It is rather a long time since I last posted, and my apologies, but rather a lot has gone on since that time. So a quick run through the last nine months!

The British and Scottish Championships in Meribel, France went past in a blaze of hot sun and mega dumps of snow in April. This meant that the racing programme got chopped and changed and unfortunately I just couldn’t put together a consistent string of runs. Having said that, my best placing was in my first ever downhill which was just awesome. But time flies when you’re having fun and all too soon I was back home revising for my A-levels.

Although I had so much work to catch up on having been away for so many weeks, I still managed to find time to do indoor races over the summer, and finished second overall in the Indoor Grand Prix Series despite missing a few races due to exams. What was even better was that I won the British Indoor Championships again. At the same time, my exam results came in as well and now I’m really looking forward to going to Swansea in Sept 2011 to read material science with engineering. That should be fun.

After having received my results, it had always been my plan to try and get a job, and then spend the winter racing. Sadly, a job was not that easy to come by, and funding for my racing was even harder. In the end, I had actually found a job but had also pretty much abandoned any chance of racing when I got a call from VocaLink, a British company that processes international payments.

The brilliant news was that they were interested in sponsoring me. VocaLink has a history of supporting young people to achieve their dreams. With this sponsorship in place, my whole world had been turned on its head. Instead of heading off to Milton Keynes on a daily basis, I was heading off for a full winter’s racing.

I’ve now switched skiing disciplines and have linked up with the GB Ski Cross team. It all happened very quickly and after frantic phone calls, and meetings at VocaLink’s Rickmansworth offices, I was off in early November 2010 to Saas Fee in Switzerland for six weeks of training on the glacier.

I’ve never had six weeks of solid training before, and working with top skier cross racer Pete Whelan from the GB team, who races on the World Cup circuit, has been fantastic. The improvement in my skiing following my training has been massive, despite some of the coldest weather I have ever come across, and suffering from some quite serious frostbite in my feet.

Then, in early December, we headed east to Pitztal in Austria for the first races of the season, and my first ever Europa Cup race. This was the most impressive field I had ever seen – most of the World Cup guys were using it as a warm up race, so I was really proud to score over five points from that race. I just need to score over 50 to join Pete on the World Cup circuit!

Finally, after seven weeks, I came back home to sleep and eat my way to the end of 2010, having lost about 5kg during my time training and racing. I was certainly ready for some of my Grandma’s homemade cooking!!

So thanks to VocaLink, 2011 is already looking really exciting, and I can’t wait to get back out to the mountains again in January for another two weeks of training in Austria in the lead up to my next Europa Cup.

3rd March – The other side of my life has taken over. I head off to Loughborough University for an Open Day at the Materials Department. Having spent the day there, I know that this is where I want to go to University and the Design and Material Science course is exactly what I want to do. Now I have to wait and see what they offer me for a place. I then had to switch back to skiing again, as BBC Radio Northants did a quick interview on the Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

5th March – Airports again! This time I am at Luton Airport heading off to the Interschool’s Races in Les Houches near Chamonix. I am not racing this time, but earning some pennies as a coach with Gravity Snowsports. I will be one of a team of five coaches working with over 30 young racers many of whom this will be their first race. It should be a great experience.

10th March – I have had a fantastic few days and the guys did really well. I have learned so much about my coaching and working with all sorts of people, but it is a full-on day from 7.30am when we met up with people until 3.30pm, when I finally had time for some food.

11th March – Loughborough have offered me a place on the course and a £500 bursary if I get B, B and C. It should be achievable, especially as I have just had the results from my Physics re-sits and I have improved my marks from a mid C grade to a high B. Finally my parents have confirmed that thanks to www.cool-pets.co.uk they can now afford to send me out to the British and Scottish Championships at the end of March. Thanks also to Ambition Race Team for their flexibility – such a good day. France and Italy here I come!

February has been an absolute manic month and I just haven’t managed to find time to put pen to paper but here I go:

6th Feb – Time to head back out to Italy again. Sadly my travel arrangements were not sorted out in time, so I am heading off not to Heathrow, but from Gatwick. While the rest of the team fly off in luxury, I am slumming it with Easyjet. I need to make sure that I am not overweight which is not easy when you think that my boots weigh 6kg. The only problem is that I will have three hours to kill at Linate before the BA flight arrives – oh well time to get used to my new laptop which has finally arrived. The good news is that with all the coaching that I have been doing at the club, my mum is going to collect my second pair of GS skis which she will bring out next week when they come out to Bormio. Finally I have a training pair and a race pair, but at £600 it has been difficult to find the money, but will make a difference on race day.

8th Feb – Really good day of super G training today on the World Cup run. Only problem was that I caught an edge and went right through the gate. Now I have a really swollen arm which I couldn’t move for ages. Another big bruise to add to the collection! Also I discovered that my new helmet, which I have been waiting for since December, was the wrong size. I have to borrow my coaches’ as my old one is not safe anymore.

9th Feb – We trained on the full World Cup GS run this morning which is a very long course. My feet are causing me real problems as like many skiers I have a big spur on the back of my heels. The skin has come off, and rubs on the back of my boots. Not good, I think that the problem is not my ski boots, but my trainers that I wear for fitness. Oh well, lots of padding and tape that should do the trick!

12th Feb – Two more solid days of training and I am getting closer to the top guys in the team. Only about one second behind them which shows how much I am improving. I just need more time to become consistent.

13th Feb – Ah, a sleep in! That feels so good. We have been given a day off as the races start tomorrow. Even better I now have my GS skis and most important my parents brought out a massive pack of bacon so we can have bacon for breakfast tomorrow. Winter Olympics start – yes!

14th Feb – English National Junior Championships Slalom. Almost 130 men racing from 17 different countries, this is a pretty high class field and I made the top 30 in the first run, one of only five Brits to do so. That is my best run of the season. Sadly I messed up my second run so dropped from 29th to 44th. So near but yet so far.

15th Feb – English National Junior Championships Giant Slalom – Another really big field just like yesterday and I had a good feeling about this race, until my ski pre-released on gate 5 of the first run. Absolutely nothing I could do about that, especially on the steepest part of the course. It was so frustrating, my race day over in five seconds. That’s ski racing for you. Defago, Svindal and Miller – who would have predicted that result in the Downhill at the Olympics? What a fantastic race.

16th Feb – English Championships Super G – For some reason FIS have lost my points which mean that I have to start right at the back of the field. This means that I have to ski a pretty chewed up course as I start number 122 of 137 racers. I can’t believe that I put in a massive check just before Ciuk (the steep bit) – really don’t know why, so only finished in 70th place, but 17th of the Brits and eighth in my age group. Again so near but yet so far!

17th Feb – English Championships Giant Slalom – I made a big mistake in the first run, not a good day. Thank you Karen for letting Luke and I use the Spa at your hotel – we had a great couple of hours, a really good way to relax.

18th Feb – English Championships Slalom – A seriously bad day at the office. I just couldn’t get the run going nor could 41 others. It was like a bloodbath out there. The snow was horrendous and really soft, which meant the course looked like a mogul field at the end. Only 86 people finished out of 140 starters. No excuses though, I just skied badly. Just to add to the bad day, it is almost raining in the village and the weather is horrible.

19th Feb – Not looking forward to the next bit – we are driving home from Bormio. Just have a look on the map as to where we have been. It is nearly 1000 miles home. We are taking a slightly strange route home, as my Mum is concerned that given the amount of new snow that has been falling that her ancient old car (W-reg with 180,000 miles on the clock) will not make it over the 2200m pass from Livigno into Switzerland, so we are going back through the Gotthard Tunnel. We did take an interesting detour via Andermatt which is somewhere that I have heard so much about, but had never visited. When we arrived it was beautiful – blue sky and powder – I want to go skiing! And I missed the men’s Super G at the Olympics and Amy Williams gold medal – so frustrating.

20th Feb – 4pm – Finally we are home having travelled through Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and France. At 3am I woke up and it was snowing so hard that there was about 20cm of snow on the road, I didn’t realise that we were on the motorway in Belgium!

21th Feb – SnoZone MK – why did I agree to coach tonight? I am so tired. Did you see the Ski Cross though? What an event!

27th Feb – Well done to Dave Ryding and Andy Noble – top 30, and this on the back of all the disruption to their training due to mess with Snowsport GB! Can you imagine going into an Olympic games not knowing whether your coach is going to be there or your physio? And then having to find all your own funding to pay for your summer training and the press gave them such a hard time? This was their first Olympics and they are really aiming for Sochi in 2014. Guys, you did us proud!

It’s been another busy few days for me but I’ve rounded-up an eventful long weekend below:

Saturday 23rd – Terminal 5 again – third time lucky! Having had to cancel my flight for earlier in the week as I wasn’t going to Zweisimmen, I had booked a flight from London City which tied in nicely with the rest of the team from school arriving from Luton. BA decided to cancel it. So I had to try again with a flight from Heathrow which gave me 45 minutes from when my flight landed to get on the train to Meiringen. This being Zurich, I knew that things would run like clockwork, so I just trusted that BA would do their bit. Luckily everything worked out fine, and I made my train.

Sunday 24th – Had a morning of free skiing before the International Schoolboys Parallel Slalom. This is always a really fun race with each school putting in teams of four. We had a really strong team and cruised through the first few rounds and found ourselves in the quarter-finals and had high hopes of making though further. Sadly a crash from our first skier put paid to that so we were out which was a real shame.

Monday 25th – GS day, one that I was really looking forward to given the training that I was doing just before Christmas. The weather wasn’t too bad either. I can’t believe what a mess I made of my first run, I came to a complete stop at one point and had to pole like mad to get going again. Somehow I was lying in seventh place overall and second in my age group. I had a fantastic second run down a lovely open course. I put in the second fastest run and pulled up to fourth overall, only missing out on third place by 0.15sec. More importantly I was awarded the Viceroy Cup as the winner of my age group – a good day!

Tuesday 26th – What horrible weather, it was a complete white out, I am glad that it was slalom rather than GS, otherwise it would have been cancelled. First run was going really well until four gates from the end when I straddled a gate, I hiked back up and got back in the course, but lost a lot of valuable time. What was worse was that I climbed up one gate too far, so wasted even more time than ever. My second run was equally fast and I made no major mistakes, and posted the third fastest time, but that wasn’t enough to put me on the podium, sadly I finished fourth in my age group and eleventh overall which wasn’t great.

So now back to school for another exam on Thursday, now what can I remember about ideal gases……?!

I am now really looking forward to going back out to Bormio in February and racing in the English Championships which will mean five races in five days, that is going to be hard work!

It isn’t Friday 13th, but it is Wednesday 13th. I have just had a phone call from the GB Ski Cross coach, it turns out that none of the GB guys are going to Zweisimmen for the Swiss Cup and Europa Cup races which means that I am the only one. My Mum spent all afternoon trying to sort out accommodation and transport for both of us to go which isn’t ideal as I would still be the only one racing. In the end given that it would cost about £450 before any flights and that she would have to turn down two days of work I have decided that I won’t be able to go either. Now I have to rebook my flights so that instead of flying to Switzerland on Thursday I won’t go until the weekend, when I will join the rest of my team mates from school for the International Schoolboys races in Meiringen. Such a lot of hassle and so frustrating as this was the only Europa Cup I could race this year.

I have also heard today that the Ski Cross Races at the English Champs in Bormio have been cancelled as only five people had entered. Not really surprising as they were expecting us to race GS in the morning and then Skier cross at night!

All in all not a good day.