Chapter eleven: Celebrate all small victories

Boots are off, skis are strapped and packed, and I am home. It was a very… interesting way to finish the year, from a ski racing point of view at least. I’m calling it “interesting” because I think it’s the word that suits it best; I mean I could easily have used words like Brutal or, a Grind, but that’s not the way I want to look at it. Not the way I want to look at it anymore I should say because yeah, that’s how I spent a good chunk of the past few weeks seeing it. Just a rough, harsh, crappy reality that I was stuck in and I forgot to take it in stride, the good with the bad, and definitely did not find the silver lining. I’d have to say the biggest reason would be that my silver lining never seemed so shiny when the guys were putting gold around their necks… jealousy? Needing a reality check? A firm slap upside the head? Yes, yes, and…probably. Now looking to the title, I didn’t just have an epiphany one morning and boom, make a realization. It wasn’t some song playing on my ipod that gave me inspiration either, nor did I jolt awake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat just knowing. What happened is that I spent a lot of time listening to people around me give me support, and I realized that they were telling the truth. A year in ski racing is made up of more bad days than good ones and more importantly the bad ones will disappear into nothing while the good ones will last and last until they get overshadowed by something just a little bit better. It also made me think that every year has rough patches, and the key is that I had to actually think hard about it because come spring series all that’s left are the memories of the good times. This all leads into the fact that I have started to celebrate the small victories when they come my way; taking the little personal wins and setting aside a moment of inwards celebration for them. Nothing crazy, no extreme fist pumps or touchdown dances but a bit of a reserved “well done Morgan”.


(aaaand here are some photo... all of which are pretty unrelated to skiing)

The same principal as bears stocking up before hibernating 

Warm and cozy... and also the view from our spin bike

Giant hands... or tiny bananas?

Just rolling some dice in the alley. A great group of guys to be on a team with.

I will be suiting up again in the New Year and this time racing overseas, thanks for stopping by. Hoping you all have an amazing holidays, all the best from me to you.

-Morgan

Chapter ten: I fell in love with a girl

So here is what’s happening, a long time ago back then I was still only yeigh tall (feel free to make the hand gesture somewhere around the height of your waist…unless you are really short or really tall, if so adjust accordingly) anyways, back in the day I fell head over heals for this girl named skiing. She was great, absolutely amazing actually. All I wanted to do was go up the hill and hang out with her, and when the weekend ended I still thought about her constantly and wondered when I would see here again. Maybe Thursday or Friday if I was lucky, but whenever if was I couldn’t be more happy to ski again. I’m sure this story sounds familiar to a lot of you but bear with me. Years went by and I grew up… well… okay I got older anyways and skiing was there by my side all the way. Soon I found that there were things about her that I loved more than others, not that I disliked anything but there were traits I found myself drawn to. At first it was the speed and remember I was still young so the exact thought that was going through my head was I get to go as fast as I can, there would be no boundaries. Now it came to my attention that I needed to be doing something more with this urge, not just straight lining the ski out each day. I also liked competition, so two and two together and boom, I was a ski racer. Trust me, I am going somewhere with this. I wont lie, I loved the feeling of winning and it was something that only her, only skiing could provide for me, and that was the point I gave her my heart, fully and completely. I wrote that all because I want to give you an idea of how I feel about this sport, and I made skiing a “her” because a dude couldn’t break my heart one day and make it all better the next. Mind you, so far this has been one of the longest fights I’ve had with skiing, its been weeks and she has yet to show me any love back, but I go out every day anyways and do everything I can to make her take me back. Now this blog really hasn’t filled you in on how the season has gone…so ill give you the short of it. It could definitely be going better... a lot better. I am now at the point where I need to get some redemption and honestly until I do I won’t be able to move on, and it’s a little silly because even though I’ve had more bad races than I care to count, just one result makes it all good again. So all I am looking for is two runs, one after the other that I can be proud of. A race I can hold onto and know I gave it everything. My quest for this starts tomorrow, and will continue until I’m successful, plain and simple. 

Oh dear!

This and the one below are a couple reasons then when its bad...its really never thaaaat bad

There will be more photos to follow, but for now you'll have to settle on three.

Thanks again for stopping by

Chapter nine: Using it all, keeping focused

Alright, well. Things have not gone to plan thus far, and looking back at it I think it has a lot to do with myself not having a plan. I’m not saying I just went out there and shut my eyes blindly hoping for the best, but I certainly didn’t go out these last days with a clear mission in mind. I pushed out of the start four days in a row, eight runs and thought more about the final goal, the finish line, and the points even instead of the process. Ultimately this left me without the points, results, and a few times without actually reaching the finish line, so although this was a rough week it came with an important lesson for me. Moving forward I need to make a game plan, keep my focus as I do in training and still find the extra little edge that separates race day from all the other ones. Beyond that it was very good to get the first starts of the season out of the way; I find it makes the rest of them run a lot smoother. That takes care of “keeping focused” and hopefully gave you a little insight into just what happened, and just in case you are more into visuals ill toss up a photo or twelve. That leaves me with the first part of the title still. Okay so imagine yourself in any sport, or doing anything you care about for that matter and it doesn’t go well. You get left with that feeling, disappointment maybe or anger, or sadness, or a sense of unfinished business perhaps, and if it’s something you love you might get left with all of those things combined. I could easily mope the days away, but I aim to take those things, be it from personal or professional parts of my life and use them as fuel. Something to feed the fire until I get back that feeling that keeps me doing what I’m doing. Alright so, I didn’t mean to get all emo there but each chapter has to be inspired by something and as much as I want things to always be awesome I have to take a break every now and then and make sure to save some awesome for later.

For those visual learners, thats exhibit "A"

...and thats Exhibit "B". feel free to take notes.

Checking out the menu... clearly we beat the rush

Burrito domination, everyone is excited to eat, except Erik, I think they built his wrong.

Some days dryland doesn't involve much equipment

Back at it, Vail CO. 

No words needed.

Thanks for stopping by and bearing with me for this one…and if you just scrolled down to see the pictures after the first line that’s alright too. 

Morgan