Short-lived Snowboarding Career

So before I tell about my accident, I have to talk about my first-ever snowboarding experience. It all started when Brent and I walked into Sam's Club one day and they had a display of snowboards with bindings for only $107. Sure enough, they were the perfect length for me! But we figured we should shop around a little more to make sure we were getting the best deal. We went to Big 5 Sporting Goods and found out they were having a deal for any snowboard, bindings, and boots for $193. So then we got the idea that maybe we should get Brent a new board, which he was due for, and I could take his old one. Then we could buy me the bindings and boots that I would need. So that's what we did! Brent got a brand new snowboard and took his old bindings off of the old board and put them on his new one, while I got the old board and bought some new bindings and boots. We were all set to take me on my first snowboarding lesson! I was really scared though! Brent was pretty sure that I would completely fail and hate it, and it seemed that's how it would be from how I started out. It took us 2 hours to make the first run, but luckily by the second one I was doing much better and was much more comfortable with making turns. But trust me, I still fell A LOT!

I ended up having a lot of fun and I was ready to get back on the mountain and try again the next weekend. So that's what we did! I got off of work at 3:30 on Friday so we could go up to Sundance and use our night passes. We had everything all packed in the car ready to go straight from campus. Our first run was awesome! I actually expected my self to regress back to my old habits and do worse, but I actually was doing so much better than the first time! It was lots of fun and I felt like maybe I could let Brent go up further while I went on my own. Luckily, he decided he would do one more run with me on the easier slope.

When we were getting off the lift (which is the one thing I haven't gotten better at. I fall every time) somehow I fell and my board twisted back behind me and twisted my knee. Brent just kept going, not knowing that anything was wrong, while I sat there crying with my knee twisted behind me. I managed to crawl over to the side to get out of anyone's way getting of the lift and Brent finally noticed I was still on the ground. He kept saying "you're fine, you're still laughing!" I yelled at him "I'm not laughing, I'm crying!" Then he finally realized something was wrong. My board was still twisted around pulling on my knee which was making the pain worse, so Brent took it off since I couldn't pull it around myself. We walked over to a bench and sat down. The lift attendant asked if she wanted us to call ski patrol, but I told her no, I would be fine. I thought for sure the pain would go away and I could make it down. But as I sat there, the pain got even worse. I walked around on it for a little bit, which seemed to be ok, but when I sat back down it hurt even more. Finally we decided that I should try to go down if it could hurt it even more. Mainly I didn't want to call ski patrol because I was too embarrassed. But, I got to take my first ride on a snowmobile! And they gave us free lift tickets since we had only gotten one run in.

We went home and I sat down on the couch and put an ice packet on my knee for about 3 hours. Sleeping that night was kind of difficult. Everytime I wanted to roll over I had to be super careful not to twist my knee at all. In the morning it was really stiff and took me a while to be able to put any weight on it. We went to the Health Center first thing to have it looked at. I was really worried that it was worse than I thought and that I might need surgery, since my old roommate Natalie had to have surgery on her knee freshman year. After doing a few tests to find out what exactly was hurt in my knee, the doctor said it's just a sprain. He didn't tell me exactly what was sprained, but that I was lucky it wasn't affecting my miniscus in any way. They gave me a brace to wear for the next 6 weeks and I have to be really careful for a while. I can't run for atleast 2 weeks probably and even then I have to cut my distance back. Oh yeah, and he said no more snowboarding this year.

So of course, just as I started to get good and was really having fun, I get told I can't do it anymore. Hopefully I'll be able to ignore any fear next year and get back to it.