OrangeTomato

Winterberg, Germany, World Cup 3

2012-02-01T09:47:00.003-07:00

After a relatively solid race in La Plagne, it was time for one of my least favorite tracks: Winterberg, Germany.

Winterberg itself is a cute little town, and since it was the holiday season there was a (tiny) Christmas market to visit. Doesn't this crepe (with Nutella, totally healthy) look amazing?

But the track. Oh, the track. It's one of those tracks where the slightest mistake will completely kill your time - there's no coming back! It's relatively slow - maximum speeds are much lower than elsewhere - and half the curves are uphill so any loss of momentum can't be gained back.

After a 19th place finish last year, I was ready to redeem myself. I wanted to have a positive relationship with the track, let bygones be bygones.

The weather, however, had something else to say. As I've said before, Winterberg (meaning really is Winter-berg, or town) has many nicknames: Wasserberg (Waterberg), Regenberg (Rainyberg), and my new favorite, Sommerberg (Summerberg).

The first day or two lulled us with a false sense of security. "It's sunny!" "The weather is amazing!" "I took a photo of the blue sky!"

We even wore sunglasses!

Ok, goofed off with sunglasses.

And training the first few days also went well. I was still slow, but figuring things out and getting faster, bit by bit. From a training run:

Then this rolled in.

When race day arrived, it was snowing so hard that they canceled our first run, before we even took it. There was lots of sitting around, and then...the race jury decided we would have a one-heat race.

My run felt amazing, a few minor issues but overall: solid. But it was one of those runs where you feel fast, but aren't. Gah! I can't tell you how many times I've had a super smooth run and then been shocked by a terrible speed, or how many times I've had a crazy train wreck of a run only to have it be fast. It all comes down to a couple issues:

My head was too high in Igls...and like any good athlete I overcorrected. Too low, bumping on the ice and slowing myself down.
Overdriving. My Winterberg run was good, but too much driving = too much cutting the runner into the ice = losing speed.
Oh yeah, well, and sliding through a couple patches of snow, breaking trail where others hadn't been...that isn't fast either and didn't help.
Oops.

I finished in 17th place, and was pretty disappointed to say the least.

At first. Then, upon further reflection, found a couple glimmers of happiness. I realized that:

even if only by two places it was still better than my finish last season,
I'd slid a lot better, and
it was time to go home!

Three bits of happiness, so I did my best to put it behind me and move on. Time to go home, put first half of the season behind me, celebrate the holidays with Brad and get ready for second half!

PS - speaking of Brad, I bought this for him since he love Baileys...it was going to go in his stocking.

But checking in...my bag was overweight, and the lady at the counter was NOT helpful. I'd already put as much heavy stuff in my other bags / carry on as possible, and the only small heavy thing was...Brad's Euro Baileys.

I had a sample, for Brad of course...then sadly threw it away. Sorry babe!

Back in the Saddle...

2012-01-30T10:38:00.001-07:00

It only took about 4 days of down time (we spent 4 days in Lake Placid while our sleds were shipped from Europe to Canada) to get my head back on straight. Seriously, it's amazing how draining it is on tour!

Wake up...breakfast...sled prep...go to track...trackwalk perhaps...warm up...slide...back to hotel...lunch...lay gear out to dry / sort & prepare for next day...repair anything (i.e. torn pieces of shoes from dragging them)...sled work...work out...recovery...dinner (often a 1.5 - 2 hour affair due to European customs)...video review...pack gear back up...Skype Brad hopefully...go to bed.

Do that, or some variation if we slide in the afternoon, for 3-4 days of training.

We rotate whether the men or women race the day after the last day of training, or whether women do. So it's either an off day (while the men race) to leisurely race-prep the sled (a 3-4 hour process) before racing the next day, or a mad rush to get it all done the same day training finishes.

Then, it's pack up, load up, move out. Drive to the next destination, already putting the track and its design, curves, steers, character, speed, subtleties out of your mind and focusing all energies on the next track.

Anyway, it's quite exhausting! I find myself at the end of the day wanting to read, to write in my journal, to put up a blog post, but my brain is quite often unable to find focus for anything.

But during my 4 recovery days in Lake Placid, I slept heaps, relaxed a bit, and feel a bit more rested. I also managed to use the greatly improved Internet access (compared to Europe) to upload some videos and photos for you. Coming shortly! :) If you want a preview, my YouTube channel is KGabryszak.

Now we are in Whistler, BC Canada, training for the World Cup race this week. Exciting track, beautiful location, and I'm stoked to be here!

La Plagne, France! World Cup #2

2012-01-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

(I've given up trying to get video put together for the second and third World Cups, but will try to get them up later! So, with some delay, here is the post for World Cup 2, December 9th and 10th.)

After Igls, I was DEFINITELY excited to move on to a new track.

Not just the next race, or a new track this season, but a new track completely! The last time La Plagne was on the World Cup tour was possibly a decade ago...meaning that a large portion of the World Cup sliders hadn't been there before. Exciting!

The drive was even exciting! We started off in our VW caravan.

New scenery, since we'd never driven this way...

Stopped at the Geneva airport to pick up Katie Uhlaender (she'd skipped the first race in order to compete in weightlifting, to try to qualify for Olympic Trials in that sport - which she did).

We also passed by Chamonix, famous ski area.

After Geneva, we accidentally split up. Our GPS told us to veer left, while the boys' GPS told them to veer right. Oops! So Annie and I were on our own for the next 2 hours, and it was so pretty! We drove through Annecy, (put in a bid for the Olympics recently) by the lake:

Annecy is a place I'd like to visit now!

Then we saw the mountains, and got a little nervous about all the switchbacks facing us.

After a search for gas (4 stations, 40 minutes, 1 that worked), and the fall of night, we made our way up the mountain.

21 sharp switchbacks later, we found the track, built into a gully deep in the mountains:

A few more switchbacks and we found our hotel and reunited with the team. Phew!
(PS - the garage was a little tight, but the European drivers had no trouble.)

It was beautiful in La Plagne - something we didn't know until a few days later when the clouds finally lifted!

The track was super fun too, more technical and very long. For example, in Park City a fast time for women is 50-51 seconds; in La Plagne it was 1:03 or so, more than 10 seconds longer!

The start was one of the longest that I've ever seen. In Park City I'll take 14-16 steps but in La Plagne I took 20 steps; in Park City the push record is something like 4.94 seconds but in La Plagne it's now 5.35 seconds (Annie broke it in the race!).

This was from a training run:

A few days in, I realized that my balance point had shifted, so I needed to put more weight in the front of my sled. With the coaches gone to the track already, and the weights locked away, I had to improvise.

Hmm. What do I have around that I can use?

After some finagling to fit them in....yeah, that should work.

Hmm. That might be a bit rattly.....ah! Solved. Not quite duct tape, but...I had a pseudo weight plate!

It worked, and that day I was over a second faster per run in training! Phew.

World Cup Race, Saturday 12/10/2011
The day of the race came around, and I was feeling pretty good. My pushes the day before the race were in the 5.70s, and usually I push 0.15-0.20 seconds faster race day.

But then, for some reason when I heard the coaches shouting for me to push, I got off rhythm and loaded off the wrong leg, tweaking my hamstring and pushing slower than I'd hoped. Gah!

Still, the run was overall the best of the week, though I messed up curve 16, dragging a toe the whole way through and bleeding time. Still, I was in 15th place, better than the last race!
INSERT RUN 1 HERE

Getting ready for my second run, I realized my hamstring was super sore and it made me nervous. The PT was awesome and he did what he could; I managed to push a bare 1 hundredth faster which was a triumph since I expected to be slower!

The run was worse at the top - flopped off curve 3 and missed the second steer in curve 6, but at least 16 was better! Bottom of the track was "a dream." I dropped one spot to 16th, which was disappointing, but also great since it was better than Igls! Baby steps.
INSERT RUN 2 HERE

My teammates excelled though - Annie finished in second - her first World Cup medal! - and Katie finished in 3rd. Woohoo! 2 medals!

(I'd post the photos from the award ceremony, but.....my phone died and though we tried everything, the only way to fix it was to restore the phone with a backup from 2 days prior. Yes, I lost everything from the race!)

Odds and Ends
The best part of France was the food. Wine with every dinner (not that the athletes could really imbibe, but a nice touch nonetheless), cheese, amazing bread, desserts to die for. Ok, so really the meals weren't so great, but the starters and finishers, mmmmmmmmmm.

Oh, and on an outing to the grocery store, I found a bit of home away from home, an old sports shop:

Then it was off again - World Cup #3 awaited us in Winterberg, Germany.

World Cup - 1st half recap

2012-01-09T09:47:00.006-07:00

Happy New Year!

With racing stress, busy training schedules, work, travel, and unreliable (read: horrible) Internet access in Europe, my blog has been neglected. I have blog posts drafted for La Plagne, France and Winterberg, Germany, however haven't been able to upload photos and videos for them!

Those posts will come, soon hopefully!

But now that I'm back in Europe (and have Internet again after a web-diet for the last week in Altenberg, Germany, a town so far east it's practically in the Czech Republic), I figured an update was due. Even if only a text update.

Igls, Austria, December 2-3, 2011 - I got a post up about it. In short, a dismal race. 20th place.

La Plagne, France, December 4-10, 2011 - pretty sweet. Still not an amazing finish, but I was excited to learn a new track. I'll write about it later in a separate post, but in short it was a great track, beautiful location, fun racing, and I ended up in 16th place.

Winterberg, Germany, December 11-18, 2011 - by this point, I was pretty frustrated to say the least. The weather also didn't cooperate, and we ended up with a one-heat race. I came in 17th...which is still better than my 19th there last year. I tried to stay positive - not easy, but at least I tried!

Then it was home for the holidays, woohoo!!! It was AMAZING to spend time with Brad, have a normal schedule, recover, decompress, put the first half behind me, and just relax.

I also slid at the Utah Olympic Park a few times, which was pretty funny since I had to be pushed off the start with a broom to let my hamstring heal (see La Plagne post later for the story). While home, I figured some things out with my new sled....

.....and.....

.....and things are going pretty well on second half! An Altenberg race post will come later as well, but I had my best finish of the season there this weekend, and sliding is finally feeling comfortable! I'm starting to trust the sled, relax, and have confidence. Which feels amazing after the struggles of first half.

Now we are in Königssee, Germany, the track that's special to Brad and I - from our first trip sliding Europe together, to World Championships and getting engaged here, to Brad's 3rd place Europa Cup finish in December. So wish me - and the whole US team - luck for the races this coming Friday and Saturday! (January 13 & 14, 2012).

Check my Facebook for links to watch the races live (should you have the crazy need to be up in the middle of the night) or to watch a replay afterward (when you wake up).

Cheers all, and thanks for the support and encouragement!

Moonshadows in Moab

2011-12-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

(Wow - just found this draft from last year! 2010, slightly less busy schedule and definitely got more biking in, heh!)

________________________________________________________

Saturday June 26th, three friends and I drove down to Moab, to do this crazy road ride. It went from just off the main road into town, up to Dead Horse Point and back.

If you've never driven up to Dead Horse, you really should. It's phenomenal, the views are stunning, so totally worth the drive.

If you have been there, and have been to Moab in the summertime heat, then the following will mean a lot to you:

The ride was low enough that we had to ride UP that first scary steep switchback
It was June
We were going around sunset

The ride was a total of about 44 miles, out and back, and we wanted to stay long enough to watch sunset over the desert, and then the moon rise a half hour later. We'd brought bike lights so we could ride back down. It was my first time night riding....and was phenomenal! Well worth the miserable beginning in the miserable heat.

I won't bore you with the ride details, except to say that I made it up the steep climb without stopping, and got my heart rate up to 198 at one point. And didn't die. And that it was one of the most fun road rides I've ever done. Great ladies, great scenery, great organization, great sunset, great ride.

But here are some pics! And, for those of you that have never been, they are pics that are dark enough to not spoil TOO much the great surprise that is the view when you go for the first time. Hint hint.

Moonrise:

The next morning, the four of us did a recovery ride, and passed this burn site. The black and green contrast drew my attention.

PS - all of the night shots were taken with.....my old iPhone 3G. The 2 year old crappier version - I'm so proud!

Igls World Cup & Team Race

2011-12-13T12:41:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in the last post, I didn't take a lot of photos at the Igls track since you've seen it so many times. :)

It was the first World Cup though, and I was excited to be back on a track I knew.

But it didn't turn out as I'd hoped. All week I struggled, overdriving the track and unable to find the speed and rhythm necessary to place well. Igls is one of those tracks that I don't usually gel with: easy to get down but difficult to get down quickly! A single mistake near the top of the track followed by a perfect run will still be slow.

WOMEN'S WORLD CUP RACE - Friday 12/2/2011
By the time race day came around, however, I felt as prepared as possible. I put aside my doubts (in my head I watched them slide away from me on a skeleton sled actually!) and went out 100%.

My first run, the top was almost perfect, except for a push time that was identical to last year's PB (personal best - I was hoping to be faster), then I missed the timing in curve 11 and nearly flipped out of curve 12, and flew about crazily. Oops! Still, the down time was somehow enough to be in 18th place!

Phew. Second run, time to redeem myself.

Nope - the run was better, but it was slow. What does that mean? It means that I steered too hard, didn't let the sled run, didn't allow it to find it's speed. I dropped two places to 20th, but learned a lot. Oh, and I took two more steps on the push trying to be faster and instead was 0.12 slower. Oops again!

TEAM RACE, Saturday 12/3/2011
But the next day, in the team race, I pushed faster and slid better (still messy, but...better). Usually I feel a lot of pressure in the team race - I have a men's bobsled team, a male skeleton athlete, and a women's bobsled team racing with me, and my mistakes cost the team as a whole.

Thankfully, my run was solid. Not as fast as the top women, but better than my own race runs! Pushed a new PB (woot, finally!), and while I still lost time on the other team, managed to at least hold our team's position rather than drop us in the ranks of the race.

We had a great team too - lots of fun! For some reason, we thought it would be funny if one of us pretended to start a chainsaw and mow everyone down, and for some reason, I ended up being the one to do it. We died laughing, but it looks horrible! And without the chainsaw-starting-motion, it just looks and sounds like a machine gun. Still, funny!

Hahahahah...in ten years someone will blackmail us with this!

POST RACE ENTERTAINMENT
Remember year before last, the Krampus post from Königssee? Well, this year we had to leave for France the day before the Igls version, but the Krampus were still out in force for practice. We had a hilarious time!

Some of the bobsledders enjoyed the challenge...watch them plan where to run through the crown of Krampus:

But the Krampus were more than up for it...(pay attention to 0:31 in and watch the Krampus - admire his agility!)

By the way, those bells rang every 15 minutes with just a few chimes, and every hour for several minutes, like you hear behind the scenes here. Awesome - we always knew what time it was!

And I ended up getting caught in the middle with the conflict....my price for this blurry picture:

Was this:

Which, by the way, are still visible over a week later. Ouch, those whips aren't fake!

But it was a great time, and a very unique custom, and a good way to end a disappointing week of racing on a positive fun note.

Then it was off to France!

Thanksgiving / Europa Cup

2011-12-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

The first World Cup of the 2011-2012 season was in Igls, Austria. Admittedly, I didn't take a lot of photos there because I've posted about it a few times now, have a lot of photos, and you've seen the whole place by now!

But the preparation....and Thanksgiving...

Brad left first, for the Europa Cup tour. His first race was the week of Thanksgiving, and I didn't leave for Europe until just after Thanksgiving. Packing, Jean Luc really REALLY didn't want us to go. He tried to get us to pack him.

Then he tried to stall us by laying on Brad's clothes.

When that failed, he and I took Brad to the airport, sad! But we could watch his progress online. :)

And once he got there, use Facetime on our iPhones to talk, almost as good as in person!

(Ok, not nearly as good, but better than just voices.)

And so Thanksgiving came and went. Brad had some version of turkey in Germany, (Königssee, our favorite place) at his hotel, and I was one my own for dinner in the USA.

With him gone, my family in Alaska, and his family in Germany visiting friends, I went to two Thanksgiving dinners with friends! First time in the USA for the holiday in years....

So I cooked a lot...which I love...and while I remembered to take photos of the process, I forgot to take photos of the finished products! Oops.

Cornbread with real corn:

A little pan of candied yams - make that a little yams with my candied, oops:

And of course green bean casserole. With almonds:

Two dishes of each, one for each dinner. So fun!

One of the dinners involved deep fried turkey - my first experience with it.

Very cool.

Even cooler was the redneck wine glass my friend had.

After Thanksgiving I cleaned the house from my cooking mess, packed up, dropped Jean Luc off at doggy daycare - he didn't even notice when I left, and made my own guilt free way to Europe.

While I was checking in at the airport, I got a text message from Königssee. A single word: "Third." Brad's first medal, and on a German track to boot. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

I was so excited that I wanted to scream and shout and jump up and down....but seeing as I was at the airport, I didn't want to get tackled by security. Instead I cheered under my breath, did a few fist pumps, and continued through security. :)

Here he is in Königssee after the award ceremony. So awesome! Our favorite place and even better now!

The awesome part of my own trip was Munich. After we landed, I left my luggage with the team and hopped a train from the airport to the city, and spent the day with Brad! And got to see his parents, since they were traveling in Germany and had met up with him too (as shown in the above picture).

All too soon it was time to take another train to Innsbruck, Austria.

Waved and kissed goodbye to Brad through the window and it was off to the first world cup of the season in Igls, Austria!

USANA video - in 中文 (Chinese - Mandarin)

2011-11-28T10:28:00.001-07:00

你们好 - 我的中文有点差。。。对不起！但是, 希望你们还会喜欢!

Heheheheheheh...I'm a little (lot) rusty but that was fun!

Thanksgiving - turning it up to 11!

2011-11-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

In honor of the holiday, here are 11 things I'm thankful for. (Why 11? It's our favorite number and has brought us a lot of love, happiness, and luck. Let's turn it up to 11!)

11. The opportunity to grow up in rural Alaska, one of the most beautiful and unique places in the world, and have experiences there that shaped my whole life.

10. The chance to now live in another of the prettiest places (Park City, Utah), with so many opportunities for community and outdoor activities to boot!

9. A home of my own with my family.

8. The opportunities available to us here - education, choice, freedom - and a mind to take those opportunities.

7. My health and the things I can do with a healthy body.

(And to be a girl - I can enjoy pink and frills AND be tough at the same time!)

6. The opportunity to represent the USA on the international stage, challenge myself to be the best I can be, and to compete against the world's best athletes!

And along with that, to make friends from all over and travel the world to do so!

5. Friends that do things like throw surprise birthday parties, cheer at races, and make me feel loved!

4. Kind of the same as #5, but....an amazing group of girlfriends that give me all the support I could ask for and more.

3. The best four-legged furry son in the world!

(Who is also a 60 lb lapdog.)

2. A loving family, and that we were able to (almost all - missing Katrina and her family) be together in one place this summer.

Parents included:

The 6 superkids, L to R: Adam (20), Matthew (17), Jeanette (26), Joe (28), Kimber (31), Danielle (bride, 22)

1. The best partner / fiance / 'husband' in the universe: Brad Stewart! Over 7 years since the fateful September day we met, and it's been the best trip to get from there to here! And better every day...

USANA video / Get to know Kimber

2011-11-23T10:49:00.002-07:00

(I know some of you saw this on Facebook, but I'm posting it here in case you didn't, and to give some background to it.)

Here's a quick intro video from USANA - I visited their facility last week and answered a few questions about sliding and supplements and whatnot. (I also did a shorter bit in 國語 for their Chinese, Singaporean, and Taiwanese counterparts that I'll link to - for the handful of you that 說中文!)

Long story short, USANA Health Sciences is supplying us with supplements (vitamins, probiotics, sleep-aids for those time zone transitions, shakes, and more), and Brad and I've been taking them for about 2 months now.

Until then, I hadn't taken a vitamin in over 3 years, due to being on the US Anti-Doping Agency random test list, and the high number of supplements that are contaminated with banned substances (i.e. steriods or other prohibited things that get into the vitamin by accident). Since USANA offers a guarantee, and since I took a tour to see how well they keep things clean and the high standards of production, I felt safe to try them.

And though I was skeptical at first - I mean, 3 years without vitamins and I was fine, wasn't I? - I quickly realized I hadn't been fine, and need them and love them!

So, remember my disgusting bout with whooping cough? Cracking ribs from coughing (more than once)? Bronchitis 4x in one year? How "Kimber's going to Europe" = "What's she going to get sick with this time?"

Well, I've been surrounded by people getting sick (colds, flu, sinus infections, etc.) in the last 6 weeks and haven't even had a sniffle. Plus fewer muscle cramps, faster workout recovery, better rest, and more....because of that, now I freak out when we're about to run out!

Here's to a greatly improved season, I can feel it!

PS - And those of you that know me well will know this isn't a paid advertisement - heheheh, NO ONE could pay me to say something good about something I don't believe in!

PPS - I've also lost 15 lbs this summer and am the lightest I've been in YEARS; a lot of that is due to just eating less and training harder this summer, but I can't help but think part of it is not craving foods to get missing vitamins, since I just don't get as hungry. No, USANA doesn't and wouldn't make this claim at all, but it's just my opinion that it's possible! Cheers!

WEBSITE IS UP!

2011-11-21T09:40:00.001-07:00

Very cool - my new website is finally up, after months of work! (Ok, so it took that long because I'm a noob at HTML and Brad taught me just enough to be dangerous...and I am!) Woo hoo!

www.TeamKimber.com

I'll obviously keep blogging here, but this blog will be embedded in the new website as well. Check it out and let me know what you think - and if you see any typos....or have suggestions. :)

Thanks!

PS - Brad left for Königssee, Germany on Sunday (November 20th) and I leave for the World Cup this coming Saturday (November 26th). Will be posting more then!

New Sled Thanks

2011-11-17T10:17:00.002-07:00

Many thanks - more than I can ever articulate - go out to:

Vic and Denise Method
&
Don Becker
&
USANA Health Sciences

The story:
As mentioned in my recent Team Trials post, Brad and I both got new sleds this summer. It was long overdue - our old sleds were decent and solid, but no longer cutting edge enough for the competition we faced. My old sled got me to the World Cup and through part of the first season there, and I still have a soft spot for it, but it's time to pass it on.

Our new sleds are made by Willi Schneider, the skeleton driving coach, from Germany. He's an amazing coach and changed my sliding dramatically last season, and builds a fantastic sled.

You know that saying, you get what you pay for?

Well, these type of sleds aren't cheap. I won't put a specific price out there, but let's just say that between the two of us we basically bought the equivalent of a brand new car this summer. And had to pay for it in its entirety.

We'd been saving all summer....and then I happened to meet a fantastic man named Vic Method this summer, at a fundraiser for the Women's Ski Jumpers. He's one of the most passionate Olympic winter sports supporters that I've met (second only to Russ Collison, USA Skeleton #1 fan), and helped the WSJ get organized and funded. We started chatting and talking about skeleton....chatting led to coffee, and within five minutes he was going 100 miles an hour with ideas.

Well, long story short, some of those ideas came through. I'd managed to save a large portion of the sled expenses but wasn't quite there, and Vic, along with his wife Denise, helped put the rest together! Amazing.

Donations from Vic and Denise and Don Becker pushed my savings through! Our sleds arrived in Lake Placid, and while we are still learning to drive them, they are a great improvement over the old and are going to be fast!

At the same time, Vic introduced me to Dan Macuga of USANA, and from there an amazing relationship blossomed. I'm happy to say that I'm now a member of Team USANA, and loving it! (Why? We can finally can take vitamins and other supplements without fear of an accidental positive drug test from contaminated supplements - USANA has a guarantee, and extremely high level of quality control, unlike some others...as a bonus their stuff is very tasty...check them out!)

The beginning...again...

2011-11-14T10:17:00.001-07:00

US Team Trials, 2011-2012 season
October 12-30, 2011
Lake Placid, NY

It was after a long summer of training, on a new training schedule that was more intense than last year:

Get up at 5:30
Work out in Salt Lake (or the local gym or a local track) from 6:30-8am
Drive to work
Work from 9am-5pm (or 6, or 7, or 8, or 9pm, if there were work meetings)
Go the the gym or a local track, and work out again
Go home
Go to sleep

With that schedule, all we did was train and work, and by the time October rolled around, we were ready to be on the ice and done with training!!! Sorry to all our friends that we didn't see at all!

We flew out to Burlington Vermont, and arrived on a nice day which made for a nice trip - it was snowing in Park City when we left so yeah, it was a little strange, but hey, we'd take it!

As the sun set, we took the ferry across to Plattsburgh, an hour's drive from Lake Placid.

We were to be in Lake Placid for three weeks...

WEEK 1
The first day, we talked with the US coach, Tuffy, about our sleds and the shipment coming in from Germany. Brad and I were both getting new sleds, and the USBSF had also ordered two, and they were arriving together. Due to customs and shipping, the sleds hadn't yet arrived...

...but thankfully the weather was too warm, and sliding was canceled the first two days anyway!

We did get some trackwalks in, and it was nice to be back on the ice!

Finally, on Wednesday the sleds arrived! It was like Christmas as we pulled the crate apart.

The new sleds are sweet. They are the thinnest in the world, and super fast, and I'll post about how we got them in a later post. (Many thanks to several people that deserve their own post!) Here's a comparison with my old sled.

Side by side:

Thinness of the old sled:

Thinness of the new sled:

Thinness comparison:

They are also really really hard to drive! We've both tried a lot of different sleds over the last couple years, and the differences between them were like going from one make of car to another. "Hmm, this one has a stiffer suspension; this one has looser steering" and etc. I was able to jump on a borrowed sled at Nationals in March and finish 3rd after only a couple days, but....

...but these sleds are like going from a car to a helicopter! Literally, it's that different. In fact, we are often steering up where other people are steering down, or vice versa, or doing things where other sleds do nothing, or doing nothing where other sleds have to do things. It's crazy!

Not only that but:

Days 1-2-3, sliding canceled (4 of the first 5 days canceled) so we missed a lot of training
Day 4, day 1 on the sled: I couldn't fit in the saddle. Spent 3 hours that night having it cut apart and rewelded by a genius named Cheech.
Day 5 of sliding, canceled
Day 6, day 2 on the sled: fit in the saddle, but I was so out of control that I wanted to get off partyway down! My first time feeling that...terrifying.
Day 7, no sliding, but plenty of recovery (ice tub)

They were in Daly's space...

WEEK 2
While unloading the sleds, I had stubbed my toe, and ripped the end off. After the second day of sliding, from how painful it was to push and tap my toes to steer, the Dr. cut the rest of it back along the tear to aid in healing. To save the squeamish from the following graphic photos, I'll just post links to the images instead of embedding them:

So I had to borrow larger skeleton spikes in order to fit over my huge toe. This didn't make it any more difficult, I'm sure.

We also took an evening and drove to Plattburgh, where Brad's brother Wes had a layover. (He's a pilot, and was on a US Airways flight that night.) It was perfect timing and super since I hadn't seen him in over a year!

Day 3 on the sled: started to get the feeling, but struggled with the different steering.
Day 4 on the sled: same as above.
Day 5 on the sled: RACE 1!!!
Day 6 on the sled: RACE 2!!!

As a result, the first couple races weren't the best, and Brad and I both struggled. To add insult to injury, I'd had a nerve block done in my low back just before going to Placid, and by the time I got there realized it wasn't even the right area! So, I spent hours in Sports Medicine being treated to fix the right problem, which meant my pushes weren't as fast as I wanted. Gah!

WEEK 3
Here we spent more time trying to figure things out. We only had 3 more days on ice before the final 2 races, and I was tied with Rachelle for the 3rd spot on World Cup!

The last day of training, I was still TWO SECONDS off the pace of the top girls, and was devastated. I was so upset that (thanks Katie for letting me use it!) I got off my sled and took one of the USA prototype sleds down instead, basically giving up on the new sled. In the meantime, Brad took a piece from my sled and put it in his to see if it made a difference on his sled.

The run on the prototype sled felt amazing, smooth and fast, BUT WAS THE SAME FINISH TIME! And the swapped piece helped Brad have a better run.

Ok, so that meant back to the drawing board. What did we learn there?

The new sled appeared to be just as fast as the prototype sled.
Being that far off the pace for both sleds when I was fast on the second sled last season, it appeared to be the runners that were slow.
The changed part in Brad's sled helped him.

So we decided to take some risks, without any time to test them:

Swapped out runners for a pair that I hadn't been on since March
Swapped out runners for Brad that he'd never been on, ever
Swapped out the piece from my sled to Brad's
Put a different piece in my sled

(BTW, yes, this was stressful and I was a mess, and ended up talking to the USOC sports psychologist to get through it, and he helped A LOT!)

RACE 3 dawned:

First run, still awful! I was in 4th place, but needed a 3rd place. Gah!
But I realized something about how the sled felt on the way down, and made a single adjustment on my sled. Just one.
Brad made the same adjustment.
Run 2, the adjustment worked and I was more than 7 tenths of a second faster!
It wasn't enough to take 3rd place, but was enough to feel more confident going into the final race.

RACE 4:

The whole season came down to this race. I was sitting in 4th place, but if I finished in third place, could overtake the position.
Not only that, but I couldn't just take third - I had to finish ahead of Rachelle by several tenths of a second, otherwise we would be tied in points.
A tie is broken by the fastest single run.
The first run, we tied to the hundredth of a second!

And so it continued...

The whole season was now down to a single run!
Everyone around was stressing for us, but we were totally calm. The calmest two people at the track.
Rachelle took her second run first, but I had my music turned up so as not to hear her time or any commentary, so had no idea how she had done.
I get to the line, breathe, and power off. (I was one of the few people to push faster on the second run than the first run, showing how hard I went at it.)
The run wasn't perfect, but as I came across the finish line the number "1" was shining next to my name, meaning I'd come out ahead.
I burst into tears.
And laughed!

Brad
Brad followed the same arc as I did: rough first two races; better 3rd race; best 4th race. Unfortunately, the first two races cost him a bit more so even though he finished Trials well, he missed the Intercontinental Cup tour by one place. (Meaning if he'd finished 7th instead of 8th in that second race, or 6th instead of 7th in the third race, his total points would have been high enough and he would have made it.) Ouch! So he will race the first part of the season on the Europa Cup tour, starting in our favorite place: Königssee, Germany.

Going forward
So there you have it, the stressful 3 weeks leading up to the announcement of the 2011-2012 National Team. When I say by the skin of my teeth, I mean it!

Now we are packing and prepping for the season - Brad leaves for the first Europa Cup race in Königssee next Sunday (November 20) and I leave the following Saturday (November 26th) for the first World Cup in Igls, Austria.

Kung Pao Chicken Recipe v1

2011-07-25T11:06:00.000-06:00

Heh, I faked you out. Never fear, I'll give you a real recipe for Kung Pao later on, but this post is about a tragedy. Tragedy!

I really did make Kung Pao chicken, and it was amazing. In fact, doesn't it look tasty?

Oh, wait, I didn't get a picture of the meal BEFORE it hit the floor. My bad.

I was somewhat sad.

But Jean Luc was happy.

Really happy.

And Brad was happy that he didn't have as much of a mess to vacuum. Look at that furry carpet cleaner go!

I guess that was the silver lining - only 1 out of the 3 of us was sad. Not too bad!

A new addition to the family!

2011-07-19T10:44:00.002-06:00

Hahah, yeah, right.

I know what you were thinking. Patience young one(s), that announcement will come in several / a few / many years from now.

But the other day we went shopping at Costco. A huge pile of stuffed animals sat on the end of one aisle, and suddenly one giant teddy bear sat up by itself! It only took a moment to realize that someone on the other side of the stack was trying to get one down, but it still looked amazingly realistic.

And I was intrigued. So I walked over and pulled one down myself.

One hug was all it took.

Why, you ask? Well, about 2 1/2 decades ago, I had a bear similarly sized.

Well, to tell the truth, it was MUCH smaller than this bear, but it just happened to be the exact same size as me at the time, and I dragged it all over the place. So a weak moment of nostalgia for an ancient "my-size" bear caused the new and somewhat gianter "my-current-size" bear to land in the cart.

For $29.99. Can't argue with that.

Jean Luc tried to eat it at first. Maybe he felt threatened by the way Brad is hugging it?

But then he decided to make peace.

I played a joke on Brad with it...when he came to get in bed there was no room for him. Bwah hah hah!

But it quickly moved into the guest room.

As for its future? I think I'm going to seatbelt it into the passenger seat of my car and see how many people comment on it.

Should be an interesting social experiment, no? Or it'll just live in the guest room and startle guests. That would also be fun.

How could I not buy a life-sized bear? Maybe I just miss the real deal from Alaska.

Equinox / Solstice Eggs

2011-07-15T09:36:00.001-06:00

Just for fun, Brad showed me something that I've somehow missed in my life: equinox eggs.

(By the way, if you don't like myths being busted please stop reading here.)

I'd never tried it , so we gave it a go. It's a myth that you can only do it on the equinox and / or summer solstice, but it was still pretty fun to try to stand the eggs on end.

The first one was a feat, and I was so proud!

Then it got a little buddy.

The third was also easy, though it tended to list to the side a little.

But the fourth one was the hardest of all since I placed it in the middle of the other three.

No, wait. The 5th was the hardest - since it never took and then tipped over. The result was a slow-motion domino effect with dramatics worthy of a blockbuster movie, taking out all of the four standing eggs one at a time.

Still, heaps of fun! If you find yourself with a carton of eggs and some boredom, on any day of the year, give it a whirl.

Spring to summer

2011-07-11T10:26:00.001-06:00

Time has flown by so fast. One moment we're still on tour in Europe, celebrating our engagement...

...then taking a break from skeleton training by doing a little curling...

...(our team took 2nd place in the D category, heheheheheheh)...

...then we see the moose make their annual spring migration through our yard...

...the next we're happily seeing summer arrive...

...going out for our first road bike rides and finding surprises on roads not yet open to cars...

...another blink and we're amazed by snow in June (again)...

...and suddenly it's the 4th of July!

In summary - how'd it get to be July!?!?!? Apologies for the long posting silence. We've been training hard, working to save $$ for new skeleton sleds, and enjoying the off season as much as we can without disrupting our summer physical training.

Talk to you soon!

Photo Book

2011-05-18T10:58:00.001-06:00

Click here to view this photo book larger

Jean Luc - Shenanigans / being spoiled

2011-04-27T11:33:00.000-06:00

Someday in the distant future I'll post pictures of children, but for now Jean Luc gets the spotlight!

Frantically licking some type of food remnant from his paws.

All prim and proper one the licking is done.

Checking out the happenings in the neighbor's yard.

About to eat the rawhide basket that his Christmas "candy canes" came in, after months of waiting for it as we doled out the "canes."

Smelling the wind in Brad's truck as we leave the Olympic Park this spring.

King of the mountain - this is HIS table in the winter. Oh hell, and in the summer too.

So regal....

...that he we're lucky if he ever deigns to look at us.

Curled up on one of his three - yes, three - beds.

Being a lapdog after a haircut - he gets really needy right after he is trimmed.

Trying to lick the last of my tortilla soup out of the go-cup.

Playing the "go limp and then he'll pet me more" game.

Recovering after a haircut.

Sleeping on my robe.

The price to pay for such a luxury life of comfort? Hating the holidays...

Baby skunks!

2011-04-21T10:20:00.000-06:00

Brad and I were driving home last summer when movement by the road caught our attention. It looked like the ground was boiling.

So we slowed down, just in time to watch a mama skunk and a whole passel of baby skunks cross the road. We barely got a phone camera out in time to catch them.

It was getting dark so we pulled up closer and at an angle out of the sun.

I'm now convinced - ANY baby animal is cute, regardless of how you feel about the species in general.

And then they scurried off into the grass.

My first time seeing baby skunks. Overall cuteness rating: 5 out of 5.

World Championships, Episode 2

2011-03-30T10:06:00.001-06:00

Remember this blog post a couple years ago from Königssee? In it I make a very short reference to coming off my sled - what I didn't tell you then was that I was so rattled, after the session I immediately drove to the local gas station and bought a Jack Daniels & Coke. Premixed, in a can, and yes, at a gas station. Love Europe! Drove back to the hotel, drank it, and went to sleep to help get over the trauma. The next day, I got up and did two solid runs.

Well, that was the same place where I almost crashed in training leading up to World's. Here - the exit of the kreisel and entrance to the chicane (remember: kreisel is a full circle and a chicane is a crooked and / or tilted straight):

After my legs flying over my head like the ice sculpture that we had to drive by every day, and without the whiskey therapy from previous years, I regrouped for the race.

The atmosphere was incredible. The Flying Bulls (Red Bull air squad, blog post coming about them) performed.

Media was everywhere.

As were people.

The races were four runs over two days, but I'm going to condense all the pictures for you. Easier for everyone. :)

As you know, Brad was there, and he waited for me at the finish each run. Where he could see my start and run on the jumbo screens.

About to start one of my runs. You can't read it, but the bottom shows a head shot, my name, and my World Cup rank at the time.

A start. At my first few races it was hard to ignore the cameras, as they were all over the place, but by this time I didn't even notice them circling my feet.

Coming up the finish. It was cool - a couple times there were schoolkids lined up along the outrun, and as while braking to a stop we would give them high fives as we flew past.

I come up into a semi-pushup to stop, so that I can drag the bottoms of my shoes (the spikes themselves) on the ice.

Orvie helping me get my sled to the scale.

After weighing, if we were in first place (for that moment at least), they made us stand in the "leader-box".

Run 1:
I was in 19th place - a less than desirable place, since while everyone gets runs 1-3, on the second day only the top 20 would get a 4th run. 19th was too close for comfort.

Run 2:
I held my place through the top 20, but then three of the last women bumped past me and I dropped to 22nd.

Run 3:
On the second day, our coach told me "You have only one goal today: get a second run." Meaning second run of the day, 4th run overall. To do that, I had to move from 22nd up to 20th or better. I somehow managed to put it all together, and jumped up 6 spots into 16th! It was the best run I've ever had on that track. Woot!

Run 4:
Ugly, ugly, ugly. Brad actually cringed when I said "That was pretty bad, huh?" His answer, "yeah, it was...[cringe]...terrible."

After that run, I was still in the leaderbox (final heat goes slowest woman to fastest, so if we hold our spot we are in "first" up to that point), and watched the screens and times of the next women quite anxiously.

They also have a little screen showing the runs, and they stand opposite you with a camera so that they can broadcast your reactions to your competitor's run.

As she got closer, I abandoned the little screen and looked up at the big clock to see if I kept ahead of her.

Wow, barely! I was able to hold onto my place by a few hundredths. Phew! Hurrah! 16th overall and 2nd USA woman (out of 3) at my first Worlds was definitely something to write home about! Super happy.

Brad and I after the races were over.

A few hours later, we were on our way to Munich and Frankfurt for our flights back to the USA and National Championships in Lake Placid.

World Championships - Episode 1

2011-03-28T09:34:00.001-06:00

First of all, just making it to World Championships in and of itself is amazing.

(And actually, just GETTING there was crazy. The traffic was backed up for hours, so we took a little back-road trip from Igls to Königssee.

Scenic, and someplace we would otherwise never see.
)

Second, it's an amazing experience, especially when hosted in Europe, since winter sports are the same to them as football is to the USA. Screens are everywhere so spectators could see the whole run, rather than just little pieces where they stood.

In the US, we're lucky if more than tens or hundreds of people come check out a skeleton race - at World's, there were thousands. Upon thousands.

Driving to the track was thus, well, difficult.

For every race, and even for training days, the stands were full.

The day before racing kicked off, there was an opening ceremonies, where all the nations marched into the old town square. Local youth athletes carried the name of each nation.

Things were a little crazy, and we ended up standing in the middle of a road for about 20 minutes, blocking traffic. Oops.

Finally we got to a'marching.

The square was packed!

And we had an amazing performance by T.J. Wheels...um, yes, roller skates and juggling. Crazy, and yet talented.

Followed by fireworks.

The next day, racing was on.

I was a bit nervous, since training hadn't been going well for me. In fact, there was an ice statue that pretty much epitomizes my sliding:

(I almost crashed a couple days before racing, and the coaches have video that they will send me eventually. I'll put up a blog post showing that footage when I get it.)

Thankfully, I put the pieces together the last day of training, phew! Racing to come in the next entry...

Sightseeing Igls (Austria)

2011-03-24T10:32:00.004-06:00

These are coming out of order, but oh well!

After the Lake Placid races, I spent another week there sliding and rehabbing my quad, then hopped on a plane back to Europe.

We had a week off before training started in Königssee, Germany, so the plan was to stay in Igls Austria during that time and slide there. Unfortunately, the FIL (internationsl Luge federation) had booked ALL of the available ice time.

So, we spent the week working out and training off-ice, working on sleds and runners, and sightseeing! One of the things we've always wanted to do but never had time for on past trips was to take the tram to the top of the mountain behind the track.

Don't lean against the glass.

One of the coolest things was going over the Igls track.

Halfway up, we had to change trams, and some people got off to go sledding nearby. On old style wooden sledges.

The boys at the top.

There was, of course, a little cafe / bar at the top.

Annie, Katie, and I decided to venture even further above the "top" to the "real top." Via one-person chairlift. If Annie looks excited here, note that it's her first time on a chairlift, ever! Glad we decided to go the extra mile.

Hard to see here, but it got quite steep.

What was on the other side of the mountain?

Great scenery and great weather for pictures.

When we got back we found the boys in the exact same position as we'd left them.

Then it was time to go back for physical therapy and training. All in all, it rather sucked not being able to slide that week, but the rest, recovery, and sightseeing more than made up for it.

Engaged!

2011-03-21T10:46:00.004-06:00

I know what you're saying and I'm saying it with you: "FINALLY!"

Hah, and no, not "finally we're engaged" but "finally, I've got a blog post about it!"

Long story short, my computer had some issues and for a bit there, we thought all the pictures had gone "poof!". Yes, I was upset. (That's putting it mildly.) But then thanks to Brad's sleuthing and some recovery software, we got them back last night. You're my hero!

I was going to go through the events in order, starting with the week in Igls, then the first week of training for World Championships, then the week Brad got there, then the engagement, then World Championships itself, but...several people have been clamoring for the engagement story first so here it is!

WARNING - LONG STORY WITH LOTS OF WORDS.
Hah, enjoy!

Brad raced the Intercontinental Cup races in Whistler, Canada in January, and then was done with his season since he had 7 races during first half. We'd talked a lot about him coming to visit and be there for our first World Championships, but...

We were waiting to see if the strategy would work and we'd qualify 3 sleds for Worlds before deciding if he would come visit; if we didn't qualify 3 sleds, there was a slim chance I wouldn't go back to Europe to race. He thought it would be great to propose there, but couldn't plan for sure until we knew whether or not I'd be there.

I, on the other had, had no idea of his thoughts.

Regardless, it was 2 days before I got on the plane that we knew for sure...and then he was scrambling!

We had casually looked at rings here and there over the last couple years, but weren't in any sort of hurry (as you can tell - getting engaged after 6 1/2 years, eh?). Last spring, we saw one that we both liked, and Brad had kept the info on the ring (though I wasn't aware of it).

He called the jewelry store, and tried to order it - but there was one small catch: whatever ring we got, we'd agreed that we wanted sapphires instead of diamonds, so a ready-to-grab ring wasn't an option. (By the way, he even tricked me into giving him my ring size, and I was still none the wiser. Clever boy.)

Jewelry store: "Sure, we can get it made for you. Should be ready in, oh, 4-6 weeks."

Brad: "Um...how about...ah...next week?"

Jewelry store: ... silence ...

Then there was some mad scrambling. Instead of a ring made to order, he had to buy the store sample and then have it shipped to the maker to swap stones and resize it, then quickly be shipped back to the store, hopefully in time.

Jewelry store: "It might be a case of meeting you at the airport with it...and if we don't get it in time, we have a ring you can borrow for a 'stunt ring.'"

Stunt ring, I love it, hilarious!

Nevertheless, it all came together. A couple days before he left, the ring was ready. Unfortunately they'd put the wrong stones in, but he didn't care. They promised to fix it when we got back, so he hopped on a plane.

For a 10+ hour flight from Salt Lake City to Paris.
Then a 10+ hour train trip from Paris to Koenigssee (long story)
All with the ring in his coat pocket. (The poor guy constantly pocket-checked to reassure himself it hadn't gotten lost on the journey. He finds it funny now, but at the time it was super stressful!)

Over in Europe, I was oblivious. In fact, the day before Brad arrived, I was talking to one of our coaches, Orvie, on a particularly lovely day. I felt a whim and told him that while Brad and I weren't engaged, we'd talked about wedding options, and had even thought of a "destination wedding" in Königssee!

Why?

It's one of the most beautiful spots on tour...

Has a lot of fun stuff to do and see:

Is one of the first tracks we slid together in Europe...

And is our favorite track, thus far.

Anyway, I told this all to Orvie, and he was pretty excited about it. So...when Brad arrived...Orvie promptly told him what I'd said.

My reaction: !!!!!!!

At dinner that night, Brad started talking about rings for some reason. I was suspicious for a moment, then he played it off "talking to Orvie must have made me self conscious I guess."

He worried for a moment that he was giving the game away, but...I bought it hook, line and sinker, even actually thought I'd caused the conversation. Heh, FOOLED ME!

A couple days later, though, he was getting concerned:

The World Championship races were coming in a few days, and he wanted to give me time to calm down from being proposed to so I could focus on racing.

He wanted it to be a nice day, and the weather had been crappy. (It's beautiful when you can see the mountains, gloomy when you can't.)

We didn't have a car of our own, instead sharing with the other two women.

He wanted to do it by the lake, the prettiest spot, but lack of car was an issue.

Finally, 2 days before the race, the day dawned lovely and clear. We trained in the morning, and had a free afternoon, so we thought about going to "check out the little market by the lake." Or so he said - it was a ruse to get me there.

Problems:

The girls had taken the car for lunch/shopping, and didn't make it back on time for us to go anywhere.

The lake was miles away, so without the car we couldn't make it there.

I was in a bad mood, since I wasn't pushing well in training, was just frustrated with my legs and wanted to sit and mope.

If he didn't propose that day, it wasn't going to happen in Europe since we were packing and leaving immediately after finishing racing. Literally, minutes afterward.

Brad was freaking out, though I had no idea. He kept thinking "This is going down TODAY or it isn't going down!"

Then he came up with a backup plan: a nice walk to a prettier part of town.

I didn't make it easy.

Brad: "Let's go for a walk."

Me, pretty salty: "I don't want to go for a walk. Why can't we just stay in and watch a movie or something?"

Brad: "I just want to get out of the [hotel] room."

Me: "I don't want to wear out my legs! I'm pushing SO SLOW! Gah!"

Brad: "Let's just go for a short walk then, get some fresh air. It'll be good, loosen your legs up, get out of here."

Me: "FINE! But it'd better be short!"

Poor boy.

So out we went, for a little walk, down to the roundabout in the middle of town, which crosses the confluence of two streams with super clear water. It was literally only about 5 minutes away, and I admitted to him that it was nice to get out. We got to the roundabout, then...(condensed and put best I can from memory):

Me: "Now what...ready to go back?"

Brad: "Well..."

Me: "What? You wanna keep going?"

Brad: "Well, I just, think we should go find you a ring."

Me, surprised: "Wow, I REALLY must have made you self conscious!"

Brad: "Heh, maybe."

Me, half-seriously: "Um, where would we find a ring anyway?"

Brad: "I don't know...surely there's somewhere."

Me: "What, some kind of Swarovski knockoff?" (FYI - Swarovski crystals come from Austria and can be found all over in Austria and Germany)

Brad: "Of all people, I'd think you would know where to find a ring."

Me, confused and offended: "What's that supposed to mean?"

Me, turning and trying to storm off: "Fine, let's go find a ring."

He grabbed my arm instead, and then:

Brad: "What if I told you...I already had a ring?"

Me, half-laughing and half-mad: "No, you do not!"

Brad: "What if..." and started patting his pockets.

Me, no longer mad and starting to be concerned it wasn't a joke: "That's not funny."

Then he pulled out a ring box and I...

...was the stereotypical girl and gasped. Not at the ring but at being proposed to. Heh! He opened the ring box and barely had time to actually get the words out before I jumped on him and said yes and burst into tears.

My reaction shocked the heck out of even me, and I hadn't even LOOKED at the ring box other than to notice there actually was something in it! Embarrassed...

Afterward, we took a couple pictures to memorialize the moment - these are the pictures that we thought had been lost, and I was heartbroken over. So happy he found them!:

My favorite:

The next day, we ended up actually being able to go to the lake after all, and took a few more pictures there.

The water is SO clear.

The market area across the lake from the track, where we had tried to go the day before.

We had fun with pics.

I'm wearing the ring on the wrong finger since I've apparently lost weight since the last time I sized my finger, oops! And the knuckle on my right hand has been broken in the past so is big enough to keep the ring from falling off, unlike my left.

A nice couple took some pictures for us (the previous were autotimed from the hood of the car) and I switched the ring to the proper finger.

We kept the news quiet for a couple days (didn't want to distract anyone or make a big deal out of it) but it had leaked out so we let it be known the first day of racing.

P.S. - I pushed MUCH faster in the race than I had in training, so Brad was right, the walk was good! ;)

P.P.S. - Info on the ring - the center was originally row of 5 diamonds, but they swapped out 3 of them for sapphires. I mentioned they'd put the wrong stones in - the sapphires were supposed to be the cornflower blue (super light blue, sky almost), and we're swapping all the diamonds instead of just 3, so it's back at the jeweler right now. I am actually wearing a stunt ring for the time being! Heh.

Jean Luc - athletics

2011-02-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

It's hard work keeping that doggish figure of his...and so Jean Luc spends a lot of time working out. Year round...in addition to the biking adventures you've seen in other posts, and the cross-country-skiing expeditions, he fills his time with exercise.

At agility class with Brad, taking one of his first jumps. He's up to a 3-footer these days.

Making snow angels...

Recovering from the snow angel workout.

Then off to do it again.

Viewing the result with pride.

Being the biggest wimp in the water......he runs!

He sniffs!

And...yeah, I think that's deep enough.

Well, sometimes he'll get to his chest, if something REALLY interests him. But never deeper. So that bush must be mighty interesting...

Another favourite hobby? Digging in the long jump pit.

Phew! It's exhausting being a dog!

A happy dog

2011-02-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

Random Jean Luc post of the week...

Just wanted to let you all know that he's not spoiled at all. And isn't overwhelmed by (or proud of) his toy selection.

Cheers!

Lake Placid races - first medal!!!

2011-02-07T10:28:00.001-07:00

I may have given it away in the title, whoops, but I had a great week of racing!

After the balmy weather in Europe, I arrived in Lake Placid to find record low temperatures. Our first day of training was on -19 Celsius ice! (That's unusually cold, in case you wondered.) I had to really bundle up.

Adam Pengilly (Great Britian) and I, trying to get a photo of our breath fog. It didn't work.

So we took a nice picture instead.

Not only was it cold, but snowy. Caleb got stuck by the start of the track...

And had to be pulled out.

I was a little nervous about the race, since I had strained my quad in Winterberg. It didn't seem bad at the time, but then I pulled it solidly training in Placid. I was taking it easy, I swear!

Sports Med at the Olympic Training Center put me back together as much as they could. During training, my leg was taped like this to aid in healing and I was only allowed to walk off the start instead of pushing fast:

For the race, it was taped like this to prevent the injured muscle from working while encouraging other muscles to take over:

I swear, it's half art, but it seemed to work regardless!

Then of course, this went on for the actual race.

My leg was so tightly taped that I could hardly feel it, and managed to almost match my personal best push times! Thank you Curtis from Sports Med!!!

Actually, Sarah Sydney and I were both injured - me with my quad, and her with both a foot & back injury. We cheered each other up, and then, ironically, somehow we had the two fastest pushes for several of the race heats! Craziness.

The first race was on Thursday. My first run felt like $$$! Made a few small mistakes, but was in second place with a personal best time of 56.10! (Previous best: 56.97, so huge improvement!)

The second run.....I let the sled ride a bit too much and had a snowball effect. One mistake from curve 3 to 4 translated into a mistake 4-5, then 5-6...and so on down the track. I got a bruise on my chin and down my left arm...and dropped from 2nd to 4th. Oops. Still, a 4th was my best finish to date!

Rachelle from the USA finished in 6th, also her best finish, so we had two of us on the podium!

There was a lot of hugging, since we're all pretty good friends.

The next race was on Friday, and I had gone through all sorts of mental contingencies to correct things should I make mistakes like I did the first race. My first run was again, $$$! I actually made the SAME mistake from 3 to 4 that I did the day before, but was able to fix it and keep it from snowballing this time. 56.08, a new PB and tied for 3rd place with Sarah Reid, who had won the race the day before. Woot woot!

Second run finally came, about an hour later after the men went for their first run, and after a break for the track crew to spritz the ice again. It started off amazing, with the best curves 1-13 that I'd had all week. Then, I had a bit of trouble coming out of 14 and hit twice in the chicane (long straight with a kink in it) and also had a small tap out of curve 17.

But even so, when I came across the line, I saw a "1" next to my name, which meant I had come out of the tie ahead of Sarah. I was guaranteed at least a 3rd place medal, with a new PB of 56.05! I laughed and pounded my fist on my sled.

The next sled came down, Sophia Griebel from Germany. Kim, the announcer, started getting all excited towards the end. "It's down to a hundredth, who's it gonna be?" And then, Sophia got me by only two hundredths of a second. So close!

The final sled, Michelle Kelly from Canada, started her run. "She's losing time...." And then, in the ultimate in racing, she TIED FOR FIRST with Sophia!

I was in third place by only 0.02 seconds (by the way, a blink is .20 seconds, so I was in third by 1/10 of a blink)!!!

Pretty much that made my day. My week. Yeah, my mistakes cost the win, but it was still my very first medal at that level, only my second medal on the international circuit at all (3rd in an America's Cup race last year), and my closest race ever. My second run was also the fastest of all the women, with the highest speed, so my confidence has been helped quite a bit.

The award ceremony was amazing. More hugging.

Getting my bronze.

Cheering for the first place tie.

Getting ready for the two anthems (both firsts get their anthem).

My first flag at this level, made me so happy!

Then the group photo. Not only was there a tie for first, but there was also a tie for 5th, in a sport timed to the hundredth of a second.

Celebrating with Kim.

Wow, what a week!

The first thing after the race was lunch. Rachelle ordered cheesecake to celebrate, and we all wanted it. Look at these two eyeballing it.

Then it was time for Curtis to get serious about my quad. Up until the races, it was all damage control and making sure I could push. Now, it's all pain or no gain. By the time you read this, I'll have had one more week here with his healing (read: painful, hahaha) touch, and when this posts I'll have just arrived back in Europe for a training week in Igls followed by two weeks in Koenigssee for World Championships.

This is the unfortunate tool of choice.

He looks WAY too happy.

I was screaming and laughing (I usually laugh the pain out) too much to take a picture of that tool in use, but then he moved to a smaller one. Breaking up adhesions and increasing blood flow - or so he says. ;)

When he was done, my leg looked just a little different from the healthy one...

I also have an ice machine that cycles ice water through a pressure cuff on my leg, that I'm supposed to be in several times a day. As a result of all this effort, while it now looks like this, trust me when I say it's working; it feels quite a bit better already.

I should be ready to go for World Championships, phew!

Now, don't take this the wrong way - by NO means am I complaining about World Cup, but it was actually a very nice break to be back on the Intercontinental Cup for the week. There is a much lighter atmosphere and more international camaraderie here, while World Cup is very very very serious business (as it should be). Here, we joked around and cheered each other on at the races, and then went out after and did some crazy neon bowling and dancing. I was on a team with two Canadians and a Brit, against a team consisting of Canada, Japan, USA, and Great Britian, and several other mixed nation teams.

We finally got the bumpers up for our left-handed challenge. (I think we won, but by that point we were a little scattered.)

Kelly really REALLY wanted a turkey. He came surprisingly close in the left-handed bowl thanks to the bumpers, but it was always 2 strikes, miss, 2 strikes, miss. Poor guy.

Good times.

PS - welcome to Placid. Grin.

Change of plans - USA & Lake Placid

2011-02-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

After the Winterberg race, things got a little crazy. Instead of driving to St. Moritz, Switzerland with the team, our coach drove me to Frankfurt. We were playing a little switcharoo - send me back to Lake Placid to race the final two Intercontinental Cup races, and bring Katie U over to Europe for the final two World Cup races.

It was a point strategy. I would race the IC in an attempt to simply hold my international ranking over a couple certain other women, while Katie (who was injured first half and thus only had half as much time to earn a world rank) would try to make up the gap on those people in the World Cups. See, a first place on the IC is worth 120 points, while a 1st place on the WC is worth 225 points.

If the strategy worked, we would earn three spots in World Championships and more importantly, three spots on World Cup next year!

So I found myself in Frankfurt, staying at an airport hotel for a night until my morning flight back over the Atlantic. I decided to go out, and found a little Italian restaurant a few minutes walk from the hotel.

I ordered a glass of wine - and had to take a picture. For those of you that know what a lightweight I am, the size of this glass spelled trouble!

My pizza - I saw this on the menu and just had to try it.

Yes, you do see a hot dog and two hard boiled eggs. It was actually delicious!

I called Brad - we upgraded to the iPhone 4 before the season started just for the FaceTime it offered. This is us chatting over Wifi! Love it, and makes the distance a little easier.

Before I knew it, it was the next morning and I was at the Frankfurt airport. With Ronald McDonald. I took a picture to prove it wasn't just a one-glass-of-wine-hangover.

And then, bam! I was on a plane back to Lake Placid, hoping that our strategy and gamble would pay off.

Winterberg World Cup - 2011

2011-02-02T10:13:00.001-07:00

The next location was Winterberg, Germany. It was an 8 hour drive (we made it in about 6 actually, thank you autobahn!) from Igls, Austria.

The drive was interesting - we got pulled over. My first time being pulled over in Europe!

The officers were very nice, just concerned about our caravan of 3 Range Rovers.

Apparently there are a lot of thefts in the region that our license plates read. They checked our passports, wished us good luck (even wished us the win!) and sent us on our way. Nicest pulling-over experience I've ever had...

We also got fuel for the car. I noticed how considerate the gas stations are - they provided gloves for pumping!

We always make jokes that "Winterberg" should be called "Wasserberg" (water town) or "Regenberg" (rain town) since it nearly always rains there. Remember our canceled race last year?

But the weather was actually nice!

Tried to take a picture of Annie with the pretty sunrise, but it didn't work very well. Either she wasn't in it, or the sunrise disappeared like this:

We got a trackwalk in. You can always find me by the yellow shoes and purple pants.

Kreisel (a 280 or 360 degree turn):

I'd like to come to Winterberg in the summer actually - they have a TON of fun looking bike courses and obstacles / stunts / berms.

The first day, we thought we were sliding at 9am but it turned out that we were in the 11am group, so we stayed and watched the first group slide.

The Russian team got new speedsuits, and they were too small. We teased them at first...

But then....race day came....and....

Yes, that's me in a new Team Russia speedsuit! Long story...

Not only did I get a new speedsuit, but I also bought a new helmet. The old:

The new:

Side by side:

I felt all new and improved, especially since my old speedsuit was, um, a little see-through.

All improvements and upgrades aside, the Winterberg track itself, however, is probably my least favorite track. It's so subtle, and while it's super easy to make it down in one piece, it's extremely difficult to find speed. The first several curves actually go uphill! This means that you cannot make any tiny mistakes (even more than the similar Calgary or Igls tracks) or you just have no speed. I had one of the faster pushes at the start, but then was 5 tenths slower coming out of the 5th curve! Shaking my head.

Annie and I got ready for a day of racing.

And spread out a bit...

The race itself, well, it was ok. I had two new personal best times, but finished in 19th place. Since my training runs were even worse throughout the week, I've never been happier just to qualify for a second run! Phew.

Then it was off to other things...

Igls World Cup part II

2011-01-31T10:58:00.001-07:00

Every season, there is at least one team race. Team races are awesome since you are actually functionally able to be on the same team as bobsledders!

The first run is a men's skeleton athlete, starting order determined by a race draw.
The second run is a women's bobsled team, with the starting order determined by how the men's skellys did (reverse order by their time).
Third run is a women's skeleton athlete, with our starting order determined by the cululative time of the men's skelly / women's bobsled (reverse order again, so you have to be ready to go at any time).
Fourth run is a men's two-man bobsled team, starting order based on cumulative total time of the first three runs. It's mayhem but awesome!

The final result is based upon the cumulative total of all four runs. Very cool. It's the only time we get to really compete as a team.

The team race was in Igls this half of the season, and the USA put together one team.

The truck was packed on the way up.

The warm-up area was crowded. Bobsled teams of both genders, and skeleton teams of both, very cool.

Every year, the team races seem to get a little more popular. We finished solidly with a 5th place, and I hope the team races pick up momentum because it's just such a fun event.

Random Igls pictures

The hotel is awesome, but old and added onto many times. To get to my room, you took an elevator to the second floor (third floor in American counting), then turn left down this hallway:

Then left again down this hallway:

Then right down this hallway, and down 4-5 stairs:

Then another right at the end and down 3 stairs; our room is on the left in that little cubby:

The parking garage, where we worked out, had a very low ceiling, so we couldn't do any sort of jumping moves.

Our drive to the track:

The road to the top of the track follows the ancient bobsled run; these stone walls were curves:

Usually buried under snow, we enjoyed the mossy scenery.

I also drove down to Innsbruck for an afternoon, by myself, to do a little shopping. Managed to find the area I was looking for, AND managed to not speak a word of English while shopping! It was a great day...

The old town shopping area.

The parking garage was under this building.

The day was lovely.

I love Innsbruck, and am starting to like the Igls track, but it was time to move on...

Who is that?

2011-01-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

So as I travel around, one of the few parts that actually sucks is leaving Jean Luc behind. Oh, he loves it - he stays with friends that walk him all the time, or with friends that have doggie friends of his, or at "camp" (a daycare place he loves so much that he's practically leaping from the car before we park there). So he's a happy pup.

But I'm not! I miss my woofer, my four-legged son, my furry quadruped.

So, in honor of missing him, here's an awesome event that happened a few months ago. For some reason I was looking at old pictures, and this one came up.

It's the picture that was on Petfinder.com, where we adopted him. Jean Luc jumped up and stared at the screen - surprising since he never watches TV or looks at pictures otherwise.

Does he know that's him? Or does he just see a dog?

We tried a couple other pictures until he got bored...the reaction wasn't the same as the first two pictures but it was still so cute!

Then, our 60 lb lapdog climbed onto my lap, and chilled.

And I mean chilled.

Ah, I feel better. Warm and fuzzy.

Igls World Cup - Back on ice 2011

2011-01-17T10:17:00.002-07:00

After a great holiday break, we all met up in Munich, Germany on Saturday January 8th. We spent one night in Munich before driving down to Innsbruck, and went out to dinner. I wonder what team this is...

Welcome to Germany.

Mmmmm, tasty.

The next day we drove to Igls, and started training. Along with sliding, we also worked out of course. One day we went to a gym, but the bobsledders travel with weights so we also worked out in the parking garage.

We sprinted too. John got distracted by the awesome scenery and graffiti at the running track.

It IS really lovely here.

The weather was really warm too. Usually there is a lot of snow, but we were seeing grass thanks to the recent heavy rains.

It rained on us, in fact.

We almost had to swim up the outrun instead of slide.

They put a lot of snow in the outrun to help slow us down. More than a little ended up in our sleds. You can see it actually packed up inside here.

We have a maximum allowable sled weight, and you are disqualified if you go over. Since snow (then water) is heavy, I took my sled apart to let it dry.

And found more snow, that came up where the runners attach.

Getting to the track is both beautiful, and an adventure.

Riding up to the top of the track, and then down afterward, is done in these trucks.

This is the road to the top, and those walls you see are actually from the old early 1930s skeleton track!

The Igls track is pretty mellow - even when you make a mistake there are no painful consequences. The most dangerous part of the track is the outrun! You come flying up through this section with a small kink in it (usually banging into the wall a few times) and then crash onto a pile of foam:

The last day of training was the warmest all week. Due to the heat, and melting ice, our session was delayed 2 hours. So we sat around.

Sliders started dropping like flies.

A bunch of us still slid though, and I had my best runs all week ironically.

RACE DAY...

We woke up quite early, and it was still dark when we got to the track. Annie on the ride to the start:

Me and my sled:

Our former coach, Martin, 2002 silver medalist and current coach of the Austrians.

The Austrians and USA were the first ones there, so we had time to kill.

I played a game, per usual.

We took advantage of the time and took pictures, which as you know I haven't been doing enough!

Taking a picture of Martin taking a picture of us.

Olga Potelitcina from Russia and I.

I got a little bored.

Then went and warmed up. It was a little muddy.

Finally, it was time for the race. My camera was in my backpack, so no race pictures!

First run, I pushed a Personal Best time for Igls of 5.60, woot! My run, however, left a little (lot) to be desired. I finally nailed the line out of curve 3 - only to mess up curve 5 for the first time all week!

A bad 5 = a bad 6, a bad 6 = a horrible 7 (260 degree turn, aka Kreisel), and 7 impacts 8 & 9. 9 is my usual trouble curve, and I didn't fix it that run. 56.86 down time - in a 3-way tie for 16th. Yep, to the hundredth of a second! Amy Williams, 2010 Olympic gold medalist, was one of the three too since she had a bad start & run, oops, but I'll still take it!

Our coach Willi had some words of wisdom and told me to change a couple things on my run and sled, and after a bit of a wait it was time for my second run.

Money.

Willi even said "That was a dream run." Same push time and then nailed 3.

Nailed 5.

Nailed kreisel.

Nailed 9.

Cut almost 8 tenths off my first run time! 56.08, a personal best by a lot. I was practically walking on air!

End result? Still a 16th place thanks to the first run, but I am super happy. Happy!

Afterward, I saw Martin's parents, and was able to have a (simple) conversation with them in German. They are the sweetest, but don't speak much English so are happy I've studied a little German.

The awards ceremony. Some day that will be me!

That's right, you heard it here first, some day that will be me. ;)

Snow, snow, everywhere.

2011-01-14T10:50:00.005-07:00

As I sit here in Igls Austria (just up the hill from Innsbruck)...

...about to go out and slide in weather so warm that you sweat in just your speedsuit and the ice is so soft we are almost swimming instead of sliding...

...and hearing about the horrible storms back home in the USA from coast to coast (Brad spent 8 hours in Seattle yesterday waiting for the rest of the Intercontinental Cup team to arrive after DRIVING one of their flight legs!)...

...I thought I'd share our Christmas storm in Park City.

The Thursday before Christmas we had a crazy storm. Driving to work in the morning was the worst commute I'd had in the 5.5 years of working there....

and then, the drive home in the afternoon was the worst by a factor of 10! In one day.

The parking lot at work from above:

And from below:

My car got plowed in.

Snow up to the running boards.

My boot, buried.

The front wheel.

My car is awesome, but it still took me about 5-10 minutes of backing up and going forward, rocking the car, swerving, until I got out. Taking a picture of the aftermath was worth getting out and walking back in the snow, and thankfully the storm had lighted up for a moment:

Then it kicked right back into blizzard mode, and the freeway was awful.

No, I'm not being (too) dumb - when you are going 20 mph it's easy to take pictures!

Semis were parked all along the road - in the travel lane since there was no longer a shoulder!

The plows hadn't made it to our neighborhood. (I passed 3 cars stuck in this, but couldn't get a shot of them since their headlights blinded the camera.)

After my 1+ hour (usually 20+ minutes) commute, my trusty car was grateful for a garage:

The holiday weekend was certainly a white Christmas, the hills being much more covered and lovely than usual.

Anyway, best of wishes to everyone back home weathering the storms.

Christmas Break, 2010. Ahhhhhhhh....

2011-01-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

With only a just-shy-of-3-weeks-break between first and second halves of the World Cup tour, and having two holidays in the midst, our Christmas / New Year time was a bit crazy!

Brad and I both got home on Sunday the 19th, 5 days before Christmas! We had to hurry and get the tree up, but first Jean Luc needed some festivity.

Isn't he cute?

I don't think this was what he had in mind after missing us for so long. Does he look a bit let down?

He was still willing to help with the tree.

Then Brad kept getting distracted.

But we eventually got it up. It was super pretty, especially since Jean Luc helped again with the lights.

I just realized we never got a picture of the whole thing, whoops! Oh well.

Christmas Day we lounged around and opened presents.

Brad spoiled me horribly with a new sewing machine - I think he got tired of hearing me cuss to and beat at the old one when trying to fix speedsuits. :) I just love it!

Jean Luc ate the card that some of his doggie friends sent him.

Then went outside to rub his face in the snow.

New Years Eve we went to dinner with some friends, and let's just say we ate well. :)

I thoroughly enjoyed my present from Brad's parents, a new Coach purse! Awesome! And wore the necklace he brought me from Venice. I felt so classy, unlike the usual me hah!

During the break, we also tried to see friends we hadn't seen in a while, and went to a movie and drinks. A cold spell had hit Park City, so Lis and I sat inside the restaurant while the boys went to get the cars, yay! They look so nice and bundled up, don't they?

I also went curling - yes, curling. Some girlfriends and I tried it a few months ago, and had so much fun that we started a team for a hobby. It surprised me how fun it is, but trust me, it's definitely worth a try.

Our team is called the Ice Maidens, and this is our official uniform.

In other Christmas news, our washer died on Christmas Eve. It came with the house and is about as old as Brad and I, so we didn't even bother fixing it. Instead, we took advantage of the holiday sales and got a new nice one for a good price. Taking it to the basement sucked...

But the dryer kicking the bucket a week later sucked more. Ouch, a punch in the gut! But I guess the silver lining is that a) they match now, and b) the dryer was at least lighter going down the stairs! Heh.

Last random picture...Brad was coming home from errands, and Jean Luc grabbed a toy and RACED over to the door and stared at it fixedly until Brad opened it. It was so cute...

Ah, I miss them both here in Europe!

World Cup Schedule

2011-01-10T09:46:00.001-07:00

As I sit here trying to fight the amazing jet-lagged compulsion to sleep, I thought I'd give out our race schedule. We train 3-4 days before, then race:

Today - January 16th: Igls Austria (near Innnsbruck). We race 9am European time (8 hours ahead of Utah, so 1am Utah time) on Friday the 15th, the men at 9am on Saturday.
January 17-23: Winterberg, Germany. Women 9am Saturday the 22nd, men 9am Sunday the 23rd.
January 24-30: St. Moritz Switzerland. Women 1pm Friday the 28th (5am Utah time), men 8:45am the same day.
January 31-February 6: Cesana Italy. Women 2pm Friday the 4th (6am Utah time), men 10am same day.

Then it's off to World Championships from February 7-27, in Koenigssee Germany:

An off week, which we'll spend back in Igls training I think.
Then a week of unofficial training, since part of the track is new.
Then a week of official training & race.
4 runs over two days.
Men race at 10:30am on Thurs the 24th and 9:30am on Fri the 25th.
Women race at 12:30pm on Fri the 25th and 3:30pm on Sat the 26th

Then, it's off to Lake Placid for National Championships.

Are you tired yet? Phew! :)

Recipe: The. BEST. Salmon. Ever.

2011-01-07T11:14:00.000-07:00

I got the idea from this recipe, but mostly it's my own. I'm in love with it!

Salmon fillet, medium thickness
Olive oil
For the rub: salt, pepper, coriander, cumin, paprika, onion powder. I also throw in a little curry sometimes, and a little chili pepper.

For the salmon bed:
2 avocadoes, peeled, seeded and diced
1 pear, sliced thinly (you only use 1/2 of the pear)
1 small lime
cilantro, as much as you'd like, chopped (I love it so much, I'll use the whole bunch)
---mix the avocado and pear together, squeeze the lime into it---
tortilla chips, somewhat crushed into medium chunks

Rub olive oil on the fish, coat with the spice mixture and toss on the grill, cook until done to your preferred level of doneness.

Put the crushed tortilla chips on the plate, and put the avocado mixture on top of it.
Set the salmon onto the avocado mixture - and viola! The MOST AMAZING TASTE EVER is now sitting on your plate. It surprises me every time how wonderful my mouth feels.....

For this, I didn't have pear and went straight avocado and cilantro, but it's still fabulous! You can also add pomegranite seeds to it to make it sweeter if you'd like.

Brad prefers his a little more simply done - straight up lemon pepper and olive oil, no fish bed, but how can I complain when he wants me to put LESS work into it and is just as happy?

New Orleans Trip - photos

2010-12-30T11:05:00.000-07:00

Earlier this spring... (I'm catching up on posts)....

After the (March 2010) Lake Placid America's Cup, and after the trip to Florida (also in March), I again headed out to the National APA (American Planning Association) conference in New Orleans. I was pretty excited since I'd never been there....so while I spent most of my time in conference sessions, every free moment was spent exploring. And eating....I refused to take leftovers to the hotel room since I didn't want to repeat anything. Jambalaya, po'boys, catfish, crawfish, Gumbo, Crawfish Étouffée, Andouille sausage, red beans and rice, and every kind of bread pudding possible. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Anyway, the city. It has so much history that the new is built right around the old.

These windows are painted on...

The liquor laws were amazing, and would be amazing anywhere but were especially amazing compared to Utah. When leaving a restaurant or bar, if you hadn't finished your beverage, you could literally take a "go-cup" and walk around drinking. Like these ladies, who were stumbling down the street at 5pm.

I went on a river boat tour, which was fantastic. On the way, the tour guide made the analogy that New Orleans is like a cup, with the city in the bottom of the cup and the Mississippi, Lake Pontchartrain, and the swamps at the rim of the cup. Kind of a scary image...and everything is either on, under, by, or in the water.

In fact, here I am sitting on the steps that lead UP to the river. The level of the water is literally higher than my head, on the other side of that wall.

Here's the view of the river from the top of the wall. Notice the buildings on the other side...

But anyway, back to the riverboat tour.

There is still a lot of hurricane damage.

And a lot of strong southern sentimentality.

And, if you're interested, some real estate.

And quite a bit of wildlife.

The guide showing us a crawfish trap.

And this feller....

Who hung out for a while.

Marshmallows helped keep his interest from wandering.

We were only a few feet away, when we suddenly realized he could do this:

Pretty cool.

I also explored the city - walking so much that my feet were covered in blisters and my muscles hurt so much I could hardly move. Who'd have thought I should have trained for walking???

The Metrodome.

French Quarter - Bourbon Street.

The above-ground cemeteries. This is the tomb of Marie LeVeaux, the voodoo queen.

Public transit and walkability were fantastic. This is the streetcar that runs from one end of the city to the other. One morning my coworker and I went for a jog on the tracks, since it's a nice dirt path underneath. Not a good idea due to the already-formed blisters, but it was scenic and fun anyway.

It's a small world too.....thanks to her Facebook post about being in the French Quarter, I had the chance to meet a distant cousin for the first time ever - we spent dinner trying to figure out just how we were related (our grandfathers were either brothers or cousins). She toured me around and showed me iconic places like the Hollywood homes and the markets.

All in all, I had a blast and would love to go back sometime, of course with more time to see and do more! (And eat more.....)

Park City World Cup - HOME ICE!

2010-12-16T11:49:00.002-07:00

Finally, after 2.5 weeks that felt like much longer, we were back in Park City where I had the amazing luxury of staying at home while on tour! Though it felt weird not being able to unpack my bags...

Since I was home, not a lot of things seemed remarkable and you've all seen pictures of the PC track. But luckily, the press was around, and Brad kept emailing me these great photos he kept finding as they cropped up.

(Thank you and credit to the Associated Press, the Park Record, the Salt Lake Tribune, Reuters, and anyone I missed.)

From a training day during the week leading up to the race:

On a training run.

Due to live broadcasting in Europe, the race was scheduled for an inopportune time for locals to come watch, 1pm on a Thursday. Hello work and school! Still, a group of great friends were able to come up and watch, and they were the best cheer section ever! Awesome. (This is a photo of a photo since I don't have the digital original, oops.)

I thought I would be more nervous at the start, but suddenly felt totally relaxed, and the cameras and cheering and noise and thoughts of people watching faded away into the background.

I heard them cheer super loud as I started, which made me push faster. (Well, my first run had a funky bobble at the start but was still close to my personal best, and then my second push was even faster.)

On the "inrun" after the start. Those grooves are about to end before the first curve.

My teammate Annie on her run. I was ahead of her the first run down, then she passed me back on the second after I made a big mistake in Curve 11 and into 12.

After my second run, Annie was in the "leaderbox" (where they keep each current leader for TV purposes) but stepped out for a second to shout "Kimber, you pushed a 5.09!"

That was my first time in the 5.0-ANYthing, and didn't realize someone caught a photo of my reaction until it showed up in the Salt lake Tribune the next day!

I had just dropped a spot, to 14th, but couldn't have been happier at that moment! And no, my teeth aren't black, I just hadn't had time to take my mouthguard out yet, haha!

There was a bit of press, both national and local since the AP and Salt Lake Tribune were there.

The SL Trib story was great (thanks Mr. Lewis) and I'm pasting screenshots of it here too. (A friend also bought hard copies for me since I was out of town in Placid by the time it hit the stands. Thanks Griff!)
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Anyway, I had hoped for a top 10 finish, but didn't quite make it, finishing in 14th. But, I pushed a 5.09, and with my 51.10 finish time also broke my PB by over half a second (huge HUGE HUGE HUGE in the sliding world) so couldn't be too upset. I'm learning a lot this year and will just keep improving. Thanks for all the support!
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The AP also wrote a story, which was picked up in a lot of places, like Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin Texas, Brad's hometown of Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN (well, he's actually from Hastings, just south), and of course Universal Sports, the official station of skeleton and bobsled.
Here's the article (so I can look back at it and show our kids in 20 years when it's all archived!):

Calgary World Cup - the adventure continues!

2010-12-15T07:09:00.004-07:00

The next stop on the World Cup tour was Calgary, in Alberta Canada. I was SO looking forward to a track with less teeth, and Calgary is just that, a gentler slower smoother ride.

(Side note. Again, it's weird how much less time and mental energy I have for other things on tour this year. The added pressure (mostly self imposed, I'll admit), spending more time watching video with the coaches, more time with the PT getting recovery treatment, more time in general spent on all things sliding. So I haven't worked as much, written here as much, even taken as many pictures! Whoops....)

The start in Calgary is one of the longer starts. I.e. in Park City my goal time is in the low teens (5.13, 5.12 were my personal best pushes coming out of Trials) but in Calgary my personal best was a 5.67.

They had some groove issues all week - the left groove would pull left into the wall before curve 1, and the right groove would pull right, or vice versa depending on the day, and almost never went straight. Here they are working at the start:

Cutting the grooves. If I could choose a job, I'd be the one that gets to ride on the cutter.

And here they are finessing the groove.

Here's a video of the push in Calgary, just during training.

Coming out of the Calgary kreisel (a 280 or 360 degree curve) there is usually a pretty large tap, lefthanded, that I was worried about affecting my sore left ribs. But then, when I hit, I remember thinking "This is like a mosquito bite!" Compared to Whistler, that is. Heh.

This is the trickiest part of the track, the 8-kreisel portion:

It's super flat, so if you skid at ALL your speed plummets
There is a long straightaway before kreisel with opportunity for drifting and skidding
Curve 8 has funky pressures and is the one infamous for YouTube crashes (do a search for "Calgary Crash Reel" and this is that curve) making it hard to grease the straight

Here's the exit of 8 and through kreisel. The left handed hit is directly below the camera so you can't see it but can hear it a bit, and you can see me bouncing toward the right as I come back into view. It's hard to get right, but is still a fun section. I was doing alright down here, but was struggling 1-2 and 4-5, and this is one of those tracks where a SINGLE mistake means you lose huge time.

Here is my 4-5 transition - since most of you aren't used to watching lines it may LOOK ok, but listen and you can HEAR the sound of me washing out and losing time. Sounds like making shaved ice...

Race day, I was finally able to get my pushes down and set new Personal Bests / Personal Records (PRs / PBs, for those that haven't seen the acronyms yet)in the low 5.60s, finally cleaned up my 1-2 and 4-5, and after the first run was in 14th position! Very excited.

Second run, I again washed out of curve 4 and messed up my 8-9, sigh, and dropped back to 16th. Oh well, I had Park City and home ice to look forward to!

Here's Matt again, podiuming:

Plus, to help move on there was a party / reception at our hotel after the races. Where I spent most of the night dancing with Byron, the bobsled physio, since he knew how to swing dance! It had been a while for me, but started coming back.

And was a blast.

We roped Julie, the team chiro, into joining us.

Then hopped into the hot tub and went down the water slide at the hotel pool. Oops - I forgot about my mascara! That there is a scary Kimber...

Then it was time to throw my sled and runners in the van, crash for a couple hours of sleep, then get up at 4am to head to the airport. The travel to park City was long, but coming into Utah was just lovely.

It's a never ending journey!

Whistler World Cup - Thanksgiving Day

2010-12-13T09:13:00.001-07:00

My first World Cup took place at the new track in Whistler, BC Canada, home of the skeleton / bobsled / luge events of the 2010 Olympic Games this spring.

The area is beautiful, and the ice is amazing. So clear! I couldn't get over how clear - it looked like there was no ice in places, only concrete, but that wasn't the case. Here it looks bumpy, but is actually as smooth as glass.

For another example, this leaf appears to be sitting on top of the ice, but is actually at least 1/2 inch underneath.

It is a notoriously difficult track, as I'm sure you have heard. My first runs were painful, and it didn't get much better quickly! I spent all of my time sliding and recovering, and had no mental capacity for anything else. Therefore, not very many pictures for you, but here are the few I took.

Walking the track.

This is curve 16, infamous as the curve that had to be altered during the Olympics.

Here is a random blast from the past for a couple of you - remember backpacking France in 1997? Yes, it's YOP!

Whistler reminded me a lot of Alaska, especially when this little fellow dropped by. First I peeked through the blinds.

Then opened the door.

He/she was begging for scraps. As cute as it was, I couldn't oblige since "a fed bear is a dead bear."

Super cute though, and reminded me of our dog Jean Luc as it scampered over the snow.

It hung out for a couple hours....But back to sliding. Here is a video of curve 6, my nemesis, from training. I couldn't seem to get the timing right, and pretty much every run was a mess there. This first video is a moderately ok run, filmed at full speed:

This next video was filmed in high speed, so appears in slow motion, but you get the idea. My poor ribs slammed into the saddle almost every run:

I slid with them taped up actually, for the next 2 races! Oops. I will admit to some shaking of my confidence.

The day before the race, I had finally put two solid runs together and even made it through 6 ok, hurrah! And started to get (a little bit of) my confidence back.

Finally, it was time to race. Again, I made sure to hydrate well.

And isn't my sled handsome in his first World Cup outfit?

Then, unfortunately, in the actual race I again missed the timing in 6 and slammed out so hard I rode my shoulder for a moment! Oops again...I'll post a video if/when I get a copy of it, since I missed the broadcast.

But, it was alright in the end. I got my first-race-jitters out of the way, pushed well, slid well except for that curve, and came in 16th place.

After the race, we went to Thanksgiving dinner. (Yes, the women raced on Thanksgiving day, and I was truly thankful just to have the chance to be there.) The boys - actually, really only Matt Antoine, he's amazing in the kitchen - had cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner! A whole turkey, stuffing, gravy, vegetables.....thanks Matt! Best way to end the week.

For the men's race the next day, Matt must have earned some good karma by cooking us dinner, as he made the podium by placing 6th!

Congrats.

Then, humbled but still comfortable knowing I would get this track someday, it was time to take off for the next race in Calgary...

World Cup!!!

2010-11-29T09:27:00.001-07:00

I've been VERY lax about updating here, when quite important things have happened! I apologize... I know excuses are lame, so I just apologize.

In way of explanation, (though it's not nearly understandable) is that my time during the last week of trials was busy with work and sliding, then frantically packing / working to get ready to leave earlier than expected, and then the first world cup race in Whistler was so grueling and painful that all I did every day was slide and then try to recover from the track!

I'll post in a few days about the Whistler race and my World Cup debut, but all joking aside need to go put some ice on my ribs first. Hahah. I'll also try to put together a post about the rest of Team Trials, now that I have the energy to look at my computer.

In the meantime, suffice it to say that the rest of Trials went better, enough that the pieces came together in a miraculous chain of events that put me on the World Cup team, at least for the first half of the season!!!

Here's a copy of the USA Today / AP article that fills in the gaps a bit more. The author is great and a pleasure to talk to, and didn't make me sound anything like the blabberingly excited idiot I was when he called. Grin.

Flooding

2010-11-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

This is from June, but it was crazy and I just found these pics on my phone.

The spring melt came very late this year, so all of the reservoirs were getting low. The flow was cut off, and they filled back up....and then the spring melt hit hard and fast. For a couple days there were houses washing away by the Weber River, and I, unaware at first, came upon this during my commute to work:

You can see the top of the fence poking out of the water - this is a full fledged field most of the time!

I was an unsafe driver after that using my phone to take pictures.

The freeway was dry, but not much of the land on either side was.

Some of the pictures came out a little.....weird from the driving.

Waters like this haven't been seen in generations. They receded after a few days, and were mostly gone after a week, but they're still doing cleanup and recovery.

This is why we aren't supposed to build in the floodplain people!

Recipe: Roasted Red Pepper soup

2010-11-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

4-5 red peppers
olive oil
onion, chopped
garlic, chopped
cumin (or other spices as you please)
chicken/beef/vegetable stock, 4 cups
1 medium potato, chopped (to give the soup a bit more body)
sour cream
blender

To roast: cut them in quarters, pulling out seeds and stems. Lay them on a foil covered pan, and put in the oven at around 425 or so, for an hour or until the skins turn black. These could have been a bit more black, by the way.

Put them in an enclosed container for about 10 minutes to let the steam work. (Paper bag, tupperware, pan with tight lid.) Afterward, just pinch the skin with your fingers and pull it off. Presto!

In a pot, saute the onion, cumin, and garlic in the oil until soft, 5 minutes or so. Add the red pepper, potato, and broth, and bring to a boil, then simmer for about half an hour. Put a lid on so you don't lose too much broth.

In a blender, blend the soup in batches.

Return to the stove, and warm back up. You can either leave the soup here and garnish with cilantro and sour cream when you serve it, or you can add a few dollops of sour cream to be cooked into the soup. I chose the latter:

Unfortunately, I only had a few medium sized peppers, so I only got four servings for lunches this week. But it is SO tasty and worth the effort!

I also made a batch of my carrot ginger soup.....there's a whole post on this, but here are a few pics anyway. :)

Carrot ginger, and roasted red pepper. Awesome combo!

What a lovely kitchen counter.

What not to do in a gunfight...

2010-11-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

One of my recent projects took me to a remote part of the county to review a potential sniper training area (long story, sorry).

To contrast their controlled proposed project with the activities of the locals, we stopped by an unofficial shooting range, by a frontage road. And it certainly was pretty solid evidence of what we wouldn't want to see.

Shells left everywhere.

They'd been shooting at this couch, AND at the rocks. For the latter, it's natural selection at work...

But it taught me a surprising lesson - you know in movies how the hero always dives behind a couch or other piece of furniture for protection? Well, after looking at the back of the couch, all I can say is that if you're ever in a gunfight....my advice to you is....

DON'T DO THAT!

The persistence of a dog

2010-11-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

After a long day, doesn't this chair look comfortable?

Jean Luc and I both eyed it. I got there first, but he wasn't far behind. Hah, it's mine, bwah hah hah...uh...Jean Luc....um...sharing wasn't what I had in mind.

Wait, if you think you can just keep climbing up here you've got another think coming...um, didn't you hear me?

Well, you made it up. You know you aren't a lap dog, right? Right?

Ok, now what? You think if you just sit there, all prim and proper like, eyeballing me out of the sides of your eyes, that I'll pet you?

WHOA! What are my arms doing??? They betray me.

You don't have to look so smug about it...ok, yeah, go ahead and get comfortable.

Well, what can I say?

Goodbye hair!

2010-11-04T10:24:00.000-06:00

you've probably noticed a change in me in the last few posts, so....well, I've had both short hair and long hair in the time that most of you have known me, but it's been probably 3 years since I had short hair.

So it had gotten pretty long.

It's usually stick straight, but I'd had it in a braid so it's all squiggly.

And it was time to say farewell to some chunks.

Some LONG chunks, which were donated to Locks of Love.

And the result is awesome.

This is after the stylist styled it.

But the awesome thing is that I don't have to do much to it!

This is after a shower and a brushing only, then a day of work, then a workout! I can handle that.

It's even great with sliding - I was worried it would be too short to manage with my helmet, but it's just fine.

So, I don't think I'll be going long again for a while!

Goodbye beard!

2010-11-01T09:49:00.000-06:00

As you all know, Brad grew out his beard this summer, for the first time ever. At this stage, I thought it was pretty hot:

But it just kept growing....

It became quite bushy...

And when he fluffed it out...

I finally agreed that it was time to cut it.

But there were some pitstops along the way.

The "friendly mutton chops" (connected by a moustache, thus the "friendly" part).

Ugh!!! He was lucky I got this close to him....

But it only got worse. He's contemplating the next step...

Um....

BLECH!!!

He had to keep this for a day to show a couple friends.

So it participated in a few different looks.

We told him he should go to an elementary school and try to volunteer! That would have gone over well, no? ;)

So the next shaving step was the walrus. He tried to twist the ends, but not QUITE long enough.

And then, finally, my honey was back! Yay!

Um, it's a hard life sometimes ;)

2010-10-28T10:34:00.003-06:00

Yes, Lake Placid is in the middle of nowhere. Yes, traveling here is long and painful. Yes, we live in the training center, where the primary activities consist of eating, working out, and playing video games. (No, I didn't say prison...)

But sometimes it had its perks. It's a very beautiful area, especially in autumn. And we have great company. And the perks of a training center, such as Sports Med where we can get our sore muscles treated every day.

And, once in a while, there's recovery Whiteface Lodge style!

A friend of ours was up visiting for a few days and stayed at the lodge, so in between races and training, we swung by to visit him and his wife one evening.

The lodge is quite grand, in the hunter/rustic interpretation of grandeur.

Yes, those are antlers of some sort.

Even the simple hallway lights.

And the art was...unique.

When we finished ogling and enjoying the decorations, we headed to their room. We didn't know there would be a theme....

But surprise! There were robes for all.

It's funny, you don't realize how tall Brad is until a moment like this. Notice that Morgan and I both have robes that come to our ankles.

But wait - these are one-size-fits-all right? Why then does Brad's come to his knees?

Oh, right, he's a giant.

The slippers fit me just fine, but, um, Brad's were a little small.

Then we set out on an adventure to find the pool and hot tub. Landon tried to figure it out.

Apparently, it required an elevator....that tried to make us feel like we were in the woods....

...then two flights of stairs, and a really really long underground tunnel.

At last we arrived. Part of the pool was inside...

...with a tunnel to the outside.....

...where the water was heated to 85 degrees.

We hung out in the hot tub for a while, and swam around, and then decided we needed some sustenance. No drinking since we're racing this week, so instead we opted for a healthier snack.

The lodge had a nice fire going, which we gathered around. Next to it was a basket with chocolate, marshmallows, and sticks.....here are the boys utilizing these tools.

To make the perfect:

Brad got a little overzealous with his s'more eating.

Mmmmm. And what better to go along with s'mores than a little music?

Kyle, and occasionally Landon, played a series of tunes for us. Who knew skeleton athletes had so much talent?

It was a lovely relaxing evening away from the training center, our minds on something other than sliding and the stress of racing. The next day I pushed two PRs in training, so it must have helped!

(PS - I'm writing this a couple days before it shows up on the blog, which means that as you read this, we'll have just finished our second Lake Placid race!!! And will be on our way to the Albany airport, heading home. The race report won't happen until I get home, due to the race delay making us go straight from the track to the airport. I'll try to have it up quickly though.)

Skeleton lesson: runners and balance

2010-10-27T11:12:00.001-06:00

After race 1, when I couldn't figure out at first how I'd lost time the whole way down the track when my runs both felt solid if not amazing, I double checked my sled balance point and realized that, oops! I did it to myself.

Well, lesson learned. For those skeleton athletes reading this, ROOKIE mistake, I know, and for race 2 it won't happen again. ;)

But for those of you not in the skeleton world and hip to the lingo, you're probably wondering: how does one balance a sled and what is a balance point? Well.....

The runners are designed with a round part (trust me this is shiny, carefully sanded with high grit paper through a lengthy process for another lesson, but the flash makes it look weird):

And a grooved part, a groove / spine combo that acts like the tail of a kite and helps keep you straight. This part gives you the ability to steer by body motion, subtly changing which part of the runner touches the ice (also nicely sanded, but doesn't look like it here):

You balance by placing the weights inside the sled (and that's a whole other lesson, allowable weight maximums and minimums and so on) at a point where you can balance on or near the junction of the "spine" and the "round." Some spines are wide, short, narrow, long; grooves can be shallow, deep, wide, narrow, steeply angled, shallowly angled......etc.

The result of a balance point: you're sliding down the track on only a portion of the runner at any time. Balance is important......

Too far forward and your weight is on the rounds only, meaning you can break into a skid more easily and have much less control.
Too far back and your weight is on the spines and, depending on the hardness of the ice you either
a) also increase skidding (picture a speedboat nose up in the water on step and apply the image to a sled), or
b) have too much control and shave ice the whole way down the track. (This is slow btw!)

To test, you use a round stick, wooden to keep from hurting the runners, and lay the sled on top of it. In a pinch, a broom or shovel at the track start serves well. But Brad brought a nice short stick with him, so I borrowed it.

Then, you make sure the stick is at the right point either on or near the junction point, depending on the runner. First go by feel, feeling for the junction.

Then, for this set of runners, a mark. I marked the correct spot on the side of the runners with a sharpie, but then the marks ended up on the inside so here I am with a flashlight looking for the markers. Oops.

Fine tune it.

Then hop on. (Well, actually, please don't hop or you'll knock it off the right point, heh.)

Adjust back if needed.

The goal: make sure that the place you lay on the sled will result in balancing evenly on that spot. With a "saddle" as fitted to my body as mine is, I can't move very far forward or back on the sled, so I have to move weights inside the sled instead. And, different runner cuts can balance differently, so you need to keep aware of which cuts balance where and in what position. Aargh!

But here, Viola!

My roommate tested hers later that day on a broom handle:

Adjusting.

She had to move her weights, which meant opening up her sled. A pain...removing tape...

And opening the yoga mat padding/covering....

And I can't show you more since sled interiors are proprietary....but there were more steps than that!

Either way, once you find your balance point, memorize that position so when you load the sled, you can immediately get into the right place before the first curve.

Warm weather + ice = ....THIS

2010-10-26T10:10:00.001-06:00

Another delay! The race has been pushed from Wednesday (the 27th, tomorrow) to Thursday (the 28th).

Monday's sliding session was a test for the track and track crew. Warm overnight temps plus warmer morning temperatures resulted in FROSTY and SOFT ice.

Before sliding, I took a trackwalk. Brad dropped me off at the finish so I could walk bottom to top (my preferred method).

In the first (last/bottom) curve, I could see it.....and for those that haven't met a frosty track yet, this is what it looks like.

In temperatures like this you can almost see it grow. Here we are up close and personal.

And too personal with this guy, happily hanging out on the ice. I hope I ran him over with my sled (yes, I have a wee phobia....and sorry for offending any spider lovers out there).

The warmth can also mean uneven freezing. Here's a patch of smooth ice surrounded by frost. Depending on how much of this there is, there could be a stop-and-go effect on your runners.

Frost = slow, so I was happy to come across the first group of track crew. These guys are using a roller brush to sweep the frost down.

Doesn't this look better?

I came across another group of track crew - they were shoveling the swept snow out of the track. And this guy is Tony, the track manager. He's out there scraping the ice too!

I stopped to pay homage to chicane - this crooked straightaway likes to bite me.

It still doesn't look promising - here's some weeping ice.

Even with all their work, however, the times were dismally slow. My first run was a 65.54 second run, and that's with another PR push (a 5.55)!!! If you haven't paid attention to numbers yet, usual times for the ladies are 56-58 seconds, so that was over 8 seconds slow.

8 seconds may not sound like much, but it's actually a LOT, and let me tell you that it felt like I was sliding in slow motion!

After even the men weren't getting times any better than 62 second runs (typical runs for them are 54-56 seconds), Tony decided to take more action.

Loudspeaker: "Attention athletes. There will be a 20 minute delay." For what? To spritz the track (spray it down with fresh water to freeze into a smooth surface). Hurrah!

Since the 20 minute delay turned into 25, then 30, there was a lot of sitting around.

Some people napped on the floor.

Others hung out and visited.

Some just watched the scene.

The bobsledders came and got lined up, only to find that everything was delayed.

(Speaking of bobsledders - haha, see what my iPhone spellchecked it to in this email to a friend:)

Finally, they announced the 10 minute warning, then the 5 minute warning. Here's Brad warming up - women slid first today so the boys warmed up while we got started again.

I love the little kid in camo pants, running and doing "As and Bs" with the athletes.

The spritz was awesome - what did I say my first run was? 65.54 seconds? Well....the second run was just a BIT better....at 58.24 seconds. That's an improvement of 7.30 seconds, an eon in the skeleton world.

The best part is that...wait, there are two best parts, no, I mean three:

I pushed two PRs of 5.55 and 5.53 since it was my fast training day.
Finally got my runners figured out and took one run on each set today, both of them performing fabuously.
I was 2nd on both runs, and closer to the girl in first than previously.

___________________________________________________________

Here's a piece of the timesheet - have fun looking it over and comparing everyone's first run to their second. There's a lot of info on there, so the important times are in the "1" (start) and "finish" columns.

Whoops! (Skeleton Trials 2010 - Race 1)

2010-10-25T10:14:00.000-06:00

After 6 days of sliding, variable weather ranging from warm to cold, ice ranging from soft to hard and slow to fast, and track mechanical issues causing a one-day postponement, race day finally arrived.

Friday, 10/22/2010 dawned cold with a dusting of snow, and then on the drive to the track, the snow began dumping down. Brad and I both sat in silence during the drive, praying to make it in our rental (of all things, a Dodge Charger with slick tires).

But unlike the first day of sliding when we didn't make it to the track due to intense snow that closed the road from the training center to the track, we finally arrived at the top of the track.

And sat inside at first to stay out of the rainy snow.

We all mentally prepared in our own way. I made sure to be wearing the right socks, in honor of our dog, Jean Luc, the Giant Schnauzer / Standard Poodle mix you all know and love!

And fully hydrate - there's black tea in case I need a bit of caffeine, powerade, and plain water.

This had the added benefit of distracting me from stress by making me go to the ladies room a half dozen times before the race!

As for Brad, to distract himself from the nerves and stress, he played a game on his phone.

Look at that concentration.

But then, he beat the game. Now what?

Thankfully, it was about time to warm up, and then go watch the forerunners (sleds that go down before the racers to test the track equipment). Everyone came out.

We all lined up in anticipation. We were watching the forerunner's sled in the grooves, which are cut into the first bit of the track and end before the first curve to help up push straight and make it into the first curve ok.

The day before, about 80% of us had "popped the groove" and skidded into the first curve due to how shallow the ice was, and how melted out the groove. These grooves look pretty sweet.

Finally, it was time for the race. I don't have a lot of pictures since we were busy!!!

Without going into a lot of detail, Brad had his best Lake Placid finish ever (7th), and also had two PR pushes (5.20 and then 5.19 seconds). Awesome, and I am super proud!

Now the whoops - for me, I also had my best Lake Placid finish in terms of numbers (4th), but when accounting for the 2 women that retired and also how I was doing in training (1st-3rd), I was hoping for better. Sigh.

The silver lining of the day was my push - I finally beat my PR of 5.64, actually smashed it by quite a bit in push terms:

Yes, I was very happy. Very! Thanks coach (Tim O'Mara / ATP Fitness) for the fantastic training this summer and the past 3 years! Couldn't have done it without you.

The other silver lining: there are 3 more races, and two of them are on our home track of Park City! And both Brad and I are having a lot of fun sliding, after a long rough season last year.

Wish us luck!

OTC - Crazy Therapy Style

2010-10-22T09:05:00.000-06:00

One of the things we spend a LOT of time doing here at the OTC is recovery. After every workout, training activity, sliding session, we spend between 1-2 hours focused on recovery.

First, we'll shower and stretch and / or foam roll our muscles. Then, well, in previous posts, you've seen the cold tub that we hang out in, but have I ever shown you these?

These are the Pants. By inflating various compartments, they help to flush the lactic acid out of your legs. It's not altogether pleasant, but I'll swear by them. Enough that if they were reasonably priced, we'd have a set at home!

We usually sit in them for 15-30 minutes, and afterward? Well, first it takes a few minutes before you can walk, but you have the added benefit of looking like spiderman.

I had fun taking pics while waiting for blood flow to return.

It's like a strange form of body art!

After the Normatec pants, we'll then go spend some time in the cold tub or an ice bath, and then walk around in hoodies and warm pants all day, hunched over a mug of tea or coffee, still shivering regardless of the weather. But I can tell you, it's all worth it.

How to build a runner case

2010-10-20T09:11:00.000-06:00

Traveling can be very hard on our skeleton sled runners. While most of the time my runners are ok, twice now, I've opened my runner case (a cheap gun case, with the runners somewhat orderly but still loose) upon arrival somewhere only to find that TSA, in their diligent nation-protecting efforts, have rifled through and moved things and caused the runners to criss-cross, bending over each other. And twice is too many, since....

...BENT RUNNERS ARE SLOW RUNNERS...

So this summer, Brad and I set out to stop this problem, and figured out how to make the perfect runner case:

Get an awesome donation from Pelican, the maker of the most bulletproof gun cases out there. (This thing is water and air tight, with valves to allow decompression on airplanes!).

Buy a sheet of styrofoam insulation ala Home Depot.

Realize you (read: Brad) bought a piece that's too big to put inside the car.

Tie styrofoam to the roof.

Have foam start to blow off the roof.

Hold styrofoam onto roof with arms out windows.

While on a work call on cell phone.

Pull off of the freeway.

Chop styrofoam into pieces with car keys. (Alas, I don't have any pictures of this drama since I was on the phone!)

Stuff styrofoam into car.

When you finally get home home, try to make a hot-wire styrofoam cutter.

Fail.

Borrow one from a friend.

Open up the Pelican case.
Remove the soft foam padding.

Use the padding as a pattern to cut out styrofoam blocks.

Test them with the case.

Um, burn out the friend's AC adapter.

Try to replace it with adapters from the recycle center.

Fail.

Cannibalize adapters from other stuff in your basement.

Succeed!

Cut holes in the foam blocks for the runner blocks.

Cut bigger central holes for storage.

Build the lower layer by planing a block into thin sheets.

Use the top as a pattern to cut the thin sheets into the bottom layer.

Put the two layers together.

Tape the case padding together.

Admire the finished product.
f

Fit it into the Pelican case.

Do a test pack of the stuff that will go under the runners.

Put in some runners.

Viola! First test: flying to lake Placid earlier this week, and, drumroll.......

We arrived in Lake Placid this week with our runners in tip-top shape.

Team Trials Day 1 - FAIL!

2010-10-18T09:05:00.000-06:00

After a miserably long trip out to Placid...

over 13 hours

a delayed flight

my piriformis/glute cramping so badly I had to do therapy in agony on the airport floor during the layover

(there's a softball under there btw)

and Brad getting food poisoning so that our 2 hour drive to Placid (in the rain) turned into a 2.5+ hour drive since we had to pull over twice for, um, cleansing.....

and arriving at 3am....

Anyway, after all that, we got up this morning and put our sleds together, all excited for sliding.

Then, the rain turned to this:

And the roads to this:

Being from Alaska, I wouldn't have worried, until we got halfway to the track. "Sliding in 2 hours!!!" I said, so excited.

At about that moment, we came across a roadblock. The road was CLOSED, so badly that they TURNED THE SNOWPLOWS AROUND too!

Sliding canceled for today. Frown.

In good news though, I got all settled in.

A normal bed, and my roommate:

My bed, the frame tilted up so the mattress is on the floor, to give my back more support:

It has the added bonus of providing places for things to hang, i.e. towels and ID/key, and a place to store things behind. Very convenient. ;)

Anyway, I also got some work done and put out a few fires, had therapy and concussion baseline testing done at Sports Med, and overall had a productive day, but am still bummed that we didn't get to slide. :(

TOMORROW!!!!

Does this look dangerous?

2010-10-12T10:19:00.000-06:00

We can't always push at the pushtrack at the Olympic Park due to their schedule. Plus, it's dangerous to the wildlife!

Also, it's good to get away from the heavy and over-stable pushtrack sled, and practice on an actual wheeled sled since it feels more like a sled on ice. So, sometimes our coach, Tim O'Mara will break out the wheeled sled at the gym (ATP Fitness in Salt Lake City), and he'll work with us on various stages of the start.

The only problem: stopping can be difficult.

And we're aimed right at some expensive equipment.

But (knock on wood) so far nothing has gotten broken, and our push times are continually improving (Saturday 10/9/2010 Brad and I both had PR (personal record) pushes on the pushtrack!).

Wish us luck at Trials; we fly to Placid Thursday (10/14) and are on the ice the next day!

Road biking - with Brad!

2010-10-04T08:46:00.000-06:00

Another Brad related miracle...

I've had a road bike for a couple years, ever since I broke both wrists (remember that? Blech) and was only allowed to ride road. But Brad has had no interest in road biking, thanks to:

all the idiot drivers that think they own the road and bikers are trespassing, and want to drive bikes off the road, and
all the idiot bikers that don't obey traffic laws, which then just makes the drivers madder....

I'll get off my soap box now. Sorry, can't help it.

But...one day this fall...a nice afternoon came around...and surprise! We have a road bike for him. Bought it for $15 on Craigslist last summer (and then put a bit of work into it to make it go, heh). Even though it's ancient and has downtube shifters...he looks a little dubious.

Is he really going to get on....yep.

Will he just ride around the neighborhood? Nope...

We rode out to the Swaner Nature Preserve and back, which gave us about an 8 mile round trip.

I almost killed myself riding with one hand for a while, trying to get the camera to work, but finally I got an action shot.

Then a self portrait, just 'cause.

When we got home, we made sandwiches. Brad was super helpful, and made mine for me. It felt a little lumpy, and when I opened the bread, found only these:

The verdict? (The ride, not the grape sandwich...): Thumbs up! He'll even go again, as long as we stay in low-traffic areas. Can do!

Fall already? (Or, what a difference a week makes.)

2010-09-30T09:07:00.001-06:00

(Disclaimer - these photos were all taken with my phone, so they aren't as crisp as usual. Sorry!)

When we left for Lake Placid on the 11th, the trees were all still green and happy. But 8 days later, we came home to this:

Attempted zoomed shot:

Crazy! In one week it switched from summer to fall. We're still in summer training, so it seems a little fast. Brad at the pushtrack yesterday:

But it is very scenic, and I like the cooler temperatures, and of course it's a vivid reminder that the skeleton season is almost upon us.

A vivid reminder!

Evening bike ride - dog pictures

2010-09-24T09:20:00.000-06:00

Jean Luc and I have been doing a lot of biking - well, frequent biking, not distance biking. He can only make about a half hour before he's toast, so we just do short rides. We've been good at getting out a couple mornings a week at a local trail, before work and before other people get out so we have it to ourselves.

A couple days ago, Brad and I decided to do an evening ride. We were worn out from training and decided to skip running and do a mellow bike ride instead.

It's funny, Jean Luc's Pavlovian response always kicks in when he sees me put on bike shorts, and he starts running around like crazy wanting to go.

He loves to run on the trails.

He is really good too - he knows "in front" and "behind" the bikes, will wait for me when I say wait, will leave behind things he wants to sniff / chew when I say "leave it" and is all around not a pain in the butt on bike rides!

Plus, he's just so cute out there. Here he's doing a little sprint.

Unfortunately, I'm not good at catching him in an ALL OUT sprint. Instead, you get the Picasso version...

The cool thing about the night ride was the sunset. Here's Brad riding out of it.

The sun angle gave me the shadow to take a picture of both Jean Luc and myself...

Like I said, he doesn't last long, and after our 32 minute ride he's buried in the water bowl.

And his tongue is doing this.

Then when we get home he does this for at least an hour, panting the whole time.

But he loves it so the suffering must be worth his while. And I love it too.

You'll never believe what Brad did! (pics)

2010-09-23T08:52:00.002-06:00

So as you know, this is what Brad usually looks like (Vegas trip this spring).

We've been together for over 6 years now (gasp!), and he's always been clean shaven or with just a bit of 5 o'clock shadow. So when this happened, I had to document it!

He stopped shaving right around the Tahoe trip, either before or just after July 31st (pic at the Real Salt Lake soccer game):

He went to this (Tahoe trip):

I've always asked him to let it grow, but usually he can't make it past the scruffy stage since it itches so badly...but somehow he persevered through to this (on our way to physical testing in late August):

To this (at the Miner's Day celebration in Park City - that's Labor Day to the rest of you):

To this (right before we left for Lake Placid):

In the above picture, you can see that this stage brought about strangulation by Ewok, so he started trimming his neck and the edges. It looked great (at the OTC cafeteria in Placid):

And at the end of the Placid trip it was this:

I love it, he wants to shave it, what's your vote? If you vote shave, you've gotta let us know what style / design he should shave it into first. :)

National Push Championships!

2010-09-21T09:43:00.004-06:00

Brad and I spent the last week (9/11-9/19/10) out in Lake Placid for a team camp, combine testing, and the National Push Championships. This was for the National Team as well as for a group of pretty talented rookies that had been invited after successful combine testing throughout the summer at locations across the country.

On the first day, we did the camp combine testing. This is the ultra-marathon event consisting of sprints (15meter, 30m, 45m, 30m fly), a standing broad jump, a shot put forward throw, cleans, and squats. It was a rainy, miserable day so I didn't take any pictures, but testing went well anyway:

15m - 2.51 seconds (64 pts)
30m - 4.43 seconds (66 pts)
45m - 6.29 seconds (67 pts)
30 fly - 3.78 (81 pts)
broad jump - 2.3 meters (73 pts)
ball toss - 12.4 meters (96 pts)
power clean - 70 kilos (154 lbs, 86 pts)
squat - 87.5 kilos (192.5, 93 pts)
total: 624 points

My results were pretty much better or consistent with my last test, so am happy, but will keep working on the sprints - they need to improve, a lot.

I also went a little lighter than last year on my clean and squat due to my back / glute issues, plus once you get to that level more weight isn't worth many more points. I.e. one girl squatted 110 kilos (242 lbs), which was almost 50 lbs more than me, but only got 5 more points. Diminishing returns so I think I'm done increasing weights for a while, especially since I am plenty strong and should work on the sprinting more instead.
___________________________________________________

As for the push championships themselves, they were held on the Lake Placid pushtrack, since the ice isn't down on the track yet. We push a wheeled sled on rails, with rubber laid alongside to give us something for our spikes to push on.

After pushing down a hill designed to mimic the start of the ice track, the pushtrack then goes back uphill to slow us down.

And then, if you're going fast enough, the sled catches a wire and slingshots back. You ride the sled back down and up to the start.

Here's a video that someone took of one of my training pushes, and she filmed all the way down and back so you can see how it works. I was working on modifying my starting position, so there's some dead air time there, sorry. :)

They also do bobsled training on this track, but unfortunately they didn't train near our times, so I don't have any video or photos to show you.

One day we walked to the end of the pushtrack.

And found a surprising view.

So we had to pose.

Anyway, back to pushing. There are a variety of start and push options. The two handed push:

The one handed push:

The Thor's Hammer push (you can't tell here, but he threw the sled ahead of him):

The right side push:

I've been working on a new start, but for my race push, ended up going back to my two-to-one push (you'll see in the video below, right when I start), and was able to push a pushtrack PR (Personal Record) of 5.66 seconds. That's only 0.02 seconds slower than my ice PR and means I should be able to PR on the ice this season! Very very happy...

Heh, you can see I forgot to take my iPod off, so went down with it. Oops...nevertheless I ended up in second place, behind Annie who is an amazing pusher.

I didn't get a video of Brad's race pushes, but here's one of his training runs.

In the race, he came in 8th out of 24, solidly in the mix with the other veteran sliders and saw improved push times all week. In fact, we both feel like we learned a lot this week, and made big strides in our pushing.

The group after photo:

Nice job to both the veterans and the rookies. Brad and I are both really happy with our results, and glad we went.

After the race, we went back to our rooms, and I laid down to stretch my back and read and relax for a bit. About a half hour later, Brad came by and stuck his head in...and found me like this, Kindle on the floor...I didn't make it very far:

I guess I was tired...but now we're home and back in the swing of things. You know what's crazy? We'll be back out there, on the ice, in less than a month. One month!

Buttcheeks!

2010-09-07T09:46:00.000-06:00

LMAO....

Driving up Parley's Canyon on I-80 after working out one day, Brad and I were passed by a woman on a motorcycle. Something caught my eye...that just wasn't right.

We stopped talking and dropped our jaws mid-sentence. And busted up laughing as Brad scrambled for the camera. As I accelerated to 80 mph in an attempt to catch up for a clear shot.

Could it really be as bad as it looked from a distance?

Oh. Oh yes. Oh yes, indeed it could.

Bwah hah hah hah hah hah!

Team Camp - 2010. Wheelchair basketball, sledgehammers, and more!

2010-09-03T13:19:00.001-06:00

In early June, I flew to Colorado Springs for the National Team camp. It was my first time invited, since until this last season I've always been 1-2 people away from the official "National Team."

It was to be a week of teambuilding, training, meetings, volunteering, etc., but I only went for the last few days due to my foot and back injuries. At the time, it didn't seem worth it to go when I'd have to sit out every physical activity. Sprinting? No go. Weightlifting? No go. Yoga? No go.

Turns out I'd timed it perfectly - the day I got there, the team activity was water polo! How perfect is that?

We didn't pull any punches either, even if we were cheating with floaty belts...and for some people, flippers...

The next day, the team activity was wheelchair basketball! Again, how perfect??? It was fate.

A member of the US National Wheelchair Basketball team put us through our paces.

Coach Shimer was a natural.

It was super hard to shoot from a seated position - and I've never been good to start with!

(Which made it that much better when I actually scored a few!)

There was a lot of carnage....

Me:

And many more:

Notice that we're always laughing at the crash victims. Not a sympathetic bunch, are we?

People weren't the only casualties - we lost a couple chairs too.

We finally got to play.

At one point, we had to do a drill where we sat in two rows and passed the ball across to each other. After we threw the ball, we had to wheel as fast as possible to the other end of the line, hopefully in time to catch it again, and had to do this until our whole group made it the length of the court. Here's a shot of the action:

I also made it in time for the reception for several sponsors,

and a visit to a picnic for the Wounded Warriors.

For some reason, at the picnic the boys sledgehammered a bumper off a car. I never figured out why, but the crowd loved it.

They all signed their names to the bumper and posed proudly.

We also had meetings with our new coach, an awards ceremony for various achievements over the year (I didn't take my camera), and general teambuilding and bonding. It was a pretty sweet weekend and I felt very lucky to be able to participate.

Vegas - 2010

2010-08-30T09:51:00.000-06:00

I know it looks like we traveled a lot this spring - and we did. Brad and I went to Florida to visit his family (see previous posts) and also to Vegas to celebrate our 5th anniversary (7 months late since our anniversary is in September, a bad time for us to go anywhere due to training and skeleton). In addition, I went to New Orleans for work, and to Colorado Springs for the national team camp. Phew! Exhausting just remembering it.

It's nice to have been home / stationary for a while. Picks up again in September for skeleton push championships (over our 6th anniversary, so expect a post in March about how we celebrate late again, heh).

Anyway, Vegas is fantastic. It's cheap since it's so close, and we can find deals on hotels. (Or get help from the in-laws as a gift, grin.) It's a 45 minute flight away, and offers beach amenities without having to go to Bora Bora.

We didn't gamble a single penny during the trip since there's just so much to do and see! And so many interesting (weird) people to watch!

We ate a lot...and I didn't care since I was still in "I'm injured" self-pity mode, but I've long since worked it off, thankfully! This buffet at the Wynn was decadent.

Went to a Keith Urban concert at the Hard Rock Cafe. He's fabulous live, in case you wondered. One of the best guitarists I've ever seen and the most passionate!

I kept taking pictures of the bassist since he looks (and stands, and holds his jaw) just like my friend Kristoffer. and I wanted to send a copy to him.

We went to La Reve, a theatre-in-the-round show of acrobatic dance and water movements that rival any Cirque de Soleil.

In typical Vegas over-the-topness, the seats came with champagne and chocolate and flowers.

We walked the strip and watched the moon come out from behind the Palazzo.

Rode the monorail.

Walked through the crazy gardens at the various casinos - this one is at the Bellagio.

We also rode a couple rollercoasters, did some shopping, sat by the pool, sat in the hot tub, and generally relaxed. And then came home, happy to sleep in our own bed and thankful that we only spent 2 days there. We love Vegas, but it's best in small doses!

The agony of training...

2010-08-27T10:55:00.000-06:00

Well, it's not really agony to train....except those moment when you think you'll throw up (me yesterday) or you get cramps in your glutes so bad you have to hobble around the track crying to loosen them (also me yesterday).

But those aside, training itself isn't agony.

It's the recovery. If you don't stretch out right, foam roll / softball roll your muscles (or better, get a massage if you can afford it), get the right vitamins, eat healthy, etc., your body simply can't handle and recover from the workouts.

The most fun part: ice baths.

Meant to force all the lactic acid tainted blood from your muscles to help flush them clean, it's exactly what it sounds like.

You start with a bathtub of cold water. Coldest that will come out of the tap.

Add a couple of these (a couple meaning whole bags, not handfuls).

So that it looks like this.

Then comes...this.

And the mean words just come out of your mouth at the photographer.

You click "start" on the 14 minute timer (shorter or longer depending on the ice amount and the workout).

You MUST bring something to pass the time, especially the first couple minutes.

After a couple minutes, you get used to it. And the dog comes to get a nice frosty beverage.

At the end, you hardly notice how cold it is....except you notice how cold the house is, and the bed, and how you need a sweatshirt the rest of the day. But the legs? Ah, they feel SO much better, so it's totally worth it.

Tahoe 2010 - part 3 (Rob & Michelle's Wedding)

2010-08-24T09:36:00.001-06:00

Somehow, we got ready and to the wedding on time. In fact, they were still setting up. Phew!

I love how they set up the chairs around the vegetation.

And even with such a short time to prep, I think we look pretty good!

Channeling Paris Hilton.

Then it was wedding time....here comes the groom. We all cheered and whistled.

The bride was escorted by her two sons, 12 and 14 I think. Very very cool.

The ceremony was short but lovely.

Kiss the bride!!!

Then it was time to carry our chairs over to the tables, mingle, visit, and get ready for dinner.

The Utah crew and the happy couple.

The setting was gorgeous - we all talked about how much we'd love to move out.

Brad and I met Milly the dog. Yes, this is bigger than her head.

Super excited...

And wouldn't stop...

She was like a miniature Jean Luc, so we couldn't say no.

Here it is again once more just 'cause this shot is my favorite:

We played in the water.

And started what would become a foot theme...

Then on to the food! Yay!

Rolls?

The cake!

Pretty clever...

We LOVED that we could be barefoot the whole time. The chicas:

Then we headed out to the pier.

I happened to wear a swimsuit under my dress, and since it was pretty hot, I stripped down and climbed down the ladder. Craig came after...

And tried to push me into the water. "Why is she so strong?"

I jumped in anyway, and it was fantastic! My dress was made of a slinky material, so you couldn't tell when it got wet after I put it back on. :) Best impulse purchase ever.

Matt and Lis on the pier.

While wandering, we gathered some pinecones. They aren't large there at all.

Time for the toast!

And the first dance.

Then we ALL could dance, hurrah!

Brad getting his groove on.

I love dancing.

At one point, all the women had to dance with the groom.

One guy actually knew how to swing dance, which was a lot of fun, but he took it WAY too seriously. :) LOVE the look on his face here...

Oh, and notice how I had to tie up my skirt to free the legs a bit...

Then, sunset.

Time to head home, change, and go to the after party. The party was at a friend of Rob's, and the grass was SO lush that we again took a barefoot picture. Which I don't have now, but will try to get a hold of and post later. :)