Christchurch Slopestyle Recap

This week I went to a Crankworx Slopestyle event in Christchurch, New Zealand. Last year this was my first ever Gold ranked event and while I felt I prepared well, I ended up without a completed run and a very sore body, along with a catalogue of broken parts. This year I wanted some redemption. 

After quite the off-season, moving to Sweden and then spending some significant time at home in Perth, I felt like I had prepared better than I ever had before. Mentally and Physically.

First day of practice came around and I was loving the course changes, stoked to be riding with my mates again and keen to get out on the jumps. The first few laps were rough. Of course the first feature we were allowed to hit was the biggest step down I've ever ridden. After 6 months of airbags and skateparks, this was quite the shock to the system. I fumbled through the first few practice sessions and started to get my confidence back on this big course. By the end of the last session, I had all my rotations on all the features and was confident I could add my combos in during my qualifying runs.

Qualifying comes around on a dewy morning and I'm at the top of the course feeling nervous, as always, but confident. My first run I misjudged my speed into the first few features and need to pull out after landing in the back of a jump. I recomposed and headed up for run two. I threw a 360 tailwhip on the 2nd jump and as I came around I saw that once again, I was very short on speed and managed to wrestle my way out of it but not without loosing even more speed. 

I fumbled down the rest of the course, knowing that I had once again come to this event and not put down a proper run.

Initially, a lot of disappointment. Wondering If all the work I had put in had changed anything. 

A common thread that I notice with how I handle competitions, is that I subconsciously write the story about how it will go, before I even get to the event. And my feelings about the event are determined by where I land in relation to that narrative. More often than not, this narrative is a comeback story of some sort. Pushing past a conflict to be victorious on the other side. While this is a nice thing to think about, a healthier space to be in might be staying open minded to any story that might come up. I don't think this has to be 'losing' either. There are infinite stories that can come from an event and I don't want to miss what actually happens, because I'm so focused on the failure of the story I drew up.

As well as this expectation, I think I also timed my off-season prep poorly. I can see why I made the decisions I did, and I learnt a lot, but the bulk of my training being in the early off-season, and then the reset, rest part of it being just before a comp was not ideal. 

I love competition because there is no pretending, no hiding. If you have done the work and prepared well then you have the opportunity to prove it. If you haven't, it becomes very obvious to not only others but yourself. Without competition, in any realm, there is too much room to lie to yourself and not evaluate your ability accurately. 

I know where I went wrong in this competition, and I'm looking forward to cracking down with some work to prepare better for the next one. I'm grateful for this journey, the success and the failures and I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing.