2 more days!

Can you believe it?! 2 more days until my first international race! eeeeeee!

I got my USA speedsuit yesterday, and my sled inspected today, so I’m all set! Tomorrow will be our final day of training and then Thursday is the big race. I’ve been sliding really well this week (knock on wood) so hopefully I can continue on into Thursday.  If I slide well enough, I think I can medal! I also hit my highest top speed yesterday at 118.76 km which is about 73.8 mph. Sweet!

I’m so excited (and nervous obviously) and can’t believe that it’s almost here.  It’s definitely bittersweet– the race will be my last two trips down Mt. Van Hoevenberg until next season, so I’ll have to make them count! I’m really excited to come home on Friday as well to see my family and friends!

I’ll make sure to post the race results after Thursday’s race to let you know how I did!

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Because I’ve been threatened with death…

….here’s a new post. You better be happy Alyssa (and Dad).

This past week has been absolutely nuts, hence the lack of updates. Here’s what my day typically looks like:

8am- Wake up
8:30- Breakfast
9-11am  Curve Theory Seminar or Meeting
12pm- Lunch
12:45- Leave for track
1:45- Track Walk
2:30-4:30- Sliding
5:30- Dinner
6:30-8pm- Video Session

So, by the time this is all over I have to motivate myself to get work done (because I still have a job) and then after that, I have no desire to do anything but watch TV and not function.  I also have to find time to do any necessary sled repairs (sanding runners) or shoe repairs, as well as find a time to workout and get in some recovery in Sports Med.  Whoever said being an athlete was easy is WRONG.  It’s exhausting.

Anyway, I’ve been sliding really, really well this week and the coaches are super impressed. So (knock on wood) hopefully I’ll continue to slide well and improve. Otherwise, I’ll finish out this week with the FIBT school and then next week, official training begins on Monday thru Wednesday for the America’s Cup race, with the race on Thursday.

I’m excited for the race, but I’ll have to work really hard to make the podium. Because the World Championships will be held here next year, teams are sending some of their World Cup athletes to compete so they can get extra ice time to prep for next year.  The gold medal winner from Vancouver, who slides for Great Britain, will be competing with the women. Sooo, yes, it will be tough, so we’ll see.

I’ve been walking in and out of the video session that’s currently happening (see how busy I am!?!) and here’s a video of my second run from yesterday. It was really good!

Some awesome news….a week late

Sorry for the delay in posting! It’s been a busy week and I’ve had so much to do that I didn’t have time to post!

Anyway, I found out last Monday that I’ve been selected to attend the FIBT Driving School and for the America’s Cup races! For those who don’t know what this means, let me explain.  First of all, the FIBT is the governing body for skeleton and bobsled. They host an international driving school each year at Lake Placid and for the countries that attend, you only get so many spots.  Only four girls from the developmental crew got selected, and I was one of them.

The America’s Cup is one of the circuits within the program that you can race on.  There are four circuits total: World Cup, Intercontinental Cup, Europa Cup and America’s Cup.  The AC is one of the circuits that developmental athletes can slide on and use to qualify to be able to slide on the WC and ICC circuits.

In order to qualify for the WC or ICC cup, an athlete needs to fulfill the 5-3-2 requirement.  This is 5 races on 3 tracks within 2 years.  Once I compete in this AC race (which is composed of 2 races) I’ll only need 3 more races on 2 different tracks until I’m qualified!

So that’s my awesome news, I’m super psyched about it. Unfortunately it does mean I’ll be in Lake Placid until April 2nd or 3rd, but it will definitely be worthwhile, being that I’ll be able to compete in my first FIBT-sanctioned race!

Also, these are just a few photos from National Championships last weekend. I have a few from the start, as well as some of me exiting Curve 1.  All photos are courtesy of the Sweeney family who took the time to photograph every slider and create DVDs of all the photos. They even went to the trouble of noting which photos were of us so that we didn’t have to sort through the hundreds of photos ourselves. THANKS!!!!!

 

7 and 12-18

Yes, my post is titled with numbers. Let me explain.

First of all, my first ever National Championships have concluded. Hooray! I ended up placing 7th out of all of the female US sliders, so I’m pretty happy. The top 6 got medals, so next year I’ll make sure to get my act together and place top 6!  Overall it was a great weekend of racing, I learned a ton and it was super awesome to have my family up here to support my brother and I as we competed, cowbell and all!

The other number is far less exciting and actually makes me want to cry. That’s the amount of snow we’re supposed today. Mind you, IT’S MARCH!  Yes, I know I’m participating in a winter sport and that snow is par for the course; however, I have never seen this much snow in my life, and apparently this is excess for Lake Placid too. They’ve seen much more snow this year than in years past which is just super.

Anyway, I do not have any videos from yesterday but if you click HERE you can check out the article about National Championships and see that my name is featured down toward the bottom in the results!

National Championships Day 1

Today started off with an awesome breakfast with the family at the Downtown Diner in downtown Lake Placid. In case you don’t know, they make the BEST whole wheat apple cinnamon pancakes. So now you know.

National Championships went off without a hitch tonight.  The ice was screamin’ fast, evident by the fact that both the men’s and women’s track records were officially set tonight!

I was anxious for today’s race mostly because I was on new runners that the night before had sent me skidding through the top half of the course (and several other turns) so I was nervous that today it would do the same. Luckily, the ice was a little softer than yesterday and the runners turned out to be AWESOME. I pushed a PR start of  5.53 (previous best a 5.65) and a PR downtime of 57.00!!! (previous best a 57.42). At this point I was sitting in FOURTH. FOURTH!!

Here’s a look at my first start:

My second run started off pretty good, a 5.56 start but I had some difficulties in Curves 3, 10 and 11 that cost me some time and I ran a 57.8. Unfortunately this put me back in 7th.  I was pretty pissed. I mean, I can’t really be mad because it’s out of all the US sliders, but after being in such a good place and sliding such a crappy run, I was not pleased.

Here’s my second start:

I’ll update you about tomorrow’s results once it’s over!

Quick Update

So sorry for the delay! This Saturday and Sunday is our National Championships, so this week has been chock full of meetings, track walks, sled work and other busy-ness that it’s been absolutely crazy.  Basically, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to update here!

In other exciting news, my mom and grandparents get into town today! They’ll stay to watch the first portion of our race on Saturday and then hit the road on Sunday.

I’ll try to update after the races, but I’m not promising anything!