2012 season update on sbcwomen.com

Check it out! Season's update

http://www.sbcwomen.com/riders_article?news_id=921

Everything happens for a reason!

Mid January, while I was in Alaska, i hurted my knee and had to have meniscus surgery in early February... The snow kept falling on the mountains, and here I was, not riding once again... Working instead, let me tell you that my 3 jobs kept me really busy for the past 2 months. Might as well work if there's nothing else I can do right now.  Good time to pay off some debts and save up some money...  I've always wanted to go travel, yes, I have been traveling in the past years but I mean real traveling... 

Here I am now, only 15 days until it comes true and until the big adventure begins!  So since I was injured, I then decided to change my plans completely and leave Canada to go travel all around south east Asia for a couple months. Only 15 days to go until I meet up with Steven on the other side of the world. How stoked I'm I? You don't even know! Let me tell you we're gonna have a time there! It's going to be an amazing trip that I will remember my whole life for sure.
We will be living out of our backpacks, traveling trough jungles and beaches..  what can I ask more... Traveling with an amazing person to an amazing place! Ill be the happiest little girl on earth really soon!
All this intense hard work will be all worth it once I'm there, That's all I can think about when I have to work from 5:30 am to 7pm almost 7 days a week... It keeps me motivated

                             MOTIVATION
sooo soooon!!!! :) 

Joseph Kony 2012

http://kony2012.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/



KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

Interview on SnowboardQuebec.com

You can click the link bellow or check it out on this page

http://www.snowboardquebec.com/news/2012/des-filles-du-quebec-qui-s%E2%80%99illustrent-sur-roxy/

Today was THE BIG DAY!

So last Wednesday, I had an appointment with my knee doctor DR JP McConkey, just a couple days after I got back from Alaska. I'm not gonna lie but I was pretty convince that he was gonna tell me that something was wrong with my ACL.... I was ready for it tho... I kept a positive attitude the whole time while I was waiting for my check up tho.

So on Wednesday, when I finally got to see my doctor, I was really surprised and happy when he told me that my ACL was really strong and that it was probably just a meniscus injury. Such a release... It's such a great feeling when everything goes even better then you expected... I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep my expectations, I'm rarely disappointed then.

I was probably gonna have to pass an MRI and all but the waiting list for MRI's are high in whistler since injuries are not rare. So McConkey took a guess and decided that we were gonna skip that and go to the surgery right away since he was pretty certain that that's what was wrong in my knee. I totally trusted him, he's a knee specialist and has seen a lot so I totally agreed with him. Miraculously, he had an opening on the following Monday and was gonna be able to operate me right away!

February 6th, 12:00 pm, Surgery day

Today is the big day, I am so excited... most of my friends taught I was crazy cause I was excited about my surgery, but I know it's going to go well and can not wait to start recovering so why wouldn't I be excited? So I decided to do a spinal anesthesia instead of a general anesthesia... the recovery is a bit better and I get to watch the surgery! :D
So the anesthetist injected a needle with bupivacaine into my spinal cord, which got me frozen from my belly bottom down in not even a minute... I was trying really hard just to move a toe and nothing would happen, that's ok cause I don't want to feel whats gonna happen to me. The whole processes was pretty quick, I got to watch what they were doing to me from a TV that was hooked up to a tiny camera inside my knee, I'm not gonna go into to much details cause some people might not like it but it was definitely pretty cool to watch!

So in a time laps of 3 hours, I was in and out of the hospital with a fixed knee!!!  Stoked, I'm feeling great, gonna be on crutches for a couples days but it's all good. Starting my recovery now! I'm gonna be back on my feet in no time, you watch! And better then ever! 

Marie-Andrée & Joanie's Alaskan Adventure on SBCWOMEN

http://www.sbcwomen.com/riders_article?news_id=828

Whistler Snowboard Park Session # 2

Positive thinking, A way of life!

My head is going crazy right now, what to think about? What I'm I going to have to go through again? How long I'm I going to be off snow for? What does everyone is going to think of that? Do I need surgery? Should I quit? What I'm I going to do with my life? 

Woooo, Come down Marie...

"Your life is not over" "Everything will be alright"  Thanks for the support! :)

Anyway... So little update on my knee, it's swollen & it hurts when I walk on it, but it's already way better then it was yesterday and I can move around better & the pain had diminished. 

So yea, when it first happened, my head wanted to explode cause of everything that I was thinking about... Yes it is a really stressful situation, especially when it's the third time that it happens...  Injuries always sucks, You never know how to take them really... But one tip I can give you guys is

STAY POSITIVE

Whatever it is, I know it's really hard sometimes, But having a positive attitude can change a lot of things. And I'm talking about daily things, you can use your positive attitude in anything. Positive attitude helps to cope more easily with the daily affairs of life. It brings optimism into your life and makes it easier to avoid worry and negative thinking. If you adopt it as a way of life, it will bring constructive changes into your life, and make it happier, brighter and more succesful. It is certainly a state of mind that is well worth developing and strengthening. If you look at the bright side of life, you will see the difference, and not only you will, people surrounding you also will, if it's strong enough it becomes contagious.

So I've been trying to use this state of mind in my daily activities, my friend Matt Belair has been teaching me a lot about it and it has helped me in every little daily things that I do. 

So I have been practising it intensively in the last 48 hours or s... Just trying to think about all the positive things that can come out of this situation. Surprisingly, I found a lot of positive in it...

This is the worst case scenario right now, but let's say, if I've got to get  surgery on my knee again and that I can't snowboard for the rest of the season.... Well I've wanted to go travel forever... I'm talking about real traveling... Buy a one way ticket to somewhere warm  & cheap, somewhere where I don't know anyone, somewhere where I can learn a new way of living, try new things, meet cool people, do things that I've never tough of doing before, learn a new language, learn to play guitar...  all those things that I've wanted to do for so long, but that I never fond the time for...

So that's my worst case scenario of if things don't go too good with my knee. Doesn't it sounds awesome tho...

So now only time will tell whether I'll be snowboarding for the rest of the season or travelling...

Anchorage Alaska day 5! Not the best day let's say...

January 20th

So today, we tried to go hit a spot but then when we got there, the guys from last time were just leaving, they just got warned that the police was on their way and that we weren't allowed to be there so we had to leave right away... We didn't really had any other plan then that rail for the day so we decided to go ride the mountain, so we went to Hilltop, a little hill in Anchorage, we did a couple park laps there, the park was fun, some cool little features, but it was really cold and slow so we only did a couples runs and then headed to Taco King for some Mexicain food!

Later on, after a short rest at home, we went to set up a feature, everything was ready the speed was fine, but then we needed more people to pull the bungee and film and no one could of come that night, but oh well, now the feature is all set up so we can come hit it anytime in the next couple days.

After we were done setting up everything, it was now late enough to go hit up that white rail that we got kicked out of by that crazy lady with the tank the other night. HaHa

Everything was already set up, we only needed to builth up the starter a bit because we didn't have enough speed. So the new starter and a shovel pull was giving us perfect speed now... Danyale hit it a couple of times, then it was Jessi's turn, but she had a brocken strap on her binding so it didn't really worked out for her unfortunately...

So my turn comes, I hit it a couple of times, but I wasn't really feeling it, it was now 1h30 am and we've been up all day... The last time I hit it, "it was kind of a flat landing" my knee.... I felt a really weird pain in my right knee... So I walked back up the stairs and sat down on the concrete ledge next to the girls... They were wondering what was wrong because I didn't fell or anything...  

But I felt it, there is something wrong with my knee... What is it tho? how bad is it? Is it just a bruise, a sprained muscle or ligament, my meniscus or is it the old snowboard injury that a lot of females rider  gets in there snowboard career... TORN ACL...

Let's cross finger and hope for the best, I've had two knee surgeries in the last two years and I don't want another one...

So we went back home after that incident... I popped a painkiller, Iced my knee and went to bed... It's not time to start thinking... let's see how I feel tomorrow...

Anchorage Alaska day 3 & 4!

January 18th

Waking up before the sun rise " which isn't really hard here" HaHa. Were going to  a new spot today... we kind of got lost a bit this morning, then got stuck on an icy slope with the van, HaHa You should of seen that, 4 girls in a van, not able to make it up going back and forth...  haha  it was hilarious...  some video of it will follow later on! So we decided to stop trying to make it up all the way to the top with then van and we took all our gear and hiked the little bit of the hill left.

 It was an inversion today and we were up at the top of the mountains so it was actually nice and not as cold as yesterday up there, which was really appreciated. We started setting up and then a bunch of guys from standard movie showed up to hit the same spot as us, they ended up helping us out building the set up and we hit it together... It was a pretty good day, the feature wasn't like we tough it was gonna be but we worked with it and Had lots of fun and got a couple good shots out of it.

 My board got shaved down from the sharp roof, but it was worth it, ill fix it up later on tonight! Just gonna take it easy tonight since we Have a big day of hiking in the backcountry tomorrow! 

January 19th

Today is a backcountry day, Danyale's dad is bringing us to Turnagain pass , were going to ride Tin Can mountain. We first went and got some backcountry gear from a little shop near Aleyeska, the drive to the pass was unreal, so beautifull. We saw some montain goats on the side of the highway, so cute... 

Alright so we got to te spot to start hiking from, beacon's on and it's time to start our hike. It was a 2200 feet hike and we were gonna be at about 5500 feet above sea level. Highest mountain I've ever been on that's for sure! We ended up not needing our snow shoes cause the skin track was hard enough so we didn't sink in. 

It was a beautifull hike, the mountains surrunding us the whole way up there, we stopped a bit for a snack to get some energy in since we did spent a lot hiking up. Jake had some smoked salmon that he caught himself and got smoked somewhere in indian pass i think... Wow  Best salmon I've ever ate, it was so delicious...

When we got to the top, well the top of where we ended up cause there was still a little bit before the top top...  We ended up building a little jump, pretty small but we had a  lot of fun on it. I thumbled a couple times, haha! I didn't know how hard it was to land switch in pow since today..  haha

Such a good experience. The ride down was really fun too, it was getting dark and cold so we just rode down and enjoyed our ride. All of our cameras were dead anyway... 

We got back to Danyale's place and her mom has cooked us a delicious dinner, we were all very hungry and tired from our day.

We were gonna have a chill night but then at the last minute we decided to go meet up with Danyale's friends that were hitting a Down flat down ledge . It was really cold out & the drop in for the feature was kind of sketchy, but the boys still killed it with some switch frontboard thru the kink and fifty 3's out... We were being pussy about the feature and then just before we were gonna leave, I decided that I couldn't leave without hitting this  so I got strapped in, speed checked a couple times then just hit it.

I tried it twice, I didn't really get any shots from it but I was just glad I did it. 

We then went to the boy's house, played pool & drank beer... Gonna sleep in tomorrow I believe!

Anchorage Alaska day 1 and 2!

January 16th

Leaving Vancouver airport, direction, Anchorage Alaska! After 4 hours of flying with one stop to Seattle, Here we are, in Alaska!
-23 degrees but tons of snow so that quickly made us forget about the cold..  Danyale and Jessi picked us up at the airport and we went to Danyale's parents place to get some rest.

January 17th 


It's 9 am, it seems to be 5am cause of how dark it is here. So we leave the house around 10 ish to go to our first spot, It's finally kind of bright out. We went to a double down ledge for our first spot, pretty small so it was a good warm up, We could of hit it front or backside so we had lots of options which was really fun! It was a pretty good session, all of us got some good shots and were happy with the session. So we went back home for some quick food and then back out in the cold to go check out some more spots! There was a rail to bank that was pretty sick & a rail to drop or to gap that was also one of our option... But I guess we were all tired from our day & also, there was a crazy lady with a tank that was going nuts & did'nt want us there and took our liscense plate so we had to leave...  We got back home stretch and got some rest for tommorrow!

Here I go again

So since my trip to Cabarete this fall.. the need of travelling have been haunting me real bad…  I'm not quiet sure what this place did to me but it definitely changed my way of seeing things. One day I want to be surfing in Hawaii, an other day I want to go explore the jungle in Costa Rica, and then again I want to go shred pow in Japan…. and more….

There is so much of the world to see and you never really know how awesome it is  until you've seen it… So why not go check it out… There is so many places I want to visit, my TO GO LIST is getting bigger and bigger everyday … The more I travel, the more I want to travel… It's just like drugs, or tattoos…  It's definitely a good addiction tho…

I bought a globe and since then I can't stop looking at it everyday and dreaming of traveling the world...

So first trip of 2012, I'm going where there is endless mountains, deep dry snow, a subartic climate, where there is some of the most beautiful northern lights  ever and where there's a diverse wildlife population.  I've always dream of Going  to this place, Most snowboarder and skier does since it's apparently one of the best snow you can ever ride, It also have the craziest backcountry lines ever…

Anchorage, Alaska

5 days to go and that's where we will be!

Profile is up on the Mount Seymour Page!

http://www.mountseymour.com/team/marie-andree-racine

Marie-Andrée Racine

Age: 22
Hometown: Hebertville, QC
Stance: 21 1/2 inch + 17,-15
Years Riding: 10
Sponsors: Roxy, Mt Seymour, Showcase snowboard shop, Spy

How did you get into snowboarding?

 In high school back home we had a snowboard program so we would go snowboarding 3 afternoons every week instead of being at school! The choice wasn't too hard between math classes and snowboarding...

What is your most memorable snowboarding experience?

Well, pretty much every deep pow day for me is my best day riding ever...  So I guess last christmas week when we got like 200cm in a week, riding pow everyday all day, that was a pretty memorable time!

Describe your riding style. How do you approach freestyle riding and different terrain and features? 

I would say that I'm an all around rider. I can ride pow, jump cliffs, ride rails in the park or street rails and I can jump too. I love the feeling of jumping. It's definitely my favorite terrain, but after my 2 knee surgeries I'm taking it easy a bit for this season or just being smarter about it I guess...

Any specific plans or goals for the season? Are you working on specific tricks? 

I want to be filming lots. It's gonna be my main goal for the season. I want to hit lots of street and backcountry jumps...Hopefully get 720's 4 ways and go upside down!

What’s your favourite trick of all time and why? 

Late back 360's.... they just feel so good on anything, either on little side hits then huge jumps.

What’s your favourite snowboard film and why? 

Ubber movie. Those guys are so creative. I can watch that movie over and over again!!! :)

Who do you look to for inspiration? 

Jess Kimura inspires me a lot. She's my good friend and she's always so stoked and keeps pushing girl snowboarding more and more!

Who do you like to ride with?
 
I always ride with a  different crew but I like riding with Jess Kimura, my friend Matt Belair, Ashley, Dead, Jo Robichaud and my Squamish homies Duke & Jordan.

When you’re not on the snow, where can we find you?

At home stretching for the next day! Haha! In the summer you'll find me at the Squamish skate park or traveling. I want to start surfing lots so I'll be traveling in my off snow season from now on. 

Any interest outside of snowboarding?

I'm obsessed with tattoos. I also like traveling, and pretty much any board sports (Skate, surf, wake boaard and wake skate).  

Last words?
 
One life! 

Website link: 

http://marieandreeracinesnow.blogspot.com

 

First trip of the season.... ANCHORAGE, ALASKA!

So in 10 days from now, me and Joanie Robichaud are going to Alaska for 9 days....
Here is a picture I found from the place were gonna be going to... 
Theres gonna be a lot more to see when we get back! ;)