2017: Year of Slams

[ill-advised strategy]

2017, the year I turned 40, was just one slam after the next.

Early 2017: I take a hard puck to the shin playing pond hockey and have a bone bruise right at my ski boot top that lasts until the end of ski season.

Ski hill friend decides we need some moguls at our little Michigan ski hill and pushes piles of ice into a rudimentary mogul field where the moguls are piles of ice chunks. I am in a position of having advocated for not grooming every single square inch of this place, and wanting to encourage things like mogul skiing and tree skiing, so I feel forced to be seen skiing these awful moguls for the good of the sport here...because I fear what management will think if they do this and nobody ever skis the moguls. I take many huge hits trying to ski lines in, shoveling and skiing, shoveling and skiing. Slam after slam.

Mid ski season
Eventually, I get into problems with patroller and operations guy over this mogul field....with them closing the run, with them having problems with me going into it with a shovel to remove ice chunks and shape stuff to make it skiable, etc. I take refuge driving to Mt. Bohemia twice a week. In raincrust and tight trees, I push my luck trying to be cool on camera and hit a group of trees harder than I've ever hit anything while skiing. Now I have huge bone bruises on both shins.

Late ski season
Buddy calls me and says he can sort out my pass at the local hill and he wants my help getting a mogul comp done for late season. I start going back into this mogul field with two huge shin bruises to get a comp line together and build kickers for this comp. It rains and freezes, nobody else is going to space monkey these comp lines and kickers. I feel pressure to do this well, and to represent mogul skiing at this place. I spend a week skiing rainfrozen ice zipper lines and hitting iffy air bumps into moguls. I take at least 20 hard wrecks. My wrists and thumbs are fucked, my shins are fucked, my knees and back are sore. Comp goes fun for everyone and I dnf slamming on the bottom air, the wear and tear from this week basically ends my ski season.

Mud season:

I decide this is the year I will begin mountain biking again, and I pick up a rigid 29er. All the trails are new to me and not really built to be ridden on a rigid fork. I have hard crashes and decide I need a susp fork.

Summer:
Susp fork makes me faster and gets me onto some DH trails. I build confidence and speed until I have the hardest slam I can remember (may have had harder, but those are ones that erase the memory with a concussion), folding the front wheel on the compression below a fast step-down. I lay on the ground for awhile, collect myself, stomp the wheel back to roll-able and ride home bleeding everywhere, in my underpants (shorts ripped in half), with one eye closed b/c of blurry fucked up vision. My wife is out of town, so my mom comes over to make sure my brain doesn't swell up and kill me lying at home. ugh.

Late summer I begin to focus on surfing.

Fall: we have a beautiful day of surf at the best spot in the area, but the word is out to the population centers in the south great lakes, and I count 40+ people in the water. Frustrated, a friend suggests "I guess we can just longboard (skateboard)". I realize another friend has left a longboard in my garage with some stuff he's storing. I begin longboarding with no real skateboarding background and take many small bails and one good one where I drag my face on the pavement and have to make my way home with a super bloody face.

I become hooked and start longboarding as often as I can. Eventually, it's a beautiful fall day and my wife is out riding her bike while I'm out doing bus laps with the longboard. I've had too much wine, we meet up and she's going to follow me on a lap with her bike. Everything is going great until a traffic pattern develops in front of me that I don't like, and I decide to foot brake with too much speed. I take a superman onto rough pavement at about 20-25mph and leave my right upper leg numb. It's still numb. My wife and a bystander are horrified, we hurry away before anybody calls 911.

Late fall, I've figured out how to take my dog on bike rides in a milk crate with a little harness. I take him to go get some groceries and I'm riding home with about 50 lbs of dog and food packed on the bike. It's almost ski season and I'm excited to build strength, so I decide to really power up this steep hill. I feel a muscle pull in my hip.

The next few months are miserable, as I feel this "muscle pull" pushing on a nerve and making sitting painful...which is a nightmare as a commercial driver.
Still, I was have so much fun longboarding that in my mind I've decided to make this small ski hill fun by learning to snowboard.
Early ski season: I run into more trouble with more operations and patrol guys at the little ski hill, with them telling me "anything not groomed is considered out of bounds here". I decide to stick to the snowboard. I flounder and slam, flounder and slam. My hip burns. My work sitting in a seat is horrendously painful. I continue snowboarding knowing I'll get better.

Eventually, I cave in and go to a doctor and physical therapist, who tell me it's not a muscle, it's a disc.

Thus ends the Year of Slams.

So now, I haven't been posting here because sitting in a chair hurts too much. I lay on the floor now. I'm taking some time off work to try to heal this disc, as was the plan with my PT. Snowboarding is out, which sucks because I was just getting to the point of not being gripped and being able to just relax and cruise on it. The only skiing I can do now is old man gentle cruising. Mt. Bohemia is out. I walk my dog, I play pickle ball with oldsters at the senior center. I lay on the floor.

Going to have to dial it back....I can't just keep abusing myself this way.

[::: :::]

vibes dude, shitty being 40









you'll get back to it
just keep it low contact

[Kinnikinnick]

Heal up mang.

Dial it back is right.

Seems to me that the pattern is you can’t resist going to 11 in whatever you do and for some reason in your mind it’s a black and white choice between all out and “old man” cruising. Find something where you won’t be on the raw edge of disaster but still getting a thrill.


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[ill-advised strategy]

It's a psychological problem for sure.

The super hard tree hit scared me, and the super hard bike crash scared me too.
and now this disc injury that won't heal is reminding me why that stuff is scary, because being in pain 24/7 suxxx.

Weirdly, playing pickleball at the senior center is sort of reminding me that fun is fun with or without any associated danger. I guess I really feel that way about surfing too, I don't go out when it's scary, and I love that small glassy longboarding. I feel pressure to ski hard, to ski well, because I've talked too much shit in the context of this shitty ski area here. I tell them they're making huge mistakes and they say "how would you know", then I tell them about my background in skiing....so when I ski here I feel pressure to ski hard and ski well, it's hard to dial it back in that context. I've had a dozen concussions now, I have no left acl, and my spine is a junkyard now. Snowboarding was supposed to be a kind of excuse to just be a beginner or intermediate and not have to prove anything here. I really just wish these people would figure out they're running our ski hill into the ground and start doing the right thing on their own, but that's unrealistic, and it's entirely out of my control at this stage.

I really miss being on the west coast with regular surf, because we have like 4 months of irregular surf here, and it's just not enough, so I'm on the bike and wanting to skateboard and whatnot. That stuff is a disaster when it goes wrong though.

Lots of time to think about all of this laying around trying to heal. If I had more $$ I think I'd start seeing a psychologist to try to sort all this out....it's hard to find one who would understand though, I'd need a Robb Gaffney type. I honestly feel like I'm at that phase where you know something is killing you but don't really know how to stop....because without it I'm entirely hollow.


edit: the upside is this little guy doesn't mind laying around with his injured person.

[Kinnikinnick]

It's a psychological problem for sure.

The super hard tree hit scared me, and the super hard bike crash scared me too.
and now this disc injury that won't heal is reminding me why that stuff is scary, because being in pain 24/7 suxxx.

Weirdly, playing pickleball at the senior center is sort of reminding me that fun is fun with or without any associated danger. I guess I really feel that way about surfing too, I don't go out when it's scary, and I love that small glassy longboarding. I feel pressure to ski hard, to ski well, because I've talked too much shit in the context of this shitty ski area here. I tell them they're making huge mistakes and they say "how would you know", then I tell them about my background in skiing....so when I ski here I feel pressure to ski hard and ski well, it's hard to dial it back in that context. I've had a dozen concussions now, I have no left acl, and my spine is a junkyard now. Snowboarding was supposed to be a kind of excuse to just be a beginner or intermediate and not have to prove anything here. I really just wish these people would figure out they're running our ski hill into the ground and start doing the right thing on their own, but that's unrealistic, and it's entirely out of my control at this stage.

I really miss being on the west coast with regular surf, because we have like 4 months of irregular surf here, and it's just not enough, so I'm on the bike and wanting to skateboard and whatnot. That stuff is a disaster when it goes wrong though.

Lots of time to think about all of this laying around trying to heal. If I had more $$ I think I'd start seeing a psychologist to try to sort all this out....it's hard to find one who would understand though, I'd need a Robb Gaffney type. I honestly feel like I'm at that phase where you know something is killing you but don't really know how to stop....because without it I'm entirely hollow.

Just go easy on yourself. Sounds to me like you feel like you “have to.” Have to show them how to ski on the hill, have to tell them how to not run the hill into the ground, have to go hard on the bike or board or whatever thing. Give yourself a break.

As per the psychology stuff. Go to the public library and check out some books. You might learn about the stuff they’d tell you anyways. Not like they’d fix your issues anyways - that’s up to you in any case.

I think a lot of us are in a similar boat re: Adrenalin sports. Just not realistic to charge at 50 or 60 like when we were 20. Reflexes are slower and body parts less pliable and prone to tearing. It’s hard to back away from the proverbial Xanadu of the flow charging down a steep cliff and tree strewn line at Mach looney or pounding bumps and tossing airs.




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[Dantheman]

Having you considered opioid addiction? That'll ease your pain and being drugged up 24/7 will keep you from pushing it too hard

Seriously though, that fucking sucks, especially the fact that the worst injury is the disc thing and it wasn't even crash-related. There's got to be some middle ground you can find between full-throttle and bingo at the senior center. Fishing? Diving (the kind you do with a snorkel or air tanks, not from a springboard)? Caving? Skydiving?

Also, since you're lying on the floor a lot, try some Wim Hof breathing. That shit can get pretty intense, and the meditative aspect will almost certainly do your psyche some good. Try getting into the cold exposure, too. Cold water is a hell of a way to get some adrenaline flowing without risk of injury. It's good "exercise" too.

http://www.icemanwimhof.com/wim-hof-exercises
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW1C_3OXhEs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaMjhwFE1Zw
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...hanged-my-life
https://www.amazon.com/What-Doesnt-K.../dp/1623366909

[old goat]

On the bright side--from the sound of things you won't have to find out what 41 feels like.

[I've seen black diamonds!]

I take at least 20 hard wrecks.

You're too old for that shit. I turn 41 Sunday. I don't do wrecks anymore. I feel that shit for weeks. Then I end up sitting around drinking beer and I get out of shape. No wrecks.

[ill-advised strategy]

It was a hard spot to be in. I really want mogul skiing here, I go through battles with the ski area management about it, get my pass pulled. Buddy at the ski area says "hey I can get you your pass back if you can come out and help us do a mogul comp". So I'm building the airs and chopping landings and there's literally nobody else to hit this stuff and make sure it's skiable, and I really want it to work.

And when you say you feel it for weeks, yeah...so each one of these was weeks at least, so the entire year included like maybe a handful of weeks where I wasn't limping or in pain trying to steer and shift at work, or laying on the floor. I'm so injured so often my wife is not getting enough sex. It's a whole thing. I wonder how Evel Kneivel did it.

I had all these moments that week of trying to get a mogul course together where I was like "grrrrrr.......ok one more time....I shouldn't be doing this." at the same time I have that little demon on my shoulder that's telling me I need to throw down and show these people I'm real and that mogul skiing is something we should do here. One more time off the bottom air and eat my knees. Get the shovel.
Where are the kids? Why don't I have any young mogul skiers out there skiing this? Because it's gotten so weird with skiing here that any good young skier is either on a race course or in the park, period...no exceptions. Or they don't even ski here and just drive to Bohemia, shit....that's where I'm at much of the time (except that now it's excruciating to sit in my Toyota for more than like 5 minutes with my back) There is no freeskiing (in the classic sense of just skiing around having fun).

It still felt good to send a zipperline at full speed and float a 360 into bumps and all that shit, but yeah....too old, should be coaching. There's nobody to coach. It's mid February and we haven't had one mogul line develop at our ski area this entire season. I had a patroller tell me "the official policy here is anything not groomed is out of bounds". This after decades of local people going up on their own time with their own tools and clearing out tree skiing here so we can have something interesting to ski.

It's life at a dying ski area, this place will have some major change soon....be that going out of business, or being sold, or something. I hate the thought of losing our ski hill, but I see that writing on the wall. The people who keep all the machinery running keep running into a wall and quitting, the local ski scene is fragmented and apathetic, the management is defensive and desperate....it's becoming a sad scene and it's hard to witness sometimes.

[mtngirl79]

Maybe it's not your problem. Maybe you don't have to carry the world? Maybe just let what will be, be.

And get a good mountain bike. And stay off the skinnies...

[splat]

My 40's were my best skiing decade, even into my 50's. I hit shit harder and bigger than I had ever done.
I also committed to no longer skiing moguls around then after they had beat the shit out of my knees.

[Bdog325]

+1 for the wim hof method. Really good book on him and the techniques called, "iceman".
Get access to an infrared sauna and ice baths and showers. That'll help a ton with your recovery. And maybe get into powerlifting or bodybuilding. Because you seem to have this undying commitment and dedication, I think you could go somewhere with it.

Make money. Buy toys.

[auvgeek]

My 40's were my best skiing decade, even into my 50's. I hit shit harder and bigger than I had ever done.
I also committed to no longer skiing moguls around then after they had beat the shit out of my knees.

This gives me hope since I'll have spent the majority of my 20s in school.

[FLS]