Drama

I woke up at 2 am with a knot in my stomach, worrying about my skiing in a few hours. Great, now I’m awake… then a moment later I awake at 5:45 am; take a shower and downstairs to breakfast with my ‘tribe of footers’. I have a light breakfast since I’ll be skiing early in the morning. Find out that I’ll be skiing about 10 am instead of 7:30 am. Knowing when you’ll be skiing and what event, and the running order is not possible. You have to stay on site, pay attention to the announcer, check the boards and hope that you don’t miss your event.

My arms are not doing that great, some pain - takes away from my focus; I need to brush off yesterday, but mentally I’m not there. I’m not confident in the arms, my strength from lack of training is not there, and the lack of practice – I’m a mental case.

I know if I had the strength, practiced properly the past 6 weeks, no pain in the arms, I would not be in the mental condition I am. I’ll be skiing about 10 am today, 4 am your time. The bottom line is that I’m not operating at my peak level, so it’s a crap shoot as to how I’ll perform, especially the starts (strength/arm pain), which controls everything that follows, with those facts, it’s hard to have confidence.

At 8 am I’m off to the starting dock; I’m the first Skier in Gentlemen A. The last two skiers in the event before me is Keith St. Onge skies (two time World Champion), David Small skies (two time World Champion), great, I get to follow them after a boat crew change. Keith skies well and so does David, then I’m on the dock getting ready to go; but in typical fashion there is a ½ hour delay between the events, and the event on the lake next to us (they are on the same starting dock) is also on hold for ½ hour. So off goes the gear, then on the gear, then on the gear and I’m getting concerned since the water is glass… hope it holds for our event.

Finally it’s time for me to go, I’ve stretched and I’m ready, I wrap the handle behind by back, the boat crew yells ’30 seconds’ then ’10 seconds’ and they put the boat in gear. The rope tightens up, I know I’m not confident, I’ve done my mental preparation and know that since the delay the Men A skiers from the previous event are watching me, the skiers from the Gentlemen A event are watching me, the skiers from lake 2 on the dock are watching me, and I’m the only skier to get on the water for ½ hour, so the camera is on me. GREAT I’m thinking. Okay it’s not tight, need to let them know to go via the ‘okay’ command, just a second before I yell OKAY, I pray a short prayer, ‘Lord please give me wisdom.’

Okay before I tell you what happened, just a little background about the water; it’s really glassy but for some reason it has rollers that are unpredictable. Both David and Keith tell me that from the starting dock the water is ‘okay’ but as you go down the course it get unpredictable. Then on the return pass the water has rollers at the beginning of the pass. Humm, another ‘fact’ to screw with my mind…

I yell ‘okay’ and the boat takes off, I fly off the dock in the superman position to attempt the most difficult start in the sport (flying back tumble up to one – 800 points) with the rope wrapped around my back, land on my stomach, feel I’m up to correct speed, then tumble to the backward position, plant my foot and wait for the boat to speed up in 2 seconds… not speed, 3 seconds – no speed. What do I do, try to get up or be wise and ‘wait for speed? I wait and ‘nail’ the start, then the trick pass begins one foots, surface hop, back to front, tumbles, side down stand ups, waves and the water was trashy, but I did it. Okay ½ done, now to make the next start, a back-deep-to-one, the second most difficult start in the sport (500 points). Give instructions, give signal to go via “OKAY” boat takes off and again after I plant the boat to take off after 2 seconds, not happening again, so I ‘wait’ and once I have speed I’m up and I have to make a positional back to front turn to get set up for my first trick forward. The water is bouncy I wait, make the turn and I’m over my feet forward with one hand trying not to go out the ‘front door.’ Seem like an eternity, but I pull in the handle, do necks, one foots, teeth, toes, tumbles, and more trash. It was a GREAT run considering the conditions.

I’m happy, I’m not a loser anymore… I advance to the semi finals in tricks which will be tomorrow. I’m ranked about 10th in the World in this event and there is no way for me to advance to the finals, even if I have the ‘perfect’ pass. So I’ll just ski that event with you expectations, what happens is not important – I redeemed myself. I love barefoot water skiing…

Love you guys, thanks for the prayers.