Summer in France

So....it's been a while since I've last written a blog post. Maybe i'll have to go and back date a few when I get the chance! Sshhh don't tell anyone :)

I'm in France for the summer. And I've been really lucky and have really landed on my feet here. I'm living with a french family, renting a spare room. And they are the nicest people, and the nicest family I've met. And i'm not just saying that in case they read it, as they are French :p

I live with the parents and the Grandad of the family as the kids have all moved out. Although they all come by and visit several times a week. And they are all about my age, slightly younger. I feel like i'm part of the family already...well it has actually been almost 2 months! Time flies. Oh, and they have a cat called Jolie, which is even  better!!

I've also got myself a job working in the cafe at a Wakeboard Cable, TNA (www.tna-arenthon.com) I work 6 days a week, but am usually done by 3 or 4 pm which means i have the whole afternoon/evening to ride!! It's great being able to ride everyday...obviously you can't physically ride EVERYday, but it's nice to have the oportunity. Usually after a couple of days of riding your body starts screaming NO, I'M TIRED, and you hav to have a rest. Wakeboarding definitely takes a much bigger toll on your body day to day than snowboarding. Or maybe i'm just not trying hard enough snowboarding :s

  

Anyway, ridings great. It's awesome to be able to do the two sports I love. And at the same time having a break from the other. You get the same buzz from wakeboarding as from snowboarding, but it's also a change of scenery and a bit different. I think it helps you push yourself in the two sports as it doesn't get boring. After a few months the seasons change and it's time to grab the other board!

I made a little edit last week of some riding. I actually filmed it all in one set! So it was all in about 15 minutes of riding...there was a big group of beginners on at the same time so I didn't want to fall off and queue, so just stayed on until I finally fell in! Those of you who ride cable will understand!

Voila, here is the link to the edit

 http://vimeo.com/100221620

Click HERE

I'm pretty pleased with it as I did the editing and found the music...which I think is the hardest part! Let me know what you think!

So apart from that, not much else. My days are work wakeboard sleep repeat. But i'm loving it and hoping to come back next year.

Plans for the winter at the moment are to go to the States for 3 months and ride. Unfortunately without a visa its pretty impossible to work over there, so saving the pennies to make a fun trip. Hoping to get my hands on Katie Blundell and ride with her this winter!!

I've been lucky to get some cool summer wear from Westbeach and Rocket Dog so I can be fashionable down at the lake :) Thanks a lot guys!

   

That's it That's all! Peace

Lake life - The Gym

This morning I had my first session in the gym for a long time! I booked myself in for 9am before work, and had a training session with James. We're really lucky here at Liquid Leisure as the gym is on site, Lakeside Health & Fitness. I did a run around the lake and then we worked on leg strength as my main priority, some core and some upper body.

Getting back into wakeboarding recently has been a workout in itself, getting my arms strong enough to do more than 5 laps on the cable! So I'm going to try and get into the gym once or twice a week in between wakeboarding and riding up at Hemel to keep strong for the next winter season in Austria!

Wakeboarding has been going really well, as I say i'm getting stronger so i can ride for longer which is nice :) I've learnt lots of new tricks, and tried some of the rail tricks up at the snow dome last week which went pretty well! The movements are very similar so it's nice to try things out on a wakeboard that I wouldn't be as comfortable trying first time and falling onto hard snow! The water is nice to cushion your landing! I'm actually finding it a lot easier to spin cab on the wakeboard, so have my switch 360s dialled...but seem to have lots my regular ones...oops.

I'm going to try and make a short edit over the next few weeks :) Here's a nice shot of this evenings sunset!