What Ever Doesn't Kill Me

Here, at an altitude of 35,000 feet, I am relieved to go back to Canada. My adventure to Russia was exactly as one who travels the world wants it to be; eye opening, challenging, and making you want more.

Just being in Russia makes you grateful for our friendly North American atmosphere and surroundings. Smiles from the locals were hard to come by and they were not excited to speak to you in English. Actually, they would just speak louder in Russian, some how expecting you to understand, as if the decibels were a type of translation.

The construction there was constant, which brings with it grey and rough scenes from all angles. The buildings that were built were already on the verge of crumbling, as if it were all going to be taken down after the Games…which is true for a lot of the hotels there.

Rumor was around every corner, right from the building scandals of both snow features and infrastructure, how many snipers were in the brush keep us safe, to what actually happens to the town when Vladamir Putin arrives and how much he looks like coach Crispin. It really kept for good dinner conversations.

But on the whole the contest went well, not perfect, but well enough.

The pipe was beautiful, thanks to Development Snowparks and their magician pipe shapper John Melville. Many do not understand the feats these people overcome to make us a safe and superb feature to ride. They shaped the pipe with a Zuagg this time, but there are talks of getting my favorite shapper for the Games, a Global Cutter. I will be so excited for that.

I have to admit this was the most emotional contest thus far. My first run delivered one of my best performances and I was not rewarded for my hard work, runs that were inferior scored significantly higher, what I get for not racing I guess. But for a fair chunk of the contest the judging seemed off, there are a few things us snowboarders need to fine tune before we can boost that we have a fair system in place. But I regress.

After seeing the score board on the first runs I was passionately charged with a feeling of just going and riding for myself. I called on the spirit of who is now my riding Saint, Anthony Crute, and dropped with a love that was grater then I have ever imagined. It began to be the prime run of my carrier, but was broken by a major butt drag on my frontside 720. I didn’t fully complete the run. I was heartbroken. I had semi finals in my grasp and I blew it.

With tears filling my goggles I ascended back to the start, disappointed with myself, I had at least top Canadian in front of me and I let it slip away.

Coach Crispin greeted me at the top with delight in his eyes. He was proud of what I did, he always said “Go big, or bail” unfortunately this time I bailed, but it was the first time I didn’t play it safe and took a step out of my comfort zone; the only way to take contests to the next level.

I couldn’t see his point then because I was so hung up over delivering a clean and appropriate first run but not being rewarded for it. Crispin admitted to being perplexed by that outcome, but quickly added that it was not to be dwelled upon, and we were a head of schedule according to our game plan.

Our freeriding adventure immediately after helped to put things into perspective that in the end all we have are the experiences life brings to us, the people who are special in our lives, and the way we choose to handle the outcomes, which sometimes we have no control over.

As of now there is one year, twelve months, or 365 days to make the changes necessary to make myself an indisputable candidate for a Winter Games quota spot. We are even doing work on the plane back to North America to keep my leaning on a roll. Just like Rocky I am ready to take shots and get back up, fight to the end with nothing to lose!

 

Russia or Bust

Russia is such a foreign place to us North Americans so I didn't have any expectations before arriving. I thought I would just take it as it comes. However, I didn't have the same thoughts when it came to my getting to Russia. After years of traveling around I believed that I had planned a smooth trip. Boy, was I wrong.

It started in Summit County, Colorado, at 11:30pm on the 7th when I was called by Air Canada. They were informing me that the first lag of my trip was changing because of the snow storm that was hitting the eastern seaboard of North America. I was not going to fly at 11:30am to Toronto any more, I was now flying to Montreal first...at 9:30am and then on to Toronto. I was a bit annoyed at having to now wake up at 4:30am, but it wasn't a big deal.

With the early start I arrived at the airport with lots of time to spare, checked in and proceeded to the lounge to wait. In the background I heard the mummer of the news taking about the big storm shutting down Boston and parts of New York, but I thought Montreal and Toronto would be fine...I mean we are Canadians, we are known for snow. Again, I was wrong.

 When we touched down in Montreal I was greeted with a very Canadian view, snow plows and blowing snow. My coach and I joked about how Canadian it looked compared to the 14oC weather we had left in Denver.

We deplaned to a scene of panic, terminal monitors with a lot of cancelled messages on them, except for our 4:30pm flight to Toronto. We headed to the lounge to kill the hour between the flights and while checking in the lounge when we saw a horrid red “cancelled” announcement pop up beside our flight.

In an instant I ran to the costumer service desk to see what we could do. We were met with an unhelpful character who was yelling “The airport is shutting down…nothing is flying out of here today”. This set off alarm in me; you see we had a special charter flight that was going to leave Zurich the next day, and it would not be ideal to miss that flight.

The service desk passed us on to a 1- 800 number to rebook. I literally called this number 60 times and was met by a busy signal each attempt. In a fright, with phone on ear, I started running around to the ticket desks seeing which carrier was flying to Europe, it seemed as though the big planes were able to get out of the storm, and I knew time was of the essence of this situation.

Just as I was about to buy a ticket from Porter to Toronto, because my Mom said my original flight was still on time, I finally got though to the rebooking center. I had explained my situation to the nice lady and 15 minutes later we were booked in to fly from Montreal to Brussels and on to Zurich, where we would only have two hours to make the special charter connection. The Brussels flight was leaving at 7:30pm. I had a moment of relief. We checked our luggage back in, went through security, and back to the lounge to get some food. 

As I was about to take by first bite, I saw the orange “Delayed to 9:50pm” message come up beside our flight on the monitor. I took a peek outside the window and saw the winds blowing swirling snow in front of the lights, again I had an “Oh no” feeling. I also thought that we would be okay because we had the tail winds on our side, which were strong tonight, and if we ran we could make the connection because our bag were checked through to Zurich. However, 30 minutes later another delayed message came up, and then I knew to kiss that flight from Zurich to Sochi good bye.

Our flight finally left the ground at 12:15am, I was very happy I got my requested upgrade. I was pooped.

The plane landed in Brussels while our connector to Zurich was leaving, as I deplaned I was handed my ticket for my rebooked flight to Zurich, which was leaving in an hour. I called the head of FIS travel that booked the charter to Sochi and explained my position. He relayed that it would be impossible to hold the flight for that long and that I was on my own. 

With no moments to spare I ran to the ticket desk and asked if they could take our bags off the flight to Zurich, I had decided to book a new ticket to Sochi from Brussels because it was cheaper then from Zurich. I am not afraid to tell you I had to beg a little because the bags were already on the plane, but it I managed to swing it. Our bags were being pulled I booked the next ticket to Sochi, a real painful ordeal booking tickets to leave on the same day. They were not cheap, but I couldn't miss practice.

Finally after the eight hour layover in Brussels we boarded for Moscow at 11:30pm on the 9^th, and nine hours later we landed in Sochi on the 10^th. The whole trip was close to 48 hours.

Its’ worth it in the end, I arrived with all by bags, safely and happy to explore a new place. I just didn't expect my planned trip of Denver, Toronto, Zurich, Sochi to end up the hectic Denver, Montreal, Brussels, Moscow, and finally Sochi adventure it turned out to be.

As outrageous as it was I stayed in high spirits, knowing that savoring each moment was important, because I am grateful to be doing what I am doing. Storms disrupting my neatly planned travel are a first world problems and I am lucky to have them.