Last Minute Pitztal Camp

Barely two weeks after returning from Landgraaf I suddenly found myself out on another training camp with the British ParaSnowsport Team in Pitztal, Austria. This was a bit different to all of my last camps, as it was the first time I had not brought my mother with me (due to my age I have to have a parent or guardian with me, but my mum was busy during this camp, however I was fortunate that the mother of my friend and fellow teammate kindly agreed to take me), I think my mum was more worried than I was though.

Prior to the races of the German National Championships, there were a few days of training, the most notable of which was the day I was let loose on a giant slalom ski. For those outside of the world of skiing, a GS ski is a fair bit longer than the slalom ski I am so used to skiing on, so the day was somewhat interesting, with a large proportion of it being spent face-down on the ground. I still need to work on being comfortable on a GS ski, especially as smooth movements don’t come easy to me, but by the end of the day things were beginning to improve (falls were no longer every 10 metres!). Overall I began to develop a few new skills in skiing, but not without my head taking quite the beating.

The next day the majority of my team took part in a giant slalom race, which gave me a much needed rest day (I need a lot more experience on a GS ski before I can even think about racing), which really helped me, as I wasn’t feeling great after the repeated head-bangings of the day before on top of the usual fatigue caused by my HSP. After a day of nothing, I was ready to take on the slalom race.

The slalom race itself, was not particularly remarkable, although the top section of the course was incredibly icy, and this managed to defeat many skiers, particularly the sit-skiers like myself. Before setting off I had made the decision to take the course fairly steady, and to just focus on getting down the course without falling, this seemed to pay off as I made it down and to the second run. After the inspection I noticed that the new course was significantly less icy than the last, so I allowed myself to run a bit faster this time, where I managed to finish and put myself into 8^th place.

I was absolutely thrilled with the how the race went as for me just getting down a course is very difficult (this will improve with training and more experience), it even made my friend’s mum cry!