Caitlin Drummer

Tonight, with fear in my heart and sweaty feet in my boots I went back to the freestyle at Hemel. Two weeks ago the box chewed me up, spat me out, bruised my arse and made me think twice about the whole sorry sport! I actually shed a little tear and went home an hour earlier than I should have. Grumpy grumpy grump grump.

Of course I then missed the next week of freestyle by procrastinating so long that it got booked out. It is of course now sliding into “the season” so everyone’s coming out of the woodwork and getting back into practise. Oopsie. I’ve booked the next week already so I’m sorted for that.

This week I did everything I could think of to prepare for an epic evening of hard work and fun. Filled up with calories early on, and lighter food later. Stretched lots. Rested well. Then I shot off into the EPIC traffic all the way up the M1 and got there almost LATE! I could hear them calling out for the course attendees whilst I had one leg in my trouser and the other with the velcro hanging off the knee pad. I scampered out with my boots not done up and managed to catch up with the group. After ten minutes and two terrifying runs down the slope I think I got everything done up, and tightened like it should be, not like it is if you do it in a horrible rush.

Anyway, what’s the goss?
Caitlin dun a 180 of a kicker, regular into the jump and switch out the other side. Well sketchy and a few too many 90s to call it nailed, but I’m claiming the one I *did*.
She also dun some mucking about on a rocker, which is a nice feeling. You go up a ramp to a plastic pipe on the top, pause for a moment and go back the way you came, just like a quarter pipe really.
50:50s on the box feel fine and never go wrong.
A little 5:0 snuck in one time.
The bestest most awesomest thing was riding switch into the box, boardsliding through into a regular rideout. That feels *GREAT*.

So, I’m back to adoring snowboarding with all the passion I had at the start, and The two week old washout was nowt more than a “bad day”. WRITTEN OFF.

Now to do some food. I’m ravenous.

I’ve never been one for holidays really. I’m a practical kind of kid and tend to spend my downtime in either collapses recovering from excesses, doing tasks that cannot be avoided or spending the time on some activity that I consider to drive my development as a human through education or experience. Not that much of it isn’t self absorption or hedonism.

That said I’ve been to a few countries: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, America, Mexico, Guatemala; even places as exotic as Scotland. I’ve never been south of the equator though, which is something of note. I think however the thing about all these international visitations is that they’ve all been the result of a direct association with another person, the one or the group who was going and with that cause in place, I tagged along. I had no agenda for going other than company, or curiosity. Mostly I was instructed to go, or had no choice to stay behind. Significantly I’ve never gone alone.

So, it’s a slightly strange feeling to have just booked a couple of plane tickets and some accommodation for a solo trip to some mountains. I’ll be sharing a bunk room with three other humanoids, but I’ve never met them, don’t know their names and have no idea if I’ll get on with them other than the assumption that as the delightful person I am they’ll take me straight under their wing and we’ll be bestest friends for life before the first broken leg happens.

So there we are, the longest winded way I could find to say “I booked a holiday, GO ME!”. Also: SQUEEEEEEEE SNOWBOARDING WOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Bleeding ages till January, isn’t it?

But sometimes there’s something that sticks out and makes a difference in your life that can’t really go unsung. I’ve seen other people around me get vocally excited about unexpected but interesting technologies in feminine care, camera equipment, mobile phone technologies etc.

My revelation comes in the form of clothing. You guys might have spotted that I’ve been snowboarding a little bit once in a while, and since I started I’ve had to get expensive bit of equipment after expensive bit of (beautiful) equipment. It’s been a fun process learning the limits and applications of various bits and bobs and as my skill and ability have increased the various methods of injecting snow at high speed into various crevices have multiplied. I’ve played around with snow skirts, belts, layering and all sorts but the snow was still creeping in.

When I did my snowboard course with the Maverix team I was given a discount code for UK Tall Tees who make almost offensively large DWR coated sweatshirts. I got mine through on Thursday last week, and it’s barely come off me since, much to the entertainment of my friends. It’s so thick, warm, fuzzy and well made.

I got to give it a work out at the slope at Hemel Hempstead this morning and I had the best session I’ve had in a long time, complete freedom of movement, comfortable warmth and crash after stupid crash after stupid crash, the snow simply never made it to skin! I rode regular and crashed, I rode switch and crashed, I popped some little jumps and crashed, and the snow stayed on the cold side of the clothes the whole time.

I can’t recommend this product enough. UK Tall Tees.