It’s a wrap!

Sorry I fell off the blogging wagon there, friends. I do realize this post is probably two weeks late, but a lot happened over the past several weeks and I’ve had so many thoughts running through mind; thoughts I wasn’t ready to sure how to articulate.  So let’s back track here for just a minute and I’ll catch you all up.

The race-off didn’t go my way, but I did get to spend a week in Innsbruck with these awesome ladies!

The last we left off, I was on my way back to Igls, Austria for a race-off to qualify for World Championships.  The race-off was a two-day, best 3 of 4 run set-up, and the race was actually moved up a day because of impending inclement weather (it was supposed to snow and most of the Igls track isn’t covered).  Long story short, I had a good first day, but a bad second day which dropped me out of contention for Worlds and consequently, I was not selected to race in World Championships and was sent home.

I’ll be honest: it sucked (<—-language, sorry!). A lot.

Watching my teammates pack up and head on out to Winterberg, Germany while I hopped in a car bound for the Munich airport was hard.  So I decided to fly back to Lake Placid because I wasn’t mentally ready to come home and face my friends and family after what I felt was a pretty big failure.

I spent the first week back at the training center trying to recover and gather my thoughts from the season, but not without difficulty.  I was upset, I was angry and to top it all off, I wasn’t sleeping.  Fortunately, we have an awesome sports med department and they were kind enough to set up appointments for me to get the treatment I needed.  My strength coach and developmental coach were there for me to talk out some issues and get me out of my own head and back on track.

Unfortunately, my equipment wasn’t due back to Lake Placid until the team got back from Winterberg, so there was no sliding for this chick for a few weeks.  I was stuck in the bio-dome that is the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center…so I took it upon myself to binge-watch the heck out of Homeland.  So I guess it wasn’t all bad.

Loading the sled during training

Coming back to Lake Placid for Nationals allowed me to find myself again- to rediscover the slider I knew I was but had stopped trusting and believing in halfway through the season.  During the week of Nationals, I wanted to stop trying to make things happen and let my instincts take control.  With the help of my teammates, coaches, friends and family (who made the long journey North to cheer me on!) I successfully defended my title as National Champion and re-broke my old track record, clocking a 55.04 run.

So what’s next?  Well, everything.  I came home right after Nationals and had about two weeks completely off, which I spent on the sofa nursing a nasty cold.  I’ve been doing a ton of yoga in preparation for my off-season training, which will shift into gear in about a week or so.  I’m trying to figure out my schedule for the summer, I’m working with Adecco and the Team USA Career Program to find a job and I’m still plugging away at my grad classes (which in case you were wondering, Accounting is the worst).

I’m a busy gal.

And that’s essentially the update for now! I promise I’ll be better over the summer with updating this bad boy and keeping everyone in the loop!  A huge thank you goes out to everyone who has supported me thus far and for all of the kind words of encouragement over the course of the season.  Your support continually motivates me and honestly, thank you just doesn’t seem like enough!

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