ouch..

Well today did not go exactly as planned, but I am still happy with the end result today!  The course was super super turny today, and icy as all get out.  The entire course was one big sheet of ice, but we are racing on a europa cup hill so it has to be super hard for them to train and race on.  Ice aside, I had a pretty crappy first run.  I carried to much speed of the last pitch before the jump and I had to dump a bunch of speed, as well as make a few alpine turns before the jump, and proceeded to just miss the jump line, not dump any speed, then completely blow out.  I threw my skis out for the second gate after the jump and they hooked up WAY early and I got flipped turned and tossed every which way.  As one person said, it was "One of the more epic crashes I have ever seen."  It certainly felt like it.  I got up significantly discombobulated, with one pole and no goggles.  A gate judge politely directed me to the next gate, seeing as I had no idea which gates I had or had not gone through and I finished the run after about 20 seconds of collecting myself and making sure everything was still there.  So I got to do a second run just to familiarize myself with the course and to see how my times stack up against everybody else, from the very back of the pack.  I think I was about 30 seconds away from earning points, so I pretty much just got to go out and see where I was at.  So I had a killer second run, laying down the 13th fasted raw time on a terrible track.  I didn't really jump as much as I should have, I was really focused on just having a solid second run and making sure I finished standing up to get a reasonable estimate of how fast I was skiing and thats just what I got.  So I am happy with the second run result, and knowing that I can lay down fast times.   I am excited to see what I can do tomorrow in the sprint!