Whistler World Cup #1

The first race is over, and let me tell you it was a stressful, very tough week and a half of sliding. Training wasn't going great but I was slowly getting the track down and going a little faster each day. I had more bumps and bruises than I had all together from even my first year of sliding. I'm not sure if I've ever hit the walls as hard as I did this week.

It came to race day and I was really ready, my sled was done runners shiny and my ipod playlist was ready. It was snowing like crazy and made warming up a little difficult, but it sure was beautiful. I pushed well and was excited with that, but my first run I drove too much (which I never do) and was just slower than I had wanted to be. The second run I wanted to drive a little less and well it messed me up. I ended up on my shoulder out of corner 6 and it was messy from then on. I hit more walls and was just even slower and fell back 4 spots.

Although I was very disappointed with the end result, I have to look back on the week of sliding and realized that I learned a lot in a short amount of time. I was just tired by the end and my body was really hurting.

Whistler is a beautiful area and it was nice to be back there after getting to watch the Olympics. Since we weren't home for Thanksgiving Justin and me decided to start a tradition of eating together. Although we didn't cook a turkey and we cook most nights when we stay somewhere with a kitchen we made steak in the broiler (yes learning a lot about cooking things too), my favorite rice and some spinach. It was a basic but great dinner and a really nice night.

There was a little black bear outside our room one morning. I pointed at it and just stared and stopped talking. (I'd upload a photo but I've exceeded my picasa limit and must figure this out, so next time) Although very cute I was glad I was inside and he was outside and there was a deck and about 5 feet from him to me!

We are in Calgary for this week, its not too cold but snowing some, training is tomorrow at 2. Race is Thursday at 9am mountain time!

USA 1

Team trials has finished and I am back in Lake Placid for training before heading out again. Just to catch everyone up I finished trials as USA 1. I won the first 3 races and finished 3rd in the last race. It was stressful but well worth it. I broke the start record in Park City, pushed a 4.94! Talk about crazy!

I am ready to get the world cup season started, I had a great summer of training. All of my lifts improved and my sprints were faster. Despite getting bit by a dog (just on the hand), I'd say it was near perfect! I did a lot of pushing on the treadmill this summer, you can put the treadmill on manual we have a wooden set up to hold on and push for as long as we'd like. I think that helped me a lot this summer. I spent a lot of time learning how to keeps my butt down and hips low while pushing, which has really shown.

When I got on my sled for the first day of sliding everything just felt right. I didn't change anything from the end of last season. I finally felt like my sled was mine at the end of last year and I didn't want to do my normal re-padding job during the summer. Glad I didn't!

Schedule for the first half:
Whistler Nov 17th - 27th
Race #1 Nov 25th
Calgary Nov 28th - Dec 3rd
Race #2 Dec 2nd
Park City Dec 5th - 10th
Race #3 Dec 9th
Lake Placid Dec 12th -19th
Race #4 FRIDAY Dec 17th!

I'm really excited for this season!