Ed Andrews: Drinking on the job
I was lucky enough to go to Laax in Switzerland earlier this month to cover the Burton European Open. Don’t worry, boast over.
On my way to the gondola one morning, there were two snowboarders ahead of me in the queue. They must have been in their late teens and both were swigging from the bright orange cans of Calanda beer, a nice little pre-ski cheeky-eye-opener at nine in the morning. Just one look at their mischievously happy faces took me back to when I was first starting to learn to snowboard many years ago.
After wasting a whole year of university by means of a bong and a Playstation, I decided to join the university snowboard club – the Leeds Snowriders (yeah!). Each week, we would take a coach down to Sheffield Ski Village (a dry ski slope around 30 miles away) to get indoctrinated into this new lifestyle. Before our lesson in side-slipping and stopping ourselves with our faces on the coarse snowflex, we too would be sinking several pints of lager in the faux-Alpine bar - partly to anesthetise ourselves from the imminent pain and partly because drinking was actively encouraged by the club ‘Captain’.
Looking back, that was a mistake. A stupid mistake.
Not that I would ever sneer at people for drinking and I would hate to live somewhere where drinking is heavily restricted. The last thing I’d want to do is to deprive someone getting in a crafty beer when they fancied it - vice is the spice of life, after all! But my issue with it is that snowboarding is a sport. It demands strength, good balance and finely tuned posture, three things that are kinda ruined by alcohol. And I failed to recognise this for a hell of a long time.
I spent far too many precious weeks on snow with a face full of booze in the evening and a face full of snow the next day. It took me several years to realise that if I wanted to get better, I would have to treat snowboarding like the sport it is: warm up, stretch and motivate myself to overcome the pain and exhaustion. And as uncool as this is, I literally train for it now: energy drinks, protein shakes, the lot. What can I say? I’m a douche.
Thing is, I can see that it actually works. I’m never going to be a great snowboarder, but I do want to be slightly better than I was the day before, and all this fitness malarkey actually helps.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally get those two kids. They probably had a great day cruising around half-cut in the sunshine, and good luck to them. I’ve ridden in various states of intoxication before and know just how awesome it can be. But it just doesn’t work for me anymore. Not when it stops me getting in those extra turns, pushing my abilities and maybe even scaring myself a bit.
But maybe I’m just getting old and boring?
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Comments (2)
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It didn't take long for me to realise though that most of the people on the trip had Mummy and Daddy paying for their holiday and their nice kit, unlike me, and so they could afford to waste these precious days.
It made me and my mates seem like outsiders. for doing the thing we went there to do, and for enjoying our sport as much as we could. It's a bizarre situation to be in, but on reflection it's the pissheads that are the weirdoes.
I get it that peer pressure can be tough when you are young but as you grow older you should be who you want to be without feeling the need to justify your choices.
Also energy drinks are not better than alcohol. Ok they don't impair your riding abilities but it doesn't give you energy, it's a synthetic stimulant that gives your heart palpitations.