My first day off training

Seven days skiing in a row after a six month absence is a testing time for anyone's body. My feet are tough as hell from the hours of numbness in my super stiff racing boot and cold from the sub -10 average temperatures. My ankles and knees are quickly aging from the incessant pressure involved with high speed turning. Physics doesnt do justice to your body. My calves, hamstrings and quadriceps are slowly bulking up - which is good, but relentlessly painful every night when I return home. Even my shoulders and biceps are getting a good work out from "disciplined" pole planting. Mathematically I am supposed to remember all turns throughout the day. Of the average of ten runs a day, I am doing about 50 long carve turns a run and about 100 -200 short turns. This equates to roughly 700 turns a day (assuming 2 x 150 short turn runs and 8 x 50 long carves runs). This really doesnt include drills or practice runs, where we might be practicing to ski on one leg fully crouched or say a mixture of long and short turns. But 700 to 800 turns a day sounds about right. Imagine hopping on one foot for five jumps. This for me is roughly the same amount of exertion and pressure applied for one long carve turn. This might make short turns seem less strenuous, but alas it is not the case, since the force or pressure used in one run of high speed short turning is as strenuous as at least four runs of high speed long or carve turning. But for the sake of simplicity lets make the exertion of short and long turning equal, remembering that one long turn for me is like five hops or jumps on one leg. By this logic imagine hopping or jumping on one leg 3750 times a day (750 turns a day x 5 jumps or hops on one leg being the same pressure used in every turn). Now for me 3750 hops a day is not only strenuous, it is an absurd amount of exercise. And I smile the whole time, especially at the end of the day. So it comes as no surprise that I am equally happy with a day off training. It hasnt snow for about five days and although the cover is still excellent I imagine it would have been quite hard this morning. I woke up at about 8.30am, had some cereal, chewed the fat with my coach re buying some skis and watched the x games on telly till 11am. We then all went into town to do some shopping. At luchtime we met in the local sandwich shop for a soup and toasted ham and cheese sandwich with fries and coffee. Halfway through lunch it started snowing again. Not heavily, but the flakes were dry and fat, just the way I like it. I like being out when it is snowing so instead of getting a lift back to the house I decided to walk the three or four kilometers on the icy sidewalk. It was really peaceful and serene as the walk takes me through a little park and down some quiet side streets. I got home about half an hour later, taking my time and watched some more x games. When the others arrived back home we decided to go ice skating at the local rink over the road from home. None of the skates really fitted me well so after two circles of the rink I gave up. It was also starting to snow heavily, but a little wetter and smaller flakes. I jumped on the couch with some tea, read some of my book and had an afternoon sleep. Tommorrow is another day off but the cleaners are coming to the house so we all need to be out between 10am and 2pm. I dont know what to do but we are thinking of going to the movies in Cranbrook, about a 20 minute drive away. I am thinking I might just catch a cab up to the mountain so I dont miss this powder day. It is still snowing and by my estimates we will have about 50-75 cms of fresh. I dont want to miss the opportunity of skiing in that as powder skiing is a great test of balance as well as a hell of alot of fun. But with no guide this is looking unlikely. So one an a half weeks into my trip and things looking good. Incidentally my last run yesterday was unreal. My short turning has improved greatly both in style and technicality. I finally feel like an alright skier. Until that moment, I always felt inferior to the general skiing population, generally trying to avoid skiing under chairlifts because I lacked style and a sense of confidence. By my last run I was trying to ski right next to the chairlift, full of confidence that my style was visually pleasing. It is a great feeling.