Taking a hit in slalom

So here's what happened. The top of Levi has these rolls in it. I was going really fast forward into this off-rhythm turn and was focused on absorbing this big bump and being ready for the next gate. It's quick up there. The gate slipped through my hand then got on the inside of my shin-guard. The gate went down on top of my thigh. It sort of wrapped around my thigh then sprang up really hard and whipped me right in the face.  So it was a series of things. It can happen but it's really not that common. It's not common to hit the gate right in that position where it can work that way. It hit my nose and lip and cut the bridge of my nose in a couple little spots. I was lucky I had my goggles on because it was a really, really hard hit. It was pretty intense. It almost knocked me out. I couldn't see for a second and slalom is so quick that I was out of the course before I had a chance to do anything. It hurt really bad for about five minutes, then it went numb and felt OK after that. It wasn't that big a deal it just sucks I didn't finish obviously. My face is still sore today but the swelling has gone down a lot. It was just massive and swollen at first.

Overall, the race was sort of a wash. I had issues with my equipment. The day before the race, I switched to last year's race ski. I was second in that race on that same ski last year and had a bunch of other top 10 results throughout the year on that ski. But that was all on harder conditions. The conditions at Levi were really grippy. It was grippier than anything we trained on. On the first run, I was really slow on the top flat and couldn't let the skis go down the pitch at all. I was surprised I even qualified for the second run. So I switched to the new skis I've been training on. The way I was skiing before I got hit in the face was much better. I was skiing fast enough that if I had a great run, I definitely could have moved up a whole bunch. I could have moved into the top 15 maybe if I had the run of my life, but I didn't really have a lot to lose. In hindsight, it's easy to say it was a bad call but it didn't seem like a bad call at the time. We learned something and it wasn't a huge loss. Mistakes happen and I can deal with that. The fact that I got hit in the face was kind of a bummer.

I'm going to be training in Colorado for a few days, then I'm going to go see Dace in San Diego for a few days. She's getting big. I think she's starting to put up a fuss about a lot of things. When kids get around 2 they start becoming pretty strong-willed and she's definitely going to be strong-willed. It's going to be fun to see her. I miss her a lot.