Wipeout!

I had an amazing morning today, as I finally caught up with my proper group for lessons. I've been incredibly lucky and have a lovely group of about 8 or 10 fellow Brits and a lovely, funny instuctor called Yannick, who seems to just intuitively know how far he can push us and have us still enjoy it.

I learnt absolutely loads this morning as my technique got corrected (which consequently means my quads hurt a lot less) and I smashed through about 3 different mental blocks I had with my skiing today. I was challenged and found I could do stuff I totally hadn't expected, which felt amazing. Not only did they get me back on red runs which I've had a total fear of after the last time I went skiing, but we actually hit up some small sections of off-piste, and I even did my first 3 (very baby) jumps on skis, and didn't fall over on any of them!!! Which isn't to say I didn't fall over twice in the powder and also a brilliant spinning job of a wipe-out on the piste. I think I've come on in leaps and bounds today, which is fantastic as I kind of felt left out after I missed my lesson yesterday.

After my lesson I had a long lunch with my friend Chris, and we then decided to do one last lazy run before his afternoon boarding lesson started. Unfortunately, the day took a turn for the worse at that point as about 50m's down the blue run I turned round just in time to see Chris go flying off his back edge, land, and stop moving. Eventually, he crawled over to the edge of the piste, rather winded, but also in some pain with his back and wrist. His wrist was starting to swell pretty badly, so we took the decision to head back to the chalet and seek out some help. I sent him back on the lift as he couldn't board, but skied down myself as it was a hell of a lot quicker than me walking back up on ski boots with skis in hand. We spent the rest of the afternoon sorting that out, and one of our chalet hosts took him up to the clinic in the neighbouring village to get it looked at. He reappeared several hours later with it all plastered up, and x-rays showing a pressure fracture on the left wrist. Verdict - cast for 3 weeks, no exercise for 6!

I feel pretty guilty as technically I was the senior skier / boarder at the time, but then it was only a blue run, which he had already run twice before, and I have to remind myself that accidents do happen. Anyway, as a result of all the goings on, I didn't get out again in the afternoon, other than the race back to the chalet, which was a bit a shame. Having said that, I did the trip back to the chalet in record time, so I definitely improved this morning!

Tomorrow I've got another lesson in the morning, but I'm hoping to go and meet the remainder of our guys over in the Les Arcs half of the resort in the afternoon - new territory to try out my newly learned skills on! :o)

In food news - I gave away part of my main last night, I left some of my frites at lunch and I didn't bother with my starter this evening (although admittedly because I wasn't that keen).

Oh, and I'm prouder of those little jumps than a mother with a new baby!