Sunday, August 17, 2008

life boat day










On the 3rd of August I was asked to open the Port St Mary life boat day. It was great fun! I did a short speech to open the day then spent about an hour playing all the games like “get the hoop around the rubber duck” and the like. I felt like I was a kid again playing at the summer fair.
I was also one of the judges for the princess for the day, there was a surprising amount of pressure in that! (See picture of me and our very cute winner)




Later I got to go out on the life boat, there were about 4 boats out on the water and I was on the biggest one. There were speeding around coming very close to each other, we went around one corner so sharply I was leaning at about a 45 degree angle! It was great fun and we didn’t crash into anyone thankfully!

The day was very successful and the life boat society got tons of donations from it, I hope I helped in some small way because all the people there do a really good job all year round and always with a smile on their face.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Start gate


I have just gained a great new addition to my summer training!

Manx sport aid recently provided funding allowing me to get a start gate I can practice on in the summer, so hopefully I can improve my starts enough that when I am at competitions I can pull out of the gate fast enough to get out in front of the other girls on the course from the start instead of having to pass them all on the way down.

As you can see from the photos it consists of a platform which you stand on and a gate which drops in front of you so you can then pull out and ride down the ramp on the other side.

Big thank you to the Manx sports aid foundation for the funding, to Dad for building it and to Briton engineering for providing me with the snow flex which covers the whole structure enabling me to ride it on my board making it as realistic as possible.

I have a couple of weeks here in Bath before heading out to Saas Fee, Switzerland where I am doing on snow training before the first world cup in Argentina in September.