Leading up to this season I’ve been putting hours in at work, in the gym and at some snow domes. There were 2 events back to back at The Snow Centre and Tamworth snow dome with some interesting features, including the Red Bull truck at Tamworth with a rail on it. In the gym, I hit a new deadlift PB of 77kg, along with making weekly progress with my bench press and power clean lifts. For pre season snow training, I went to Hintertux, Austria with SSE for 2 weeks, but we didn’t have any luck with the weather, with high winds and cloudy conditions most days. As we were coming to the end of the 2 weeks, the weather for the week after was looking good, so I made the decision to stay in Austria in hopes for some better training weather. Having never changed travel plans to come home, I was nervous but excited to see how this played out. My only concern was what I was going to do about washing clothes, as I had only packed for 2 weeks. Thankfully, the place I was staying had a washing machine, and I was very grateful as the pile of clean clothes I had was very small! Unfortunately my luck for the coming week stayed bad, with more bad weather conditions and the jumps being rebuilt on a good day. On the plus side, I took a trip to Banger Park to do some airbag training, which was massive for my confidence as I have a few big tricks to put down on snow this season.
With the jumps rebuilt, all that I needed was for the weather to play ball, and for 1 day it did! However, the shade comes over the jumps pretty quickly and there wasn’t time for me to do a lot. But rail progress on the other hand was going well. There was a wide tube perfect for some 2 p2s (270 on, pretzel 270 out). I had the 2 on down on lock but it was getting the grip to go for the pretzel 2 out that was difficult. I had many attempts coming out to switch which is a good stepping stone to have. In the end I managed to get it twice that day, along with some other stylish little tricks on the plastic tubes further down the park.
I’m looking forward to how this season will pan out for me. I’m down to compete in 2 World Cups, maybe 3 and I’m also looking to put down a few new big tricks. It could be a tough season, mentally and physically, but I’m so ready for the challenge! :)