Racer-ish. ‘The Slalom Problem’ – Part 5

The Slalom Problem Cont. March 2nd 2023

‘You are leaning away from the gate, trying to duck under it.. you look like you’re frightened by the gate… go and do it again.’. Maybe I am, I don’t have any protection for my face.

I take the draglift, do it again.

‘Turning to the right you look ok… turning to the left you look scared! Can you make the turns the same? Maybe keep your shoulders in the same place all the way down.’

I’ve been slalom training a few weeks now and this is the first time I am running on wax I put on my own skis. I did not come to the Tuesday session which is run by a different club. The reason being I did a hard fell run last Sunday, am doing an even longer fell run this coming Sunday, and I have a ski race in Pendle tomorrow. That’s enough for my poor poor, weak and feeble legs!

This training session, led by Cal who is from Bolton, is the best session I have had so far. Initially Cal told me to ski around the gates and not to touch them. Then after doing that a few times, knock them out of the way, which I have done before. It was hard getting the skis around the gates without knocking them and I think that was the point.

Hitting the gates, the turn was way easier, but some of the ‘step outs’ [is that the name?!], gates not in rhythm with the others, were almost impossible to get round without smashing them out of the way.

I took my piste skis tonight to warm up on, hoping the wax would remain to the end on my racing skis, which it did. Cal took a look.  ‘They need sharpening more’. There is so much to learn!

I teamed up with young racer Patrick who is a bit more advanced than me. We took turns to go in front of each other so we could watch each other. ‘What are you going to do now Patrick?’ ‘Am gonna make sure the pressure is on the outside ski’. ‘Are you gonna lift the inside ski to make sure?’ ‘No am not gonna do that’.

At the end of his runs Patrick was looking really tidy. He said to me ‘you are looking better John, you are really going around those gates nicely’ meaning I was doing a proper turning arc. It did feel like it was coming together. Was it the wax?

There is a lot going on and you have to ski subliminally – i.e., do it without thinking. If you think about anything you’ll be too late. I know about this as I have studied in depth motorcycle racers at the TT for some films I have made. Ron Haslam told me when he was racing at the TT he started to smile, enjoying himself. Next thing he knew he was upside down on the gable end of a house lucky to be alive! Luckily skiing is not as critical as that!

I got one gate wrong and almost ran it over, and it bounced up smacking me in my left thigh. I really do not want one of those gates smashing me in the face. I am going to have to think about buying a racing helmet with a protective bar.

After a few more runs, when I got to the end, Cal stood there with a massive smile on his face. ‘That’s looking way better now John! You still duck a bit turning left. Do it again and go for it. And Patrick, you need to go for it more all the way to the end, more energy’.

I get Patrick to check my skis for wax [not that I can put any more on!] and go for one last run.

I wait for the skier in front to finish completely. That way Cal will be able to concentrate on watching me trying to put into action what he just told me.

An even bigger smile on his face! ‘Hey John! You are looking racer-ish! You really are!’

Wow! That will do me. I stopped on a high. A little bit of encouragement goes a long way!

Tune in next week for another exciting episode of ‘The Slalom Problem’ were hopefully we will get round to talking about fitness and the problems of fitting everything in and working around long-term injuries…