that "i-spend-all-day-yesterday-riding-down-mountains"-feel.

this morning, my muscles have that wonderful "i-spend-all-day-yesterday-riding-down-mountains"- feel, my legs are covered in "i-suck-so-much-at-riding-t-bars"-bruises and the tops of my feet have "i-will-never-ever-again-wear-softboots-3-sizes-too-small"-scrapes. i also have some "raceboards-suck-so-much" knee pain. but oh, does it all feel good. oh, how was it worth it.

yes, it was a wonderful day on the slopes, yesterday.

the first ride sucked, muchly.
i ride goofy. over the past year, however, i had somehow forgotten that i do, though (yes, this is highly embarrassing). the raceboard i had borrowed from andrea had regular mounted bindings, i put it on, wondered a bit about why it felt so odd gliding towards the chairlift, and while dirk and i were on, making our way up the super-duper-snowed in seebuck, a little foggy that early in the day, i wondered whether i should have re-mounted those bindings.
well, once we'd reached the top, after about 10m attempting to ride, i knew: yes, i should have.

i could not ride at all: it felt as if my left leg was breaking in the binding. the snow was wonderful though: fluffy and powdery and so much of it, too!
not being able to ride that regular way, however, i got stuck in that deep fluffy powder, stuck completely, too, and couldn't get out or up. in addition, that maneuver made me realise that "yes, caro dear, you have lost too much weight to wear these pants, even when you're wearing suspenders", as the powder powdered my butt and the suspenders came undone.
nothing quite like that realisation on your first ride of the day. - i sat in the snow, out of my mind frustrated.

thankfully, dirk was superpatient and stayed with me as i carefully (and painfully) made my way down the hill with the fucking wrong foot strapped to the front of the board.

lessons learned: a) once goofy, always goofy. b) pants for boarding need to be snug at the waist. yes, snug. pulling them up is not good enough while you're still in that learning phase when you're regularly in touch with that snow.

how good that dirk wasn't just patient yesterday, but also smart: he'd brought a multi-tool. first thing we did once we were back at the bottom of seebuck was remount the bindings. now that felt better.

those rides were much better: i could still ride, yes.

however, the familar problem i'd had last year when borrowing andrea's cheapo softboots (without a snug inner boot) occured again: my heels were sliding up and down massively. when changing to frontedge, i'd literally get my heels up 2cm before actually moving the board. annoying and hard on the calves. i'd tried to remedy it with plenty of sockage, which made the boots even smaller in the front than they already were. highly uncomfy: i stopped feeling my feet.
i rented some larger boots, had to swap them to even larger ones a few rides later and only then, then was it finally wonderful.
and how wonderful it was....

the snow was excellent, the sun came out.
dirk and i would catch the chairlift together, i'd make my way down an easier, more snowed in slope once, working on my turns, while he'd choose a different path, race down, come back up, and meet me on my way down.
the raceboard was a little strange: it took me about 3 hours of riding to get used to it, and it just didn't feel as good as a regular board does. at this point of my snowboarding, i need something normal, definitely, and possibly a little longer than what i borrowed from andrea, too.
by mid-afternoon, things were splendid, dirk kept teasing me that i was a bore and wasn't turning enough and way too slow, too, so i showed off and he was impressed.

i was surprised by how well things were working and it finally, finally was what i'd wanted for the day: moving in a wonderful way in wonderful countryside.
the sky had cleared, the sun was out and reflected snowflakes that the wind blew from the trees. all was fine and well and divine.
and i was happy.
i finally had that "come-on-baby-show-me-how-we-can-flow" thing happening between me and the board. *purrrr* pure snowy bliss.
nothing quite like it.

later in the afternoon, dirk showed me how to use the t-bar as a boarder, which worked far better than expected, apart from that letting go thing you have to do at the top of the mountain (who would have thought?) it opened up a plethora of opportunities of slopes and we could ride on a few different - and harder- slopes. apart from a mean icey spot which made dirk and me crash simulatenously and two annoyingingly large bumps for which one needed an insane amount of speed to cross without having to strap off the board, it was lovely.

and then it was suddenly time to go home, which involved waiting in the cold for packed buses, the melting of snow stuck in my pants, freezing in a train station, a cozy warm train and a cool beer, a trip to the supermarket with a snowboard, finding a niels frevert bootleg cd in my mailbox (graciously provided by a guy from the niels frevert mailing list) and collapsing on my bed, once i'd gotten myself out of the wet clothes, later followed by the tiredly cooking of leek & potato soup (so tiredly in fact, that i attempted to blend a bunch of thyme held together by a cotton thread that ended up making nasty noises as it curled itself around the knives of the blender), a long hot shower. and sleep. lots of sleep.
i hadn't mentioned that i had woken up at 4:30am yesterday morning, no? oh, how did i need that sleep. i think i still need some more, actually.

and despite that discomfort in my legs this morning, that longing for a board beneath my feet (right foot in front!) plagues me.

and it's snowing again already....