Level 1 & the lurgy

Twenty minutes late, my stomach full of chicken wings from lunch and my mouth still discoloured from the sickly sweet, hickory-smoked, BBQ sauce they were smothered in, I tumble off the chairlift rolling towards the fifty disgruntled snowboarders preparing for the start of the impending AMP competition. This afternoon is the AMP (All Mountain Pro) level 1 competition, an opportunity for us to show off our snowboarding skills and see where we rank overall on the course. I'm sure the judges didn't see me dismount that chairlift...

The competition is broken down into four elements: drop-ins; gullies; freeride; and carving, each marked out of ten. To pass level 1 twenty points are required and scoring is based on impressing the judges. We start with a gully run and whilst riders in front of me fearlessly fling themselves from the walls of the gully, landing 180s and 360s, I settle on one of the few things I can confidently do well, switch riding (that should earn me a couple of extra marks).

Next is the freeride and I again look on as people fly through the trees and carve up the moguls, but what can I do? I know, I'll ride some switch...again (maybe my playbook is a little lacking). We then move onto the drop-ins and I manage to get, what feels like, big air. But a quick glance at the underwhelmed expression on the judges faces convince me otherwise. Finally we get to the carving element, maybe I could carve switch to impress the judges...who am I kidding, I can barely carve regular!

We gather in the bar for the announcement of who ranked first, second and third:

"Third place, with 32 points, is Simon", that's fair enough, Simon's fearless and excellent at carving.

"Second place, with 35 points, is Matt", well that's expected, Matt's been snowboarding for about four seasons. Having drunk a couple of beers my mind starts to wander and I irrationally contemplate the potential that I've grossly underestimated myself and in fact switch riding is considered exceptionally technical and impressive and that perhaps I really did get seriously big air off that drop-in. Hmmm, maybe I have won...

"and first place, with 37 points, is Jamie"

More than half the course have been unwell over the past two weeks, three people on the course have been diagnosed with pneumonia and one has been diagnosed with a potential case of swine flu. Up until now I've managed to avoid the illness but this morning I awoke with a sore throat, fearing that the lurgy may now have infected me and dreading a diagnosis of meningitis or the bubonic plague from the apparently paranoid, Fernie doctor!