Skiing in Austria

I postponed ever trying skiing because of gymnastics. I never wanted to risk getting injured outside of the gym and have it jeopardize my Olympic goals...especially with my history of knee problems. So, now that I'm retired I was looking forward to my first ski trip in the Austrian Alps.
I headed to Innsbruck over the weekend to visit a friend from the Austrian gymnastics team. He has been skiing and snowboarding his whole life, so I felt pretty safe going out with a vet. Unfortunately, what wasn't taken into account enough was my pathetically weak legs.
Riding the lift to the top of the slope I remember saying, "I am not a gymnast anymore." Aside from not training anymore and moving to another country, doing something like skiing helped remind me that I am in a new phase of my life. When I got to the top of the lift, looking out at endless mountains completely surrounding me and I felt fantastic...that lasted for about five minutes.
To make myself fell a little better, I'll mention that I wasn't quite starting out on the bunny slope at Hunter Mountain, which is where a lot of people from NJ/NY area start out. This was a real mountain with real slopes. My friend took me to where they hosted the 1976 Winter Olympics. It wasn't the exact slope of the downhill competition, but it was right next to it.
I headed down, listening to his instructions as closely as possible. I kept my skis in the arrow formation to slow myself down as much as possible. As I tried to turn to the left my right ski got caught. I twisted as a I fell and I felt my right knee in a very awkward position. There was nothing I could do to stop it. Finally, I heard/felt that lovely "pop" of my knee giving out. I just closed my eyes and thought "WOW...did that really just happen again." As I laid on my side, I tried to lift up my leg, but it just kind of hung there unnaturally. Not a good sign. My friend came over hoping that I was ok, but I quickly let him know that my skiing experience was over.
Fortunately, I was able to walk to the closest ski lift. We decided it would be a waste of a great day to just go home so we had some lunch at the top of the mountain, took some pictures, and just hung out for a while. I tried as hard as possible to stay in a good mood considering what had happened, but my mind kept thinking how bad I was hurt...
The next day was predictable...swollen knee, very limited range of motion. I guess one positive was that I was able to get around on my own the rest of the weekend without crutches. I could feel my knee give out if I moved laterally, so I tried to take small slow steps wherever I went.
Aside from skiing, I got a chance to experience downtown Innsbruck a little bit. One night we got invited to a drink tasting for a new bar that was opening. There were about 10 of us and what we had to do was drink whatever they put in front of us and then fill out a survey on whether or not we liked the drink. We did this for over 25 drinks!! Of course most of the drinks small, but by the end of the night we were feeling pretty good...
I also had a chance to visit one of the Austrian gymnasts who was in the hospital recovering from a recent leg surgery. The whole team went to spend time with him, and it reminded me a lot of being with my team both at Stanford and with the USA. Being around a team again brought back a lot of great memories from my past. That's one of the things I miss most about not competing anymore...just hanging out with the team.
I'm back in Rome now and my knee has been getting better each day. I'm planning seeing a doctor early next week, so I'll have more details on the severity of my injury then.

One more thing...this wasn't exactly my first ski trip. When I was about 12 I went skiing with a bunch of gymnast friends from NJ who were all veteran skiers. When we got to the mountain they all left me right away and I spent the day trying to figure out what I was doing. Needless to say it was awful. Here are some of the highlights of that trip...
-I took a "Ski Class" from someone that barely spoke English. I had no idea what was going on, so half way through the class I left and went on my own. By the way, I had to pay for the class...
-"A Christmas Story" is one of my favorite movies to watch during the holidays. I'm sure many of you have seen it over the years considering they play it for 24 hours straight on Christmas Eve. One of the classic parts of that movie is when Flick, puts his tongue on the frozen pole and it sticks. Well a similar thing happened to me on this wonderful ski trip. I was on the ski lift and I put my tongue on the metal zipper of my jacket...and it stuck. Yes, this actually happened. I was spared the ridicule of my friends since I was on my own, but it did take me a while to free my tongue.
-At the end of the day I finally found my friends and decided to go with them and take one ride down the more difficult slope. The ride started off well, but about halfway down, I fell forward to the point where I could tell my ski bindings were about to break away. When they did finally snap, the ski popped up and smacked me right in the face cutting my chin. At that point, I had had enough of skiing and I went down the rest of the slope on my butt...

So as you can see my first ski trip was not a great experience either. I'm pretty sure some higher power is telling me to stay away from the mountains. I've always been a beach guy anyway, so I don't mind too much. My ski days are officially over.