Willi XC first two days

Windy, windy, storm, windy. Golden didn't have a great weekend for flying, but was good to see a bunch of friends and all the improvments at John and Cathy MacIsaac's golden eco-adventure ranch near Nicholson just south of town. Pretty cool campground directly beside the landing zone, it's the most euro-style flying/camping setup around. Nice sites, casual, decent prices. The Muller Wind Sports party Saturday night well, Tihi on the grill and everyone on the keg.

The Psychosis downhill was going on today in Golden--there are some insanely good downhill riders doing that gig, don't know how they ride down stuff most people can barely walk up, amazing. OJ, Chris and Miles did various cool aerial stunts for the crowd both Saturday night and Sunday as part of the RB Air Force. Their parachutes kept opening kind of low for my taste, but they seemed to be having a really good time...

My parents, Ben and Cia Gadd, were in town all weekend to visit and chase me as they have done other years, but the chasing was pretty limited as nobody went anywhere including me. I did launch the "wrong" direction last night facing east out over the Kicking Horse Canyon, got blown down the ridge for a bit, then into the lee and out to land. In the near-dark. At least I did manage to pull off a stall on my Zoom over the LZ--no great accomplishment obviously, but I'm an XC pilot not an aerobatics pilot so I was pumped, pulling down on the brakes and watching the glider fold up just isn't right. This was the 20th stall of my life maybe, I hope I get to like 'em more. It got my mom wound up a bit too. I just like my glider flying, but if I'm going to fly competition wings at speed I need to have better skills at recovering them via stalls and such. I learned in Chelan (US NATS, last week), that in order to win you need to hammer the speed bar, which makes any paraglider less stable. Less stability=more wing foldups...

I'm back at home in Canmore tonight, back to Golden Monday a.m., the forecast for the next three days looks GREAT!

Workouts Friday and Saturday:

Friday: Ran 30, then as many rounds as I could do in 20 minutes: 10 L-sit pullups, 6 handstand pushups, 20 air squats (with good form). About puked per normal.

Saturday: Got all of 30 minutes of stretching in while parawaiting, rest day.