Another competition down and it’s back to the grind once again.  Although my main focus for the Winter Cup was just to compete and test the waters again, there was definitely a thought in the back of my mind of wanting to get myself back onto the national team.  Naturally I was disappointed when I realized that I did not, but at the same time, I felt that I made some huge strides after comparing this year’s Winter Cup to USAs last August.  For one, I felt much more comfortable competing.  On the flip side, I felt very out of tune at USAs, largely due to being out of competition for a year because of the surgery I had to repair my knee.  On the physical side, I felt I handled the two days of competition much better. The knee didn’t bother me nearly as much during meet, and I’m happy that it still feels pretty good even after the adrenaline has worn off.  That said, I guess I could say that I’m making some improvements both mentally and physically.

In all, Winter Cup was a good learning experience.  It was just another hurdle that I needed to cross over on my road to comeback.  I’m now back in the gym as usual.  There are some skills on the back-burner that I didn’t use at Winter Cup so I’ll be working on those, along with cleaning up the skills that I currently have.  Definitely looking forward to competing again in the summer.  But as they say, I’m making the most out of each practice and taking it one day at a time!