got to Pete and said “OMG, that’s so tough, I am panting like a dog” to which he replied “I know, I can hear you! “.
After lunch we decided to take the afternoon off and save ourselves for tomorrow, another full on day of training. An afternoon of chilling and taking delivery of our shopping is on the itinerary for this afternoon.
