Skiing With Scouts

We spent the past three days skiing with our Scout pack. My wife rented a condo right by Whitetail. We arrived on Thursday evening. After checking in and had a quick dinner, we headed over the resort for a night skiing. The weather was warm, the rain was pouring, and the trails were foggy. Nevertheless, we were able to ski.

Đạo, Đán, and Xuân went to the back side for the blue, black, and double black slopes. Vương, my wife, and I stayed at the front. We did the first run together on Sidewinder, which is a long green. Because of the poor visibility, my wife didn’t want to go back. Vương and I went back for three more runs. He was skiing ahead and I was snowboarding behind him. At some points, I couldn’t see him. Luckily, he just went straight down without falling. We went back to the rental house and I started to feel the sharp pain at the bottom of my left foot (Metatarsalgia). I couldn’t sleep much because of the pain.

Friday morning, the pain didn’t go away. I was not sure if I could ski or snowboard. I took one pill of Aleve. I planned to teach some Scouts who had never skied before a quick lesson. Fortunately, I didn’t feel too much pain in my ski boots. I taught four teenagers how to “pizza” and “French fries.” I also explained to them the ski stand. Just the first half hour, I took them on the magic carpet. To my surprise, they could ski very well. They only fell once or twice and they already could do the magic carpet on their own. After that I took each one up the lift with me. With just a few hours, they were able to get on and off the lift themselves and they could ski down all by themselves. They spent the entire day skiing on the green slopes. My mission was accomplished.

In the afternoon, I skied on the back side for a few runs then switched to snowboarding. My foot didn’t feel too much pain until we went back to the rental house. Parents of the four kids I was teaching came over to our rental house for dinner. We ate, drank, and karaoked until 10 pm. The pain came back again, but I couldn’t take an Aleve because I was drinking.

Saturday morning, the pain was getting more excruciating. We cleaned up the rental place and checked out at 11 am. We headed over to the resort once again. I took an ibuprofen. It didn’t help much. I snowboarded with my back foot in pain, but I managed to do a few runs on the back side. We left Whitetail around 2 pm because I couldn’t take it anymore and the kids also wanted to go home.

It is now 11 pm on Saturday as I am writing this. I just took another Aleve hoping the pain will go away tonight, tomorrow, or the next few days. I need to rest my foot before I go skiing or snowboarding again.