New Thing January

One of my resolutions this year is to try one new thing a month.  It doesn't have to be a huge 'thing' just something new to me. 

This month's new thing is my attempt to embrace winter.  Normally in winter I train outside.  But this year I have been a huge wimp.  I meet with a friend to run on Saturday mornings but the other runs I do are inside on the treadmill.  When it is easier and safer to run outside, I will be there.  Aside from running outside I usually hike or snowshoe, but the conservation areas I go to are still closed due to the downed trees from the ice storm. 

So.. this month's new thing.... downhill skiing.  I have never skied before today.  My husband snowboards and my daughter' have learned to ski with their school.  The three of them have been skiing for a couple of years together and I have joked about how it is more fun to hang out in the chalet or at the spa, but really I knew I was missing out on some fun.  At the same time I was feeling like a big scaredy cat. What it I fell and it hurt.  What if I couldn't do it.  What if I was really, REALLY bad at skiing.

I decided to swallow my pride and face my fear of failure and go for it.  I arranged for a lesson, the first available lesson of the day and headed to the ski hill with the most positive attitude I could muster.  This was going to be fun!  Fingers crossed.

My instructor was fantastic.  He was one of the most enthusiastic people I have met.  He taught me the basics on the Teddy Bear hill - snowplough or pizza, French fries for the kids.  After two runs down the kiddie hill, we moved onto Easy Rider.  I practised more snowplough and then moved onto parallel skiing.  After an hour I felt confident enough to go off and try more hills on my own.  The hardest part initially was figuring out how to get off the ski lift, but I got that down after falling a couple of times.

I joined my daughters and we moved onto some of the intermediate hills.  I fell a lot but it was ok, I was shown how to fall on my side.  The only really difficult thing I struggled with was how to get up without taking my ski off.  But I did ski the whole day and had a great time.  I was super impressed with how well my daughters skied.... and completely blown away with my husband's snowboarding abilities.

Skiing was far more fun than staying inside in the chalet.  It was great to be out in the sunshine and fresh air.  And it was really uplifting to try something new and figure out a new challenge.  But most importantly it was a great day with my daughters!

 

 

The rest of the afternoon will be spent finishing my book - as the other part of this year's resolution... on and maybe a few chocolate chip cookies!