Pre bike test… All smiles.

Post bike test. Zero fun.

Prone row test. Nailed it.

Push up test.

Stay tuned! More pics from our camp to follow!

Well, I healed like a champ from my neck and back. I finally admitted that
I think I have a little super human healing powers. I attributed much of my
quick and successful rehab to a few things. The first being, for the most
part, in a positive head space. I meditated a lot, visualized kept blood
flow going in my spine. These were key components I thought in my rehab.

I started to get a little cabin fever going on in Vancouver, so decided to
head south for a change of scenery and some hot weather!

Doloras Park, San Francisco

After a night in SF I went to Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz board walk.

You’re only cool if you’re one of THESE sea lions. Saw them yelling (whining? crying?) while on a run in the sun.

A peaceful morning at the beach, reading.

Surfing!

My girl Tori and I on the beach watching the sun set.

After two nights in Santa Cruz we went up to Sonoma County for some more sun and exceptionally good wine.

This is the man made lake of Sonoma.

You guessed it.

Gazing.

We were definitely winning…

Having some fun poolside.

My last day in the city I met up with Brent! We had an awesome day biking through Golden Gate Park to the beaches!

Golden Gate Park. So zen.

Full House? Made my day : )

I didn’t know Nik very well because I unfortunately have been injured for most of this World Cup season, my first season in Ski Cross. But I did know Nik; the world of Ski Racing around the entire globe is a very intimate and unique group of individuals. We’re in our own little world I often think. Everyone knows everyone. Whether you are from Terrace, BC or a tiny village in Northern Italy, if you race at an elite level you simply know everyone.

Nik grew up racing alpine. He made the National Team earning a spot to represent his country on the World Cup circuit. Throughout my entire journey to the National Team, to me Nik was one of the older athletes I looked up to. He was a role model in the sport for so many young skiers. His steadfast perseverance and determination are a few qualities among many others that I will always remember about him. When I hear anyone ask a waiter what his/her recommendation is to order from a menu I will forever chuckle and think of Z…

I have been getting to know all my new teammates on the SX Team this season on a deeper level. Traveling as a team, we are with each other every waking hour! It has not been a year with the team and I have already come to feel that this unique group of inspiring individuals are now family to me. I have a family when I’m on the road.

Nik will be missed for every single day to come. I am not ready to start missing more of my family…

Join me in sending love to friends of Nik, the families of Collingwood, the ski community where Nik grew up racing and where his father, Bebe, has coached for decades, and most of all the entire Zoricic family.

I am just over two weeks in with my injury and I already want to take my brace off… It’s not a great sign if you ask me. I have experienced huge gains already in my rehab from sitting up when I am lying down (abs of steel), being able to sit for a much longer time, to driving over speed bumps in a fairly pain free state. That is comforting knowing, yet it is still frustrating experiencing these gains and knowing there is still a far far road ahead of me.

I am staying positive though. I have started to creat an intention for each day with the help of my mental skills coach. Each day my intentions are different. While keeping these intentions with me throughout my entire day, staying attentive to them, and staying very busy with tasks I have set to accomplish over the next two months, I can say I am a happy camper.

Puppies sure help though! Last week we visited a friend of Carol’s 5 week old litter. Need I say more?

The last eight days of my life I am confident to say, have made me feel extremely vulnerable. A few factors contribute to this heightened emotional state I have been in and will continue to be in for some days to come.

The first strong feelings I had of vulnerability were present in the hospitals having my clothes literally ripped off my body by multiple doctors. There were at least five strangers hovering over me probing and prodding every inch of my entirely exposed body in a panic stricken, brightly lit EMERGENCY ROOM.

Those feelings inside of me continued once I was out of the ER; lying completely horizontal, barely able to sip a glass of water, having zero capability of dressing myself. I won’t continue in detail but all I will say is I that I’m a girl, a girl with a small bladder… That was yet another painful experience, one filled with vulnerability.

At home now, sleeping in my own bed and being around my family, the vulnerability has subsided tremendously in this familiar environment I truly cherish, yet has sky rocketed in so many other ways. Having to wear this claustrophobic brace 24 hours a day is a struggle for me. I am though, very confident in saying I have MASTERED incorporating the ‘wiggle n wiggle n wiggle yeah’ (thanks to LMFAO) into my frustrating daily routine of clothing myself. I wiggle around on my back lying on my bed and in 3 minutes I am dressed! I realised the other day that the most unfamiliar factor of these heightened emotions I am experiencing was the constant dosage of VICODIN that is in my system.

For a day last week, I tried not taking my medication because I awoke without the regular pain I was used to greeting each morning. I cleaned my room, bending over and over, and sent some emails. The pain in the base of my neck progressively became worse, climaxing into a searing hot throbbing pain that would not dissipate. I took my pills, laid down on my couch and completely broke down in tears. Reading texts from some friends who were trying to make me feel better on my phone made it worse. I cried more. Internal affirmation finally clicked in and I remember telling myself that I had actually, truly, broken my neck and my back. I hadn’t just taken a tumble on my skis I normally bounce back from after a day of recovery. I told myself I needed to rest, be smart and focus on the small steps that one needs to take in order to over come injury, and stay on top of my medication.

I am glad I am aware of this now. I had an extremely exciting talk with my mental skills coach Brent Hogarth. We chatted about many aspects of psychology, the process of rehab and healing being a major topic of our discussion: how we will create a plan so I can cope, learn, grow, strengthen and evolve from this injury. I am honoured and very excited to work with Brent and incorporate positive affirmations into my thought process. We will come up with physical cues to replace potentially negative thought patterns, with the necessary positive thinking that is crucial to healing, daily intentions, and other various forms of meditation.

Vulnerability is a powerful emotion.

Even a broken neck and back can’t keep my away from blogging on my new website! Haha

Well… Unfortunately I did a little damage to my neck and back yesterday in a race. My team was in Canyons, Utah racing a U.S Grand Prix Ski Cross.

I was winning my heat (I had FINALLY pulled a good strong start!) and had made it through the toughest part of the course! I flew over the “hip” jump which was the most challenging/biggest jump on the course then skied in to the compression bank turn out of the hip jump.

My crash happened too quickly for me to remember exactly what happened… I must have caught an edge right before the step down feature which was right after the compression turn out of the hip, performed some gymnastics with a few cartwheels on my skis and then I beached whaled it for some meters on my belly, before doing another gymnastics move and slapping down on my back. Who knew I was so graceful! I definitely got the wind knocked out of me for many seconds it felt like, but after that I tried to get up and get my skis back on to finish the race (SX is becoming embedded into my brain apparently! You never know what can happen in this sport (go figure…) so you should always try to finish the race) but as soon as I stood up and moved my head to search for my skis I could tell something was juuuuuuust not right.

The snow patrol was there right away. They strapped me in and tobogganed me down to their hut. From there I was driven to the Park City Hospital about 20 minutes away. I had CT scans there, then was driven to the Salt Lake City Hospital to be assessed by a neurosurgeon… I remember the back of my head was absolutely killing me because it was “resting” on the stiff wooden board from the time I injured myself and was put on the board on the race course to the time I arrived at Salt Lake’s Hospital. Chinese torture much…

I spent last night here in Salt Lake. I’ve progressed from being completely horizontal with my neck brace on lying in my bed to being able to get up, walk around (after some minutes of feeling extremely light headed and nauseous when vertical) with an upper body brace and neck brace on. A few of the nurses, doctors and aid workers here more than once have expressed their surprise and how impressed they are with how I’m coping pain wise and my general comfort level. I didnt know what to say in response… I’ve never broken my neck before. I guess it’s the German in me…

So. To the facts we go. Ive fractured my C7 and T2 and T3. Because I fractured my Thoracic spine, those broken bones actually cushioned my neck from potentially a much more detrimental and severe injury of my neck and entire body. The surgeon explained this to Mike, my team’s physio, and me (thank you Mike for staying with me!!!) That was pretty scary, but obviously postive news, to hear… I’ll be wearing this upper body and neck brace I have on currently for the next 2 to 3 months.

My season is over… Obviously. It has definitely not been one to write home about (excuse the pun… Is that a pun? Seeing as that is exactly what I’m doing right now?) but I have learned a LOT in this crazy awesome sport already which I’m grateful for.

We have got the go ahead from the surgeon which is excellent news to get the frick out of here! I will be spending the night here and Mike and I will be on an 11:00am flight tomorrow morning back to beautiful YVR!

I am going to be taking it day by day in terms of my recovery… I am one extremely lucky girl. This injury, surprisingly, is by far not the most painful of the few tumbles I’ve taken from skiing in general. I believe that I am a tough girl and will recover even stronger both mentally and physically from this.

Thank you again for all the positive healing vibes, from everyone. It means a lot to me seeing everyone’s kind words via the various forms of social media, and phone calls. Seriously though, social media is crazy, but so amazing.

Much love

You will like it… I promise : )

Race day is Saturday! Check out the live feed on the net at www.usfreeskiing.com

I have picked up two major differences thus far in the few days of the legitimate SX training I now have under my belt…

Speed checking is a GOOD skill to have and know when to use! I would be disowned if I had ever speed checked in my alpine days, i would have been laughed at, really… It is highly dangerous to bust out a “pizza” going 100k + right before a jump with 210 centimeter lenth skis, among many other reasons. In SX though sometimes the jumps are just simply too big to hit without a little pivot or wedge in there, prior to take off… Course makers ideally do not want to see athletes speed checking but with the variables that come with this sport on any given day such as a change in snow temperature and wind, speed checking is hard to avoid.

So! I have learned that… And quickly. The second general aspect I’ve noticed which I know will be a big part of my on going learning experience this year is the fact each athlete, men and woman, has a much longer time to get to know each course before they have to put the pedal to the medal, get serious and race. Athletes can inspect and run the course over and over before qualifying runs take place. This means that I do not need to give 110% the first time I ski the track. Compared to an inspection and race like in Alpine, this is a huge difference I will become more familiar with as the season goes on.

I haven’t event touched base on the other aspects of SX that I am not very familiar with liked the start, racing with others right beside me, bumping shoulders and getting pushed around while going 60k, being in the air as many as 10 times on one course, the different features I will encounter such as kickers, trannies, woo tangs… I know what youre thinking, “what ARE those even?” This is a learning year for all

To concur, I have a lot to learn. It sounds overwhelming but I’m ready to take it all on. I could not be more excited about the upcoming latter fall training camps and the start of the season!

I should be able to mess around up there tomorrow morning even if its free skiing, working on the technical side of things. I’m excited to get back on my skis again. I miss them.

Well folks…. That is a wrap! Enjoy yourselves and stay classy.

www.facebook.com/Georgiasimmerling check it out!