Kev's Extreme Pow-Wow!

I know this is what you've been waiting for... it's the stats for the end of the year... I'm not going to bother graphing them but I'll run through each statistic and give a bit of a commentary instead.

• Banana Bread slices eaten... 24. I was eating banana bread consistently through the start of the season but then switched to cookies... of which I probably had more than one a day on average. Disappointed by this total but if I'd tallied the cookies then it might have been better.
• Burgers eaten... 35. This works out to be one every three days. I started out the season averaging one every two days but then I discovered that rice and noodle bowls were actually a healthier and more fulfilling thing to eat whilst on the mountain. This meant that I started limiting burgers to occasional apres forays to the Brewhouse or the GLC. Note that there was one day when I had a burger for lunch and a burger for dinner... I think this was during my level 3 course in fact.
• Jacuzzis taken... 8. Although I had a hot tub in my apartment block, I could rarely be bothered to venture to it in favour of the bath. There was more motivation (and room) when Jennifer came to visit, thus the spikes of activity at Christmas and Presidents week. My final Jacuzzi of the season came when I went for one with George, Lian, Marko and Yovona. Unfortunately George fell, concussed himself and broke his wrist. There should be a health warning on the door of those things!
• Calls to Jennifer... 157. That's about 3 calls every two days. It's not hard to see why, when you miss someone that much, that you call them. Much respect to Jennifer who lost countless hours of sleep to stay up at ridiculous times to talk to me. Thanks honey!
• Jaegermester shots... 1. Perhaps it's because I'm going to be 30 this year but I managed to minimise the number of shots I had this year to 3. Two of them were to be blamed on George and Lian but the other one was a proper shot of Jaegermeister taken in the Crystal Hut with Jennifer there as my witness (and she joined in on the shots too!).
• Wipeouts... 17. This was going to be 16 until yesterday when I had a good powdery face plant trying to jump off a small cliff! Generally this is one fall every 5 days of skiing so that's not a bad statistic. I'm actually surprised I fell over this many times but then by the middle of the season I was starting to jump off some silly and more challenging things so I guess it was inevitable that I'd fall every so often.
• Skiers instructed... 86. This is a very low number but then I wasn't teaching for the money so my emphasis was on skiing. I think I taught about 25 lessons during the season. This actually averages out to one every 3 days on snow. I guess that means that I got lots of time for practice, training and fun.
• Powder days... 34. This year was the best snow year on record for about 30 years in Whistler. Certainly up to February the snowfall was breaking all the records and the established pros were saying it was the best they'd ever seen.
• Days skied... 90 (67 on Whistler, 23 on Blackcomb). I guess the number of days spent on Whistler is higher because I worked mainly on Whistler. Courses and training were often done on Blackcomb. Also Blackcomb is often the mountain of choice when planning epic powder days. In total I had 18 days off during the season. So to ski 90 days is pretty good; considering the magnitude of some of the skiing days. Long gone are the days where Rach and I could ski to the max all day every day for a fortnight or longer. Nowadays the skiing is more intense, and the body takes longer to recover.

It's been fun keeping track of all this stuff and I'd find it interesting to compare if I ever did another season... Thanks for humouring my geekiness!

The end of my much anticipated season as a ski instructor came yesterday and as a result, I'm back home in my comfy lounge writing this, whilst I wait for Jennifer (now the household breadwinner ;-)) to get home from work!

I couldn't be more happy to be home and in the comfort of my home, my friends and my family. As fantastic as the season was (I'll get to that in a minute), my body was telling me that it couldn't cope with any more skiing this year so I knew it was time to come home!

Yesterday's journey was a very efficient one, until I landed at Heathrow (ahead of schedule) at which point it took an hour to park the plane and then an hour and a half to get the luggage off! Fortunately Jennifer was there waiting for me and I got a long expected hug and kiss on arrival.

The season has been long and hard physically... much tougher than I anticipated. I arrived in early December feeling relatively well after just about getting over a nasty 2 month virus. I then had a week of free skiing before starting work at the ski school. At this point I started to meet the people that would become my buddies throughout the season. People like Dan, Claire, May, Beata, Paddy, Andy, Daniel, Melissa, Kurt, Rob, Duncan, Simon (the list goes on... a lot!).

Christmas and New Year was hectic with lessons but also with Jennifer's first visit of the season. This was an awesome time though and I managed to spend as much time (if not more) with her than actually teaching ski lessons.

After Christmas, the lesson demand slowed down so I slashed the number of days I was scheduled to teach and got into the training. My main focus of training was the level 3 prep days in anticipation of doing the CSIA Level 3 course and possibly exam. Through this process I made more friends in George, Lian, Mike, Marko and Yovona. Leading into February, we all (apart from Yovona) took our Level 3 course and our skiing really progressed noticeably. Mike's skiing in particular was spectacular and out of all of us, he was the only person to pass his level 3 in the next exams in March. I decided that I wouldn't take my level 3 exams until I had resolved my boot alignment issues and ultimately ran out of exams to take before coming home. Not taking the exams is about the only thing that feels like unfinished business this season but I guess it just gives me a reason to go back.

After Darren visited and made strides with his skiing, then came Presidents week; the holiday week that is the busiest for the ski school saw me manage to blag the week off. When every single ski instructor was put to work, I was skiing with Jennifer who was on her second visit to Whistler. We also managed to hit Vancouver during the week, where we went to see Tenacious D and generally treated ourselves to a high class evening by staying in the 5 star Sutton Place Hotel.

Unfortunately, I'd got ill during Darren's visit and so wasn't so active during Presidents week. I felt a bit better by the time Jennifer left (typical!) and then enjoyed probably my two favourite days on snow this season. Firstly there was level 3 prep with Guy, when the usual trainees told the trainers that we didn't want instruction... we just wanted to ski. So we skied powder through all sorts of terrain on one of the best powder days of the season. The second memorable day was "Epic Tuesday" which saw a bunch of us rip around Whistler mountain skiing great powder and jumping any cliff we could find.

Since "Epic Tuesday" there have been a few great days of skiing but I think it will be a long time until I enjoy a day as good as that on snow again. Unfortunately I've been getting more and more tired as the last few weeks have progressed and I've been skiing and teaching less and less as a result. Finally the decision to come home was made and then the end of season partying began.

My departure was marked on Monday by post-work drinks in the Cinammon Bear. I was stunned and delighted by the number of people that showed up to say goodbye to me. This made me realise what a large and great group of friends I made this season. After the drinks, a bunch of us went to the Keg for a farewell dinner. It was great to enjoy a quiet meal with some of my favourite people from the instructor community.

Then yesterday, before heading home, I got out on the slopes for one final time to ski some fresh powder on Blackcomb with Dan and a bunch of others. After lunch I headed off and the guys all gave me big hugs to see me off and I was pretty choked by the whole thing. There's no doubt in my mind that I'll meet these people again, and in a number of cases I know that I've made long term friends.

I popped into the ski school hut to say bye to Daphne and Melissa. Daphne has been my saviour this year by giving me so much time off to spend with Jennifer. She highlighted this in front of Wade, my supervisor, but he himself gave me a great send-off and was openly keen about getting me back to work in the ski school again.

Jen and I have discussed it and one day, when the opportunity and the money is there for us to do it, we'll go back for a season... but I'm definitely not going over there without her again.

It's here... the one you've been waiting for... it's the Robot! Take a look...

This is the Robot video that's going to win Dan and I a heli skiing trip (ok I'll have to donate my half of the trip but I'll still be a winner!).

Now that I've had my last day of work here, I'm finally enjoying a series of couch days. I actually skied a bit yesterday morning but my knee was hurting so I ended up then resting (as I have done today) until it was time to head up the mountain after last lift for the ski instructors' "Beat the clock" party.

The idea of beat the clock is that all the drinks are initially 50 cents and during the course of the evening the price rises to about 3 dollars. This obviously encourages silly amounts of drinking early on in the evening and in my photos you'll see a lot of drunken antics whilst it was still daylight (about 6.30pm over here now daylight saving time has finished).

Anyway, even though the beer was rough and the queues were massive, we had a great evening and it was a lovely way to catch up with the full base pod posse for one last time before I head home on Tuesday. I'm gonna miss the rest of the team when I leave, but I'm still very excited about getting home on Wednesday!

Right now I'm off for a quiet meal with George and Lian and Marko and Yovona at the Brewhouse. Nice!

Today's skiing reminded me why I love the sport even though my left foot was hurting throughout (bad alignment and contorted footbed) and I was feeling tired before I'd even started! After a number of horrible weather days, yesterday was much better and the sunshine broke out in the afternoon at the same time as Harmony lift opened to access a week's worth of alpine powder snow. You see whilst the village and mid mountain had been getting rain all week, the alpine lifts had been shut as a result of a daily deluge of new snow. Unfortunately I was only able to manage a half day on the slopes yesterday so I set myself up for a big day today...

It started with morning session and in bright sunshine, skiing with Natalie as our instructor for the first time this season (one of the two Interski representatives from Whistler... the other being her husband Russ!), we proceeded to ski fresh powder lines from the Roundhouse down to Garbo, then all the way down Dave Murray to Big Red. Quite a way to start the day! Dave and I then skied another run on Emerald rather than skiing down to the bottom and changing into civies!

Next up it was training and although everyones' favourite trainer, Guy was training, he was still recovering from the knee injury sustained during the technical champs so was taking a low intensity teaching session only. This meant that Dave and I jumped into Benoit's group with the intention of ripping up fresh powder for the day. Our expectations were met by a day spent charging through the VD trees, Whistler Bowl, West Bowl, Glacier Cirque and T-Bar bowl. Most of the day involved either deep powder, steeps, trees or all three! Bearing in mind that I was on my lovely narrow carving Nordicas (yes I'm now skiing more often than not on my new Nordicas rather than my Salomons!), the powder was a challenge but fortunately it was one that I was able to deal with and to enjoy.

Benoit kept the day fun by keeping his directions brief and to the point, whilst keeping skiing to a maximum. I had a super day and although I'm pretty achy as a write this, I think it was all worth it! I needed a day like today to remind myself how much I love skiing. It's great to be going through my last week out here and still loving my skiing, but I have no regrets about coming home next week. I feel like sleeping for a week... but I know I won't be allowed!

Yesterday I told Wade about me coming home early and got a really nice reaction. He was sorry to see me leave and said that despite it being my first season, I'd performed like a veteran and had got great feedback from my clients. That was all great to hear. As most people know, I thrive on getting pats on the back so I'm feeling quite happy about myself now!

Because it was probably the worst conditions of the season yesterday, I grabbed my tasteful Whistler Blackcomb rain jacket and ran round entertaining everyone yesterday morning in line-up whilst avoiding any chance of getting a lesson. I was determined not to teach at all but was asked to come back in the afternoon. After being incredibly lucky and handing over my potential afternoon students to Rory, I went and joined George and Lian in the GLC.

We were there from 2 until about 6 when we then headed over to Marko and Jovona's for dinner. After dinner we went for a hot tub but George slipped getting out of the tub and fell over on his arm and banged his head pretty hard. Moments later he passed out for about 30 seconds but when his colour returned, he was behaving pretty normally again. Unfortunately it seems that he sustained a light concussion and also has broken a bone in his wrist. Therefore he won't be on top form for a few days. It's amazing the number of injuries that occur in Whistler that aren't related to skiing! Hope he gets well soon.

Only 9 days to go and I can't wait!!!

Yesterday I enjoyed the best adult ski school pay day party that has occurred during the season here. It started with us nipping out to see the level 3 presentation for those who took the exams this week. This included Mike who I've been training with for most of the season. I was delighted when they announced that he passed his level 3 at the first time of asking and scored pretty highly all round. I'd like to think that if Mike can pass it so easily then so might I at some later stage.

The party then moved over the road to the bar where the pay day party videos were shown. This included the robot video that Dan and I made about a month ago. This received an excellent response and therefore we think we've got a reasonable chance of winning the heli skiing trip. After the videos we had a few more beers and then headed for Markos where we drank some wine and he cooked us a lovely spaghetti bolognaise.

Afterwards we headed for Tommy Africa's nightclub where we all continued to boogie until well after 2am! Needless to say, the rest of base pod were disappointed that it had taken me so long to put in a proper clubbing effort but were impressed by my awesome dance moves! Unfortunately the late night meant that I wasn't really in a fit state to get to morning training today!

Today I taught a lesson in the wettest snow that you could imagine. I finished the lesson competely soaked and was a bit fed up. This is the latest in a series of days where my enthusiasm for skiing out here has taken a clobbering. Combine this with missing Jennifer back at home and getting excited about going mountain biking and you'll understand why I've decided to head home a little earlier than expected. Therefore a week on Tuesday I'll be heading back to the UK with no regrets about what has been an awesome ski season.

I feel like the season has reached a natural conclusion for me as I won't get a chance to take the level 3 exam before I leave so I have no real target to aim for. As great as friends like George, Lian, Claire and Dan have been in the last couple of weeks at cheering me up, I think it's clear that I'd be happier at home at this point. I'm really excited about coming home but will be doing my best to enjoy all of the skiing that I have left here. This should include one or two more level 3 training sessions, a couple of days of free skiing and a few more days of teaching.

The countdown starts here (Jennifer!)!!!

Dan's just posted his Epic Tuesday Slideshow on YouTube. Take a gander and look out for yours truly by clicking here

With exactly four weeks to go until I come home, I've been thinking about things that I like and that I don't like about Whistler and working here in the ski school...

Things I love about Whistler and the ski school:

• Free training... My skiing has improved radically over the course of the season as a result of high quality training on a regular basis
• The terrain... Whistler and Blackcomb have an endless amount of terrain, the majority of which I've barely touched in 4 years of holidays and a season spent skiing here.
• The base pod core... Making friends with the guys here has been awesome. There has always been someone great to ski and train with. Plus teaching and socialising with these guys around has been a lot of fun.
• I'm working outside all day every day which has got to be good for your health.
• Without even lying I get to tell people that I'm a ski instructor... and I do this on a regular basis
• Having access to Skype... it's a lifeline to home
• The fact that the best instructors here are the humble ones... you'd never know they're the best skiers on the mountain
• I haven't touched a programming language for 4 months!
• The commute to work is a 10 minute walk through the village overlooked by the mountains
• I'm paid to ski every day before the punters do... On a powder day, the instructors will have stolen all the best lines on the lower lifts before the public even get a look in!

Things I hate about Whistler and the ski school:

• Jennifer's not here!
• The weather forecasts... They constantly predict 35-40cm of fresh snow but invariably the forecast is wrong. Yes we get 35-40cm days but not with the frequency that the whistlerblackcombpropaganda.com website would have you believe!
• Rain and wet snow... Sometimes it just rains and it's just as miserable as winter at home.
• The infuriation of being such a perfectionist that I'm rarely happy with my own skiing... sometimes you just have to go and rip it without worrying about ski technique!
• Instructors that take their training tooooo seriously
• Being ranked lower than the older instructors who haven't taken a ski instructor course in the modern era and refuse to teach group lessons or beginner lessons.
• Waking up tired and achy every day... It makes me realise that I'm not 21 anymore!
• The obsession of some instructors about getting tips... it's just not good guest service to expect a tip!
• Being left standing outside for an hour when you offer to help out other pods in need
• Noisy Canadians and Americans hitting the 7-11 shop late at night... Honestly, why do you have to scream your heads off you idiots!

I've spent the last couple of days teaching supergroup lessons, although I did get a little telling off yesterday for saying I wouldn't get much out of teaching level 1 students (those that have never ever skied before)! I actually said it in the context of me training for my level 3 qualification and the fact that teaching 'never-evers' isn't examined for level 3 but lets just say that it wasn't popular! Not to worry!

Anyway, perhaps as a result of the above, I've spent the last two days teaching level 3s and level 2s. I'm hoping to be sent up to the alpine to teach level 4 and 5 skiers in the next couple of days... which is always a treat. I was sent up there this morning in fact but in the end there weren't enough lessons for me to teach up there.

The skis that I got off Jason have worked out beautifully and I've been really enjoying skiing a more aggressive turny ski for the first time this season. In fact, this morning's morning session allowed me to really get the skis on edge and ski dynamic turns like I've never skied them before. Combine this with the 2 degree wedge to align my left leg and I feel like a big breakthrough is being made in my technical skiing. Perhaps I would have won the technical championships last week if I'd been in this position back then!!!

As good as stuff is out here, I'm starting to feel a bit beaten up by the constant skiing so in some ways will be relieved to get back to a lifestyle where exercise is a hobby rather than a job. Having said that, being outside every day is definitely good for my wellbeing, and not once have I suffered this winter with any seasonal affective disorder.

What I'm really looking forward to after my stint here is getting back home to Jennifer and the bunch of stuff that we've got planned for this year. It all starts with our biking holiday in Spain where we'll get to bike with the friends that first introduced us last year, Bruce and Catherine. Bruce is currently building me a seriously pimped set of wheels using the Chris King hubs that I bought before Christmas so Spain will be the first test for them. Subsequently I'm hoping to test them at Mountain Mayhem, the Rough Ride, Bristol Bikefest and TwentyFour12... but only if I'm accompanied by Jennifer as planned!

After a full and well deserved rest day yesterday there was no reason why I had to get up this morning but I made the effort to don my ski instructor uniform and get up in time for morning session. I was pleased that I did when I ended up in Jason's training group (Jason was one of the level 4 instructors that ran my level 3 course) and we started to work on short turns.

After morning session was over, all the rest of the group of instructors headed off down the mountain to work but I was able to carry on skiing so I jumped on the chairlift back up with Jason. After a bit of a chat we then proceeded to ski a bit some more, then some more, then some more. At lunchtime we stopped and my short turns were starting to look rather spiffing after much coaching. It's pretty rare that this happens so I felt pretty privileged to have very focussed level 3 training all morning!

The other cool thing that happened was that Jason and I were chatting about new skis for me and he mentioned that he could get hold of some skis that would be perfect for me and at a great price so he's grabbing them from his rep tonight and I'm going to try them out tomorrow. I'm not going to mention what skis these are but there could be a surprise in store for those who know me and my normal equipment choices. Any guesses? (Not from you Jennifer!!!)

Finally I think I've got to the bottom of my boot alignment issues. After much experimentation with my boots on the hardwood floor in the apartment using Canadian Dimes, I worked out how much canting was necessary in order for my troublesome left foot and ankle to feel completely relaxed and balanced like my left one.

I popped into the boot shop this afternoon and mentioned this to Erin, my bootfitter (who looked exasperated as I walked into his shop for about the 10th time in 3 weeks!) and he promptly provided a 1.5 degree and a 2 degree wedge. An hour later on snow and I was enjoying finally engaging the edges on my left ski with no contrived knee movements so I'm convinced that I've got the solution. Now I just have to wait until Monday for my boot to be ground down by 2 degrees. It doesn't sound like much but it should make a world of difference... particularly with new turny skis!!!

Being obsessed with good skiing form like I have become, taking part in the Whistler Technical Ski Championships seemed like a fun way to spend the day so I entered as a way to get more video analysis as much as anything else. George, Mike, Claire, Dave and Paddy also entered so we had quite a good Base Pod posse in attendance.

The championships are organised by the training team for Whistler Blackcomb Ski and Snowboard School and are backed by a number of sponsors so there were skis and cash available as prizes to category winners. The event is split into open and amateur categories. As a CSIA level 2 instructor I was obliged to enter the amateur category (which is probably just as well because in the open category I would have competed against all of the people that normally train me!)

The event is made up of a bumps run, a short turns run and a full GS race. After the briefing we headed straight over to McConkey's to do the bumps run. I went for a measured but undramatic approach and figured I'd get some safe points that way. Mike went to "light it up" but exploded halfway down whilst George put in a nice run and was pretty happy.

Short turns were on Raven, which had been specially groomed (but was still pretty icy) and my normally decent short turns felt very average. George put in another nice run, as did Mike, who was still seeking to "light it up".

In the GS race, we got to ski from the Olympic start gates at the top of the Dave Murray downhill course which was pretty exciting by itself. Add to this the fact that I've never raced before and you'll understand that I was pretty pumped. Unfortunately I was skiing on my all-round Salomons, plus they had a hole in them from yesterday's Epic Tuesday antics, so I used that as an excuse as I put in reasonable but not outstanding display. George fell foul of the early tuck, as I did and set a similar time to me, whilst Mike finally "lit it up" (his catchphrase for the day!) and set a time at least a couple of seconds quicker than mine.

We headed to Milestones for the results, where we also saw the video footage of our runs. It was nice to watch my runs but it was also clear to me that there are a lot of areas in which I can improve so it has given me a kick up the backside to finally bottom out my boot alignment issues and get some more technical skis (given that I didn't win any of the lovely Head skis available as prizes).

As for results, out of 39 guys in the amateur mens category, I came 10th, about half a point behind George. Mike, who's going for his level 3 exam next week (good luck Mike), managed a stonking 4th, despite his bumps run fall. I was pretty pleased with my result as I figured a top 10 finish would be difficult to achieve. Now back to ski improvement (after a well deserved day off the snow)...