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February 11th, 2008
01:06 pm - New track
so I"m not allowed to say much, because of secrecy... (like it really matters though) but they don't want other countries to know about the track.
Anyway, I"m really nervous, because we're going from corner 3 today ( we only went from corner 6 yesterday). Also, yesterday, we went from corner 6 (of the 16 corners) and reached the same speed as from the top of calgary.
Here's hoping i make it safely today!
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February 7th, 2008
09:51 am - Olympic History
That's right - I"m part of Olympic History.
Tomorrow, the team does the super-fun drive out to Whistler, to be the first people in the world to ever slide on the new 2010 Olympic track! And to make matters even more fun, we're so budget, we're staying at the AMS lodge :)
Anyway, I'm nervous and excited. Nervous, because this is supposed to be the fastest track in teh world. When Pierre slid from corner 6, he reached speeds of 126km/h. And corners 2, 4 are supposed to be the big ones, where we get all our speed. Now to put that in perspective, in Calgary, from the top we reach speeds of 120km/h. And we suspect that when we go from the top in Whistler, we'll be sliding at 150km/h. Which is scary to say the least.
So yah, I'm part of Olympic History now - let's hope I live to tell how it went :)
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January 28th, 2008
09:10 am - Cold
It's cold.
The kind of cold where your limbs skip feeling cold and go straight to pain.
The kind of cold where your nose wants to run, but can't because the mucus freezes.
The kind of cold where icicles grow on your eyelashes.
The kind of cold where you can't breath when you step outside, so you cough and splutter for a few minutes to not die.
That's right, it's -48C today.
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December 15th, 2007
12:52 pm - Race 3
Alas, the end of our trip is nigh. We race first thing tomorrow morning, and we're driving out of Italy less than an hour after.
So I'll be back home in a few days :)
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December 9th, 2007
06:25 am - Alorrrrrrrra
Sliding this track is crazy! Most tracks are Left-Right-Left-Right, and the occasional trick or straightaway. This track is Left Left Right Left Left Right Right Right... it's really fast, and really crazy. It's also, by far the longest track I've ever been on. We've been having a great time pushing though, because its a really steep start, so we go really quickly.
Sabrina and I had what's called a push-off to decided who would get to push our fastest driver, Amanday. So each brakeman takes one run, and whoever pushes faster will do the race. Of course, Sabrina and I managed to do the most annoying thing you can do in a push off: tie! exactly the same, to the 100th of a second.
So at this point, we still don't know who's pushing whom.
What a fun trip though! I'm excited for the break while the guys race 2-man. We don't slide again until thursday.
In less exciting news, we were the only people in the Olympic Training Center (the hotel we're staying at) until yesterday. Another nation arrived to stay here. anybody want to guess who? The Russians!
I'm probably being pretty rude here, and I have nothing against the Russians personally, but i've never been around a group of people who smell so bad! Do they not have soap in the motherland? Seriously!
Plus, we eat buffet-style, and the Russians ate all our food. Their girls eat more than our guys. It's a little frightening.
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06:21 am - Wrong Turns
You know what's fun? we were trying to find a mall in what we later found out was Oulx, and took a wrong turn at a traffic circle in Cesana, and wound up in France :)
How many times in your life can you say you took a wrong turn and wound up in France?
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December 4th, 2007
10:17 am - Torino
It's hard to believe less than 2 years ago, the Olympics were right here! And now, here we are training!
It's going well; there's a push track, which means I get to focus on my push. The food is incredible! So much vegetable goodness.
Also, no internet here. Which means, I actually have to put winter gear on and walk to an internet cafe. Which means, that laziness will often prevail, and I probably won't be online more than once or twice more before I come back to Canada.
Anyway, we train for a week, then next week is race week. So I'm pretty excited.
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November 30th, 2007
01:01 am - Race 2
Woohoo! So two races down! After the 4-man race Sunday, we'll all head out to Cessana.
The race was great fun. I pushed with Amanda, and we were off the block in 14th place. Amanda made up 4 spots on the drive to finish in 10th. Suzanne had a dynamite push, but wound up in 15th place. I'm really proud of her. For her 3rd day on a brand new, and difficult track, she did so well!!!
One of the interesting things about competing here: The washrooms are labeled in German (of course) which are D and H for Dammen and Homme. So its pretty simple to get in the correct washroom, but in a moment of adrenaline-induced confusion, it could be easy to walk into the wrong one. So I was in the changeroom changing into the race gear and this person walks in; shaved-head, sqare jaw, squarer shoulders, no boobs, raspy voice, German gear on. I could've sworn she was a dude, and had to do a double take to make sure I was in the correct washroom... oops!
So after race day, is the really fun part. Because we all get Jacked on red bull and all other manners of caffeine and push like stink. Then, after, we refuse to do any work. and get drunk and play poker. then when we all get cleaned out by the more sober members of the team, we go to bar and drink with the Brits, Swiss, and Dutch (and the Romanians were there too, and probably lots more, but it was really croweded and smokey). For some reason, when I was hanging out with the Dutch, beers just kept appearing in my hand. It was like they multiplied... maybe they're trying to sabbotage all the other countries
Anyway, we're heading in to town today since we have some time off while the guys work hard... woohooo
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November 26th, 2007
01:18 pm - Gesturtzt
"Der Bob is Gesturtzt" I think that's how to spell it anyway... "The Bob is Crashed". Too bad I can't hear my own announcement.... Anyway, I have a wicked headache now, but am otherwise unhurt. I was a little dizzy at the bottom of the track (where we stopped), so the coaches have put me on concussion watch, but I'm otherwise OK. Not my first crash though, but my first crash on my right side...
Fun times.
In other news, we all went to the track earlier today to learn it, and wound up having a massive snowball fight! It started against the Croations (they started it), then, the brakemen ambushed the pilots. It dumped about 3ft of snow today. Beautiful snowflakes the size of small coins! IT's really a winter wonderland here!
So it's movie night for me now! I'm not allowed to help with the sledwork, or runners... shame.
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November 25th, 2007
01:38 pm - Race 1
Well, my first Europa cup race is over, and I'd say it was an incredible success!
Our first push was the 6th fastest out of the women's field, and our downtime put us in 20th position. Meaning that we were the last sled to get the 2nd run. Then, on our 2nd run, Suzanne kicked some serious butt and brought us down in 13th place, bringing our overall finish to 19th! I'm really excited. But also because the push was so amazing. It was a huge PB!
So, in summary Igls was great fun! Suzanne and I had a near-issue with the weight, so I've been dieting pretty seriously. I've lost 4kg in a week. And my stomach is acclimatizing to the smaller portions. We pushed like MoFo's, and I'm delighted with our performance.
Now comes a new venue, a new track, and a new set of challenges! Let's hope Konigsee is as fun to push on as Igls was! And that we can steal out to Salzburg and visit the Christmas market!
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