About a year ago I blogged about how skiing holidays helped me with my fitness and how the activity was a great break from the work routine. Because of the full on nature of surviving the slopes it was great distraction activity
That blog and post on LinkedIn ended up having nearly 15000 views and attracted a considerable amount of comment and discussion. I was amazed about how many friends and colleagues agreed with my view.
Moving fast forward to this winter we were in two minds about whether to go this year. It’s been a tough year for a whole variety of reasons and the thought of organising a trip was a bit ‘all too much’.
On a call with my accountant, who’s a keen skier, I said that we were thinking of not going this year. What she said to me hit quite hard, basically saying that if I stopped going then it would then be highly unlikely that I would ever go again.
This sort of made sense as it does become more difficult as one gets older and also I have numerous friends who no longer ski.
That sort of made our minds up that we should go!
We did tune the holiday a bit reducing it down to five days of skiing as that sixth day is now always the most difficult one to get motivated for. We chose Courmayeur on the Italian side of Mont Blanc as it’s somewhere we had always wanted to go to and It was a fairly straightforward drive from England.
As you can see in the photos, the weather wasn’t so great for the last two days of skiing as opposed to last year’s glorious sunshine in the Arlberg. The snow was falling heavily and on the final day the wind was blowing it horizontally!
On reflection it was a nice break and a chance to get a refresh from work. Also as has been said before the daily fitness work during the dull months of winter ( all logged on Strava) has so many benefits for mental and physical health. This should never be underestimated as at that time of year it’s so easy to laze about.
The concentration required both to get down the slopes and to remember how to do it and do it neatly with passable technique, means there’s no mental space for any other rubbish,
My wife, who’s an excellent skier, even said to me that after one run, “you looked good’. All that was missing was that she didn’t add “for once”.
So, I think after a bit of a wobble, skiing will remain as the physical and mental break for the foreseeable future.
Of course having had to replace my helmet, goggles and skis with new kit means I need to get my money’s worth too!
As a post script it was interesting to see that all of that snow that dumped on us caused a big avalanche a couple of days after we came home. I always compartmentalise avalanche risk by thinking that it’s only really a risk if you are off piste. Well’ if you watch this video we were actually queueing in that very lift queue four days before the avalanche- makes you think!!!
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