It's always the way, innit ? Last day of snowboarding, and you think “Well I've had a good run this week – anything from here on is just bonus points…”. My plan for Friday was to do some warmup runs, then head up the top of the glacier, take the blue run down to the Alpincenter, then take the red run down to the middle station.
So far so good on the warmups, and then on the final blue run before getting on the cable car to the top I'm heel-edging down, and decide it's not too steep for a couple of turns. Pointing my board down hill and swinging my back foot around, the toe edge of my board slips out on an icy patch and I start to fall flat on my front. Due to the direction I was travelling however it wasn't just the normal “fall over” routine – somehow I had time to realise that I was falling and managed to tense up all my stomach muscles, which I then landed directly on with quite some force. The result of all this amazing physics was me sliding down a now steeper incline, winded, desperately trying to dig my toe edge in to stop the slide, and a fairly sharp abdominal pain which my overly paranoid mind's going “Oh god, not a hernia ?! What the hell do I do about getting that fixed ?!”.
Turned out to be just a little bit of a pulled muscle, but it was enough to curtail the rest of the day's boarding. Dagnammit.