 Poster: A snowHead
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ski, Detective work using GrahamN reports 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Nick W, We will be there, ( inevitable really as Wycombe are running it ) with me as chief dogsbody for my two children as always.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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gsb, C u there then.... 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Nick W, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it...although thanks for taking off a couple of years...I'm actually 48 (tomorrow). The back/hip is now easing off slightly (I met our coach last night who said he once had something very similar - and it turned out to be a virus!). Getting moving is pretty painful but last night showed that I can actually currently ski better than I can walk!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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GrahamN, Happy birthday for tomorrow.
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GrahamN, Hope you get fixed soon
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GrahamN, Happy Birthday.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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GrahamN, Yep, son's registration came through within a couple of days; very efficient. Can now use online booking apparently although I have to go through a registration stage for that service as well by all accounts.
The ever helpful Denise has confirmed both our entries for the 10th as well.
We are both training hard!!
Good luck at Christchurch in front of a hand picked audience of
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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GrahamN, Happy birthday - a bit late, but still............ 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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GrahamN, Good luck on Sunday - I look forward to reading the report
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(War and Peace: chapter 3. Please stop me if this is too boring or self-obsessed/indulgent/serving...please )
So Saturday was (for me) this seasons race the third, and the first of the Southern Region series. This series is very much targetted at beginner racers, the relaxations in the rules being a) allowing practice through the course beforehand, and b) only counting the best of your three runs, rather than a combination. Even so it still attracts a sizeable number of racers from the top echelon in the region, and there's proper competition for pretty much everybody; at the other end there's an under-7's category this year - with a serious awww factor - and they sometimes have a more experienced skier to show them the way (and break off before the finish line) as they unfortunately have a tendency to get lost part way down the slope. Turnout was a bit lower than usual (although it's always a bit lower here, it being a long way for the Kent/Essex hordes to come) as some of the better skiers (particularly the girls) had gone up to Rossendale for some national level races. The winner still came through in 7.3 seconds though.
Christchurch is probably the shortest slope we race on, with only 9 gates being set (actually as one gate was completely needless, three gates only defining two turns, it was effectively only an 8 gate course). The first few turns were fairly wide, although not particularly tight, but the second half of the course was almost straight, with hardly a half-mat offset between gates at the most. The slope has a couple of fairly big rollers across it though at about 1/2 and 3/4 the way down to spice things up a little bit - so it was interesting to see who coped with them, who didn't, and who used them well. It also has a bit of an uphill finish, which causes confusion for some of the slower littlies who sort of run out of momentum between the last gate and the finish then start walking to the edge without realising they've not actually finished yet...bless!
For me it was another pretty good day at the office. In this region my agegroup is 30-49 and it turns out it's about the 3rd most competitive group of the lot, with some seriously competitive Dads! I recorded my best time yet, 17% off of the leader's time, which was a few percent better even that that Aldershot result, although that may be partly due to the straight course not stringing the field out quite as much as usual. That gave me 22nd overall, but unfortunately only fourth in group. The group was pretty close; the top five of us being within 14/100ths at the end of the second round, with my training partner/rival having a really good day and leading the group (and me edging out one of the usual medal winners by 1/100th). In the last round though the usual winner (also with home slope advantage) got his act together and took off 2/10ths, and the guy in 6th pulled a rabbit out of the hat to jump up to second, putting me out of the medals. Bu%%er! Still it's a load better than fighting it out for 7-8th which is what I was doing last year.
Technical points that came to the fore? To start off I was treating the large offsets of the opening gates with way too much caution, but sort of got that addressed in the practice. The main point here was to really commit to the edges at that first gate with ankles and knees (see skimottartet's thread on tips/points in BendZeKnees) and ensure the turn carved rather than slid. On the first timed run though I sort of went for it, but was probably trying to work the inside ski too much and was too two-footed, so slid a bit and had to enter recovery mode for a gate or so, then got spat out by the first roller as I wasn't really back in balance. The second run I got a good edge on that first turn - really concentrating on pedalling and avoiding being too two footed, and made up 2/10ths. The third run I really went for it to try and gain the 13/100ths I was behind the leader, slid a shade on the start but tried to really go for it with a push on the poles between each gate....and lost 6/10ths  ! So clearly I was totally screwing the skis' smooth running - a load of work required on how to gain speed on a straightish course methinks. And I was informed by a usually reliable and direct (  ) source I was probably overedging, digging in too much and trying too hard - sounds highly likely. The good thing though was that I've sorted the twitching palaver at the start; I've lost a bit of the explosion I had when it worked well, but at least it's now mostly reliable, so something to build on. As for the rollers, I think mostly I handled them OK as a regular skier, absorbing them so they didn't impede my progress - but approaching it as a racer it appears that it's possible to use them to get more speed out of the slope, so a bit more homework there.
The bad news though is that in this region your positions in the morning are used to determine who you ski against in the head-to-head/parallel slaloms in the afternoon, you skiing against the three closest to you in time - which generates some really close races and are probably the best viewing for the spectators. So the better you do in the morning race, the harder your task in the afternoon - and your overall league points score for the day is the sum of the morning and afternoon. Last year I was pretty good in he head-to-heads, winning well over half. This time though, I was completely rubbish and lost all three (although on the morning's times I should have won two of them). Partly this was me again initially failing to commit to the edges properly on the wide opening two gates (it was a sort of funnel course, the offsets getting narrower as you went down the course), but the major problem is that I'm clearly not fast enough on the gun - and I was always a yard or two down by the first gate. The difference here between individual and parallel slalom is that in the former your time only starts when you break the start line, whereas in the latter it's from when the gun goes - so you have to do the right thing quickly. Once I get going I'm not too bad (although I seem to have also lost the ability to get a pole push in before the first gate) but I just move in the wrong direction when the gun goes. The last run I really had a go at the start trying to gain extra speed by skating the first turn, but failed to manage the second half of it properly and had a huge slide that needed major evasive manoeuvres to avoid skiing out (in mitigation though I was far from the only one, particularly on that side). Oh well - more stuff to work on.
The final event of the day is the team races, where teams from each club compete in relays. In this region there are two competitions, in knockout format - the under-11s, (teams of 3) and the 11-and-overs (teams of 4). It was very pleasing to see the Aldershot u11 A-team ski superbly (they have some very promising skiers at this level) and slaughter all opposition. The senior A team was also heading for a reasonably comfortable overall victory until unfortuately they straddled the last gate in the semi-final. Unfortunately I was in the B-team who got creamed - I was our fastest skier by about a second, but our opposition (Bracknell A) had two skiers about the same speed as me and two a bit faster, so a bit of a hiding to nothing from the out there.
Next installment: 2nd SRSA race of the season, at Christchurch again, in two weeks time. Warm up for the Welwyn club national the following day
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Headplant, yes, Welwyn Garden City - and we're having a little meet there with ski, myself, Nick W and his son racing, and gsb shepherding his kids (and probably doing a load of dogsbodying too as his club Wycombe are running it). Are you coming along as a racer or spectator? The race there on 10th June is a Club National, so possibly not the best starting point if you're interested in joining in, but there's an LSERSA (the other region that ski and I race in) race there on 8th July. Neither of our regions have races at Hemel, but Nick W's region (ERSA) do - although I know they've already had one there this season, so that may be it for this year. The closest Southern Region (SRSA) races to you (although neither particularly close) are Bromley on 23rd June and Aldershot on 15th July.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Headplant, Hi there. As GrahamN says ERSA run a number of races in the area. So far we have had the Hemel summer league and Club National / Grand Prix and the Welwyn GC summer league. Next up is a guest appearance in L&SERSA Club National on 10th June followed in consecutive weeks by Bassingbourn (near Royston) and Ipswich. Two weeks after that is Norwich! I can get you details of the races or just google the ERSA site.
You won't be able to miss me at Welwyn; I will be last in the mens group; don't blink, or you may miss the others though 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Nick W, didn't actually get much feedback from the crowd, basically as it was pretty much over except for the team races by the time they got there. If easiski's reading this though she may have more to say.
The point about starting sounds reasonable, and sort of obvious when you think about it. I was pretty much doing this last year, for both individual and parallel, but having improved my individual starting, am now doing the wrong thing for parallel.
This actually brings up a rather bizarre incident. At regional level course marshals are normally hapless parents roped in mostly because they can't run away fast enough when being "volunteered". This occasionally has downsides when it comes to sorting out technical issues with minor inconveniences like rules. In this case, the problem came when the fastest two skiers on the day (from Chatham and us respectively) were lining up for the last head-to-head of the first round. All we could see from down the slope was a bit of a delay and some banter. What it turned out was happening was that our guy, who's a bit of a gentleman, was asking the starter what he was counting as a false start - as he frequently gets wound up by what seem to be false starts from his more aggressive opponent. The question was did they count the start as when they first moved or when they broke the wand. The starter's authoritative answer was "erm....don't know"  . They then had a bit of discussion between themselves to decide on this and came up with a decision on "break the wand". This of course only really makes a difference when vocally starting and the starter gets into a steady rhythm of "ready on the red...ready on the blue...go!", as you can anticipate the "go!". When it's an electronic buzzer/light and a randomised start delay there's no real way to anticipate the start and get moving before breaking the wand on the green light, but I think the actual measure of a false start cannot be other than "break the wand", as unlike in athletics we don't have sensors under our skis/blocks to see when we move. It sounds like your coach's position is still the right strategy though. No doubt there's something in the SSE handbook about this, but I've not looked (yet).
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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GrahamN, Apparently you are supposed to be still when the buzzer goes (agreeing that you are "ready" means that you do not move until the go). At least this is what I was told IIRC.
I have always avoided the job (as a hapless parent ) of official (preferring more mundane jobs like tea making and dogsbody).
My main problem is the irresistible urge to look at the opposition; I know I shouldn't but, but, but
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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GrahamN, I do think (in the nicest possible way) that you need to practise starting a lot. Both for the individual and for the parallel. I couldn't see the red course start from where I was standing, so I can't be more useful than to agree that you lost a lot of time at that point, which may have been why you were working too hard later in the course. 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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easiski, definitely, although while there's clearly plenty of room for improvement (and particularly on the pickup between start and first gate, which along with handling the first two gates is right at the top of my priority list), I think I'm not too far away with the individual start itself (I don't think you saw any of those?), as in at least one of them my body was a good metre down the slope before I heard the beep as my legs broke the wand. FWIW the guy who beat me in that third HtH, who I think does a bit of coaching for Bracknell, in our quick chat after the race complimented me on my individual starts, but pointed out I do something really stupid like standing up straight on the "go!" before pushing forward in the parallel starts - so agreed, I'm complete cr@p at the parallel start having broken through to this level though. I think this is probably also showing up a difference between last year and this: last year aggression was an advantage, making up for inferior technique, but now the technique is a fair bit better, the aggression may well be getting in the way and misdirected is becoming a bit counter-productive.
This is all a bit crazy/anal though for someone who's sole purpose in doing this dryslope stuff was to improve basic technique for the back-country skiing that's my first love, and at the PSB a year and a half ago expressed doubts I'd ever do anything as keen as actually enter a real race . How ones outlook changes - but please shoot me if I waste time on race training when there's good snow available for "proper" skiing (and I hope that's not going to bite me back in two or three years' time as in the case of Sir S. Redgrave's famous comment ).
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GrahamN, Not sure how you feel about this but after just two races and a few training sessions I feel like I now take part in two completely different sports (which just happen to use the same kit). I've lost the connection between the two and look at one as a great holiday and a question of adapting technique to circumstance. The other is now the competitive outlet that I used to have in other sports. 
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Nick W, well actually no, despite side/back-country skiing and slalom racing being about as different as you can get on skis - but this is the only sport I've been anything other than complete cr@p at. Up until now just about everything I've learned for the racecourse has been useful for general skiing too - improved balance, coordination, range of movements, sensitivity to what bits of the body are doing when, reactions etc.. Obviously cross-blocking is something it's inadvisable to do when e.g. tree-skiing , but I've always tried to treat that as something that arises naturally from where your body and pole happen to be as you make the turn rather than a deliberate move. To get better from where I am now though does involve things like sorting out the minutiae of the first few gates, smoother pole pushing at speed, better course inspection etc., which have less to do with general skiing - but I guess the first two of those are still basically working on coordination and independence of movement.
I have though always treated skiing as a sport rather than a holiday - from my first day on skis I've always looked for some challenge from the mountain on pretty much every run I've done, so whether the obstacles are natural or man-made are essentially irrelevant. I think this is one of the reasons I have more sympathy for the pro- than anti- camp in the Eurotest debate (although I suspect the bar there is probably set at the wrong level).
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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gsb, I have contacted Denise and I am in (day racers weren't shown). So no excuses then
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Quick update on today's curtain raiser for tomorrow's main event - the 2nd race in the Southern Region League series, again at Christchurch. If possible it was an even straighter course than two weeks ago, with one very wide offset from gate 1-2, but with a small sting at gate 6, with the bottom roller on the slope just before where you needed to be turning for it. Practice through the course was very useful here, as there were quite a few falls during practice (including your truly on my first practice run), but we mostly got it sorted by the time the competition runs started. We had about the same number of registered racers as last time (115 this time), with a couple of the faster racers returning, but a few others missing.
Personally I shaved yet another couple of percent off of the gap from the leader, but dropped back one place in the agegroup finishing 4/100ths behind my training partner. This old farts group may not have the very fastest skiers on the hill, but definitely has strength in depth, being equally competitive with the 11-12yo and 15-16yo boys groups, and I would have come 2nd or 3rd in most of the other agegroups. The guy we've pushed back into a firm 6th place (from a regular 3rd last year) was complaining he'll now have to start doing some serious training! The guy I shaded out last time got his act together better this time around and took the leader's position in the first round, but then the 2nd place guy from 2 weeks ago had a couple of absolutely blistering runs to take first hold of group-winner, by a margin of about 2/10ths - he's clearly also been doing some serious training over the winter.
But success in the team races - I got into the A-team and Aldershot still won! Actually Christchurch A over-11s were the fastest on paper, but in the final their leadout man (the 3rd fastest skier from the morning) did a somersault into the 2nd gate....what a shame . Aldershot actually did a clean sweep as so did the under-11s too, repeating their success from two weeks ago.
Oh...and I seem to have returned with more skis than I started out with, to the tune of one pair  . Now it would be extremely unwise to have your first ski on a new pair of skis in a National race, but somehow they seem to have been prepped this evening, and I doubt I'll be able to stop them climbing into the car in the morning . Just have to make sure I put some identifying feature on them before skiing with ski .
Time for my beauty sleep now, ready for another 5:30 alarm call .
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You know it makes sense.
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GrahamN, Sounds excellent - well done Aldershot. It's always nice to hear about my old club doing so well. GOOD LUCK for today - too late now. Looking forward to hearing all about it. I hope a good many Snowheads turn up to cheer you all on.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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The course today was definitely a step up from a regional level race, with a fastish top section running diagonally across the slope into a fairly wide offset technical section across the rollers, with a straight final combination running to a couple of simplish offset gates to finish. As the rookies in the field, Nick W, ski and I were some of the first to go, with Nick being third man on the course. It's not easy going first, particularly when the first two down (both very good skiers) both ski out, and Nick had a few difficulties to negotiate in the middle section, but got through to record a time. ski and I also both had to resort to something unfortunately close to emergency stemming to get through that bit - with me shading it on time by just 2/100ths! So after the first round its 1) GrahamN 2) ski and 3) Nick W.
It's difficult seeing what someone only a few places in front of you in the start order is doing as you're a bit back from the brow of the slope in the start queue and you've normally got other things to think about, but I just about managed to see Nick go down the second time and it was much cleaner, reflected by cutting about 4 seconds off his time. Didn't see ski but he'd clearly got more to grips with the middle section and cut about half a second off. I still made a bit of a hash of it, with some slide recovery required and only managed to improve by about 2/10ths. So after the second round its 1) ski 2) GrahamN and 3) Nick W.
Onto the third and crucial run (the time from that being added to the better of your first two) Nick managed to shave off another second. Going about 15 places later (the running order for the third run is the reverse of your placing after the first two), I was determined to get a more respectable time, and ski had pointed out a major thing I was doing wrong (note getting enough pressure on to the front of the ski to get the tip to bite into the turn), so was really trying to commit to it. At my bugbear corner I think I was getting the edge angle but....disaster....I felt my skis slide out from under me (probably too much pressure on the inside ski, and/or legs too close). Fortunately I didn't slide past the next gate so picked myself off the matting and skied the rest of the course. Restarting half way down though it was difficult to get up enough momentum to carry through the bottom section of the course and so I diconsolately coasted through the bottom few gates. Then it was ski's run. I wasn't paying attention though, as I was still kicking myself, but then heard the announcer say "Did not finish". Apparently, having spent 20 mins looking at the difficult section from the top of the slope, mentally rehearsing, and getting "in the zone", he then got to that section...and got lost. Oh dear . So on the leader board I was just shading Nick, but there was a hint of a DSQ against me. I was now regretting the brief Anglo-Saxon-inspired phrase that escaped while I was clattering to the ground, as that's grounds for disqualification. As it turned out though, in my disgusted coast home I'd completely forgotten about the last offset gate at the end of the combination, treating the last pole of that as the last turning gate - and that was the reason for the DSQ. DOH!!!!
Actually the plaudits of the day should go to narrowlast, in more ways than one. With blistering 2nd and 3rd runs he came a very good 2nd in the Masters agegroup (over 30s) - and the winner is one of the best skiers in the country so it's really only a race amongst the rest of us for 2nd place. The pride of place should go to his 1st run though. When you see skiers flicking their skis to the camera to show off the logo, it's not normal to do it a) both skis at once or 2) half way down the course . What a wheelie! Congratulations to him though for recovering from it - and a couple of really good runs.
On a more serious note though, if you want to see some really good skiing, go along to watch at least some of a Club National or Grand Prix race. You will see some really spectacular skiing from the top skiers, and the athleticism and speed of recovery when they are skiing right at the edge of their abilities, and how some of them manage to hold those edge angles on these surfaces is a real wonder.
I had been thinking half-heartedly about entering the next CN at Gloucester on 7th July if today had been a good one - but with such a disaster it sounds like that trip may be even more on the cards. Surely I can't ski this badly twice! Still, it's probably good to have a reality check as, with the exception of a few dashed over-expectations, I've really not had a proper bad day before today. There're two more LSERSA races before then to get some more practice in - and I've got my new skis to try out as well (I took them along today but decided it was the height of stupidity to try the highest standard race I've yet entered on skis I've not yet had a ski on - so wimped out - but in the event I couldn't have done any worse ).
But the most important thing of the day - congratulations and well done Nick W! (Sorry we didn't get to talk more today, but we should be able to chew the fat a bit more next week).
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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OOPS, sorry, good to meet you too gsb and thank you for your support. Congratulations on your daughter's performances over the weekend by the way
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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ski, It's worse than that; my daughter has only had one DNF and one medal (third place)
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Late starter, I think it may have been your chair that I tried to steal at the end of the day as we were packing up
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FAQ
