Having decided (not that there was really any other choice than) to abandon the race training in favour of recuperation in readiness for the BASI Instructor course I already feel better, although the calves still feel tight this morning so I’m sure I’ve made the right decision.
Anyway, today I’m off to Grenoble…
It was raining again this morning so I decided against skiing (I think I’m becoming a bit of a fair-weather skier). Instead I decided I’d take a trip to Moutiers so I caught the Olympe gondola down to Brides-les-Bains where it was absolutely chucking it down.
The bus journey from Brides to Moutiers only takes 10 minutes but I had to wait half an hour for the next bus and there’s absolutely nothing to see or do in Brides. Like as not the weather in Moutiers would be the same as Brides and I suddenly didn’t feel like wandering round anywhere in the pouring rain so I got back on the gondola and went back to Méribel for lunch.
The rain finally stopped around two so I went out skiing foir the first time in 4 days but the higher lifts were all closed – not surprising since it was very windy at the top and the snow everywhere had been soaked so the avalanche risk was high (and I could hear blasting going on the whole time I was out).
The snow on the lower slopes was horrible – complete slush – so the skiing wasn’t much fun and my left calf was beginning to feel strained so I went back after an hour or so.
It hasn’t been an entirely uneventful week though: Matt broke a bone in his hand and Will had his hair cut…
and the next day he dyed it… 
I’m back in my chalet, so I’ve got an internet connection again (courtesy of some other, unknown, local chalet, who haven’t put any security on their WiFi router).
No skiing today; my legs need some time to recuperate. So I’ve got some time to catch up on all those chores that I haven’t attended to for the past week; primarily servicing my skis and washing all that sweaty ski gear. I should really be reading the BASI manuals too (and maybe I will, later).
We had about 10cm of decent snow overnight but around 7am it started to rain, heavily, so by the time we hit the slopes the powder was mush. Today was supposed to be a technique day but the pistes were ankle deep in the heaviest, wettest, ‘powder’ I’ve ever skied and we were on slalom race skis to boot so it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t fun.
The rain would have soaked us by itself but then I fell more or less every 5 minutes for the first half an hour and when I wasn’t falling the ‘powder’ was flying up and coating the entire front of my jacket and salopettes like spray from the bow wave of a speed boat.
After a couple of runs on unpisted pistes we tried the Mottaret Stade, which was better, but since we hadn’t booked it we were crowded out by the groups that had.
Finally we tried another unpisted but very well skied piste; in parts this was better because there was some surface to get some edge grip on but there were also parts where the snow had been heaped into mushy lumps that couldn’t be completely blasted through despite the fact we were skiing at speed.
We were also trying to keep as close to each other as possible and eventually the inevitable happened and someone fell. In fact there were two fallers; the skiers immediately in front and behind me – I was lucky not to collide with either of them.
Unfortunately Lucy fell badly and after trying to get back on her skis and continue she had to give up and call for a rescue. The stretcher was with us within 5 minutes of our call and within a couple of hours we heard that she hadn’t broken anything but had bruised her right tibia; it’ll keep her off the slopes for 2 or 3 days and maybe off race training for a bit longer so it’s fortunate that next week is a rest week (no race training – we’ll be shadowing or snowboarding).
It was still raining at lunchtime so my plans to ski with Felix were canned and instead we headed into town for a bite to eat. We had planned to try the galettes at Chez Bibi but that turned out to be closed on Mondays so we went to Jacks instead. I ordered a couple of beers while we decided on what toppings to put on our pizza. The barman, James, was in a good mood and gave us our beers for free.
We’d almost finished the beer and were just wondering where our pizza was when James turned up with two more beers – we hadn’t asked for them, he’d just decided we needed more. The pizza turned up shortly afterwards so we polished that off and had a few games of pool before rounded it all off with a couple of coffees.
When I went to pay the only thing James would let me pay for was the coffees. Sure beats skiing in the rain and what’s more while we were in Jack’s the rain turned to snow.
Happy Birthday Boss !
No skiing today. Apart from anything else my poor body needs time to recover. I also needed to get my passport photocopied and make up three stamped self-addressed envelopes for the French Test Technique application.
Then I had to get down to the Ravines car park by 10:30 to meet Felix and since it’s the start of the French half term as well as the British half term the restaurants will be reservation-only this coming week so we needed to book up some places for the first few evenings.
24 hours on a coach had left Felix in need of a bath and a sleep, which left me some time to go and watch the rugby. Despite the Man of the Match being awarded to Troncon I think the general consensus amongst commentators and spectators alike was a poor performance by England. I wouldn’t entirely disagree but I think it was a very good performance by Italy and their tactics were spot on so I would have awarded the Man of the Match to Pierre Berbizier (the Italian coach, although of course you can’t do that).
It’s still snowing in a half-hearted kind of way and the temperature is hovering around zero so the snow is quite wet and not settling on areas that don’t already have cover. With a bit of luck it will snow through the night and we’ll have a fresh layer to enjoy in the morning; for tomorrow we ski !
Another day off (from skiing !).
Going to Grenoble for the weekend.
