It seems like all I think about sometimes is snowboarding. I think about it every day, just wishing it would snow already so I could ride again. Just thinking about new tricks to try, new goals to accomplish, but my main goal this season is to just be able to ride. I am a 17 year old boy and a senior in high school. I have only been snowboarding for two years but just after the first few days I was addicted. It was all I thought and talked about when I first started. It just felt like something I would do forever. During the summer when I couldn’t snowboard I did a lot of free running. It just felt really good every time I landed a flip or a jump. I was doing back flips off everything, side flips in my house and wall flips anywhere there was a good wall. It was one of those things where you could continue to learn more and more tricks. One day I was at a barbecue and I was doing free running there. People started filming and I decided to try a new trick I learned and landed only a few times. So I ran up a rock and did a tweaked side flip off of it, when I landed I heard a little pop and fell to the ground. My knee felt really weird after that happened and I didn’t know what happened.

Later that night I noticed that my knee was really swollen and I could barely walk on that leg. After about 2 weeks I noticed it was not getting much better so I went to the hospital for the doctors to check it out. They took an x ray and then a M.R.I scan. They figured out that I had completely torn my ACL and meniscus. They told me that I could not play any sports the rest of my life unless I get a surgery because it could not heal on its own. So I thought about it for a while and I decided to wait and see if it could heal. It didn’t and it only got worse after I kept falling. About two months after that I decided to just get the surgery because it was not healing. After the surgery I was on crutches for two weeks, limping for a month, and only walking for the next 2 months. The doctors told me that the recovery for my surgery was six to twelve months and that really disappointed me because the snowboarding season would start in less than four. I didn’t know if I would even be able to ride this season. About two and a half months after the surgery I started jogging, even though my physical therapist told me I couldn’t do that for another month and a half.

After about three months I started playing basketball, skating (only riding), and jogging at a pretty good pace. It felt really good being able to do those things again after those few months. There was now less than a month before snowboarding season starts. I wanted to go up the first week it was open. There were people telling me that I will re tear my ACL if I go up so soon, because the shortest full recovery for my surgery was six months. But my leg felt really good already. That last month I started doing a lot more leg exercises to get it ready for snowboarding. About a week before the mountain opened all I could do is think about snowboarding. It took me longer to fall asleep every night it got closer to opening because I could not stop thinking about riding. I kept debating with myself if I should just wait another few weeks or just go the first day it opens. I knew that my brothers and friends were going up the first day the mountain opened. I could not wait any longer to ride so I went up the first day, even though I knew it was risky. I knew that if I went up and fell really hard I could be back in the hospital. I tried not to think about it though, I was just thinking about safer ways to ride and how careful I have to be when hitting jumps, boxes, and rails.

The first day I went up to the mountain I was so excited to finally be able to ride. When I got off the first lift and strapped in my bindings I looked down the mountain. The view was amazing. There was snow covered mountains and clouds below covering my view of anything on the ground. As I started riding I noticed that I was not riding as good as I use to and started trying to get it back. I was about half way down the mountain and saw a little jump; I went off the jump and landed it. After that jump it felt like I just got everything back and started ridding faster and smoother. It felt so good just riding down the mountain, but what felt the best is landing big jumps. So I started hitting the bigger jumps and doing grabs in the air while still being careful with my leg. Right when I landed a jump I felt so good and happy. It was just the best feeling ever. It was kind of like making a shot in basketball or running a touchdown in football.

This is what I wanted to do the rest of my life. Just live next to a mountain and ride every day. My leg did not get injured that season and I was so happy it didn’t because I did not want to go thru that recovery process again. I guess all my hard work paid off. All the nights of barley sleeping, all the exercises, and all the things I couldn’t do for a long time just made me into a stronger person today. Before all that happened I use to think I was indestructible and no matter how I hard I fell I would be able to get back up and walk it off, but clearly I could get injured just as any other person. All the goals I set for myself that season I accomplished. It was the best snowboarding season I ever had and my obsession with snowboarding became even stronger.