I Am Back On!

Wow, I can't belive it... I found out how to get back on this thing.
A little too late however, only 1 full season has passed. Lets see, how can I sum this up quickly.
This was my first real season, complete with off-season, selections, team shenanigans, and a "tour". I was 50% of the Canadian Europa Cup Team, with Emily making the other half... no pun intended, oh and we named our team... TEAM CAMILY. Jovan and Brook also were on the team, however, Brook was not able to slide this year and Jovan got to giv'er on the I.C. tour for the second half. So that just left Emmy and Myself.
I wont get in to the details... I might do a better summary later, but the 2 of us were able to do the second half of the Europa Cup tour and one fun race in Igls.
Long and short of it... it has been a great year. I feel much much better on my sled and reading my notes from last year, and the blog entries as well, it dawns on me how much I have learned this year. I have made many new friends and have generaly loved every minute of it. Even during the frustrating parts, the planning, the bad runs, and the long hot suumer days training, it is all worth it when you have a tiny little "break through".
Now the question is... can I go to the school in Placid in March, or do I ease off and just have fun, play a bunch of hockey and just workout for the fun of it... at least until it is time to think about next year.
Should run now.... 4 weeks off work, I can't spend all of my first days back on the computer.

Race Day Cesana / ’’Family Reunion’’

Well today is race day here in Cesana. The training runs went very well and I finished yesterdays session with 2 fairly decent runs, a few spots that need to be polished up a little but each run I figure a little more out. An added bonus to today is Roo and his girlfriend Mel found their way to Torino and have found a very easy way to get up to Sestriere. Roo and Mel have been touring Europe for the last 3 months and it will be great to run into him and hear some of their stories and in sence see him for Christmas. He has also never seen skeleton live, and to see it in the latest Olympic venue should be quite a unique experience. The Italians have been really advertising the race here and have been putting a lot of effort into the race prep, so hopefully all turns out well.

First day of training

Today was our first day back on the track. It has been a long time and several different tracks since we were last on Cesana and I was really looking forward to sliding it again and applying all the new tools I have learned. Each track has had its own personality and its own quirks. Altenberg was dealing with the stigma of the infamous track and keeping the light turned on for every moment of each run. Konigssee was a lot shorter and only one real problem area, however, to find the speed is a different story. La Plagne.... well that was a lesson in pressure and patience. So coming back to what is essentially my ’’first’’ track and by default my ’’home track’’, I was excited to apply everything. Both runs went real well, not 100% by far but I am now able to identify where I have gone wrong and partialy correct it or compensate for it. But all in all, for the first day, not bad. Tommarrow it is another training day as well as Saturday then Sunday we race.

The area is a lot more ski resortish now that they finally got their snow... make note of the pictures.

Cesana..... Again.

Well, the Konigsse race is over and after 14 hours of driving (some getting lost in there) we are back at the first stop... Cesana. The race went great. Our girls finished 1st and 8th, Sara Ried, who won the race beat 2 top German girls.... at their home track. The men raced well to. Mike finished 4th (1st, 2nd and 3rd were all world cup guys who stayed home for the first half), Steve was 10th, Kieth and Jovan both raced well and made the top 25. So all of our sliders made the cut in which only half of everyone did. I got to forerun, which is the first one down the track before each heat, kind of a warning that the race is about to begin and to see how the start is acting. My runs were my best ones all week, except my start was a little less explosive than usual which could be due to training hard all week and not really pacing my self.
Our trip from Konigsse to Cesana was not exactly to plan. We usually travel in a convoy of 3 vehicles and stay all in a row. Well, Austria was in the mood for serious road work and sprinkle a few accidents in there and you have a much more difficult situation. Long and short of it, we got separated from the other 2 vehicles and decided that we are all adults, we can go at it alone. It all turned out fine in the end and I got to spend many hours driving at 160+ km/hr with porches and Audi’s as my company. It was a lot of fun, and we made great time. So, we are here now, a day of rest and recovery, possibly sliding tommarrow and then on to race training Thursday - Saturday and race on Sunday.

Tour De France

Our time in La Plagne was fantastic. The people were great, food was unbelievable and we were staying litteraly 40 meters from the track. Aside from the sliding, the day off was one hell of an adventure. In a nut shell the 3 of us who decided to go saw 3 Olympic cities, the most famous stage of the Tour De France, stormed a castle at 10 pm in Briancon, hit 2 countries and did a total of 15,000 meters / 45,000 feet of climbing in our vehicle over mountain passes. Too much to really get into details, but a long day all around.

It is now race week here in Konigssee, and we got our new race suits. Not bad, but I will not be racing, we were only alowed to enter 4 men and I was the 5th, but I am the forerunner which means I still get to do all my sliding and the first run of each run of the race. Tommarrow is another day of training runs and then Sunday we race. Monday it is another 10-12 hours back to Cesana for our last race and then a mad rush to Frankfurt for our flight...... The flight. I am still waiting to hear word on when we are actually heading home, for that has been tossed in the air as of late. May be the 18th or anywhere to the 21st. To many variables to accurately predict, at least it isnt 5 days notice to get 7 weeks off work.

Back In Konigssee

Well after a little break I am back in the modern world. La Plagne was absolutely great. The track was crammed in a valley at the top of a mountain and it had high speeds and multiply massive G corners. No crashes, in fact did quite well. The last day, however, caught up to me and in typical me style I kind of pushed too hard (overtrained) and the constant pounding resulted in a concusion (aparently). So on a "day off", we went to see some sights and take in as much as possible.



La Plagne was the track used in the ’92 Albertville Olympics, and since then really has not been used all that much. It was a welcomed break going to France, it almost felt like being back home, and even though my French really sucks, I can still understand key points and get the basics of conversations, so it was quite a bit of fun.

The Top picture is not of La Plagne, but rather of Konigssee taken from The Eagals Nest. At the top of the track you can make out a more distinct white ’’S’’ section and those are called the s-curves.A real fun and crutial part of the track. Make your way down and about half way you can notice a circle, or Kriesel. A difficult part and the site of my little ’’collisions’’. The bottom picture is of La Plagne, or the bottom half at least. On the right side there are the corners 15 and 16. 15 is the high G corner and 16 is its follow-up. Both great tracks and a lot of fun.

Konigssee

Well, today is our last day here in Konigssee. This place is amazing. Konigssee is right next to a town called Berchtesgaden. It might sound familiar because it was in the TV show Band of Brothers and is home to Hitler’s Eagals Nest. The track is on the side of a mountain and it criss-crosses a stream heading down to a lake at the finish area. The track is in peoples back yards.... literaly and in some corners there are no inside walls, so you can actually walk into the track.
As for sliding, I had my first crash here this week. In fact there was 3 of them (3 consecutive runs) all in the same place and the last one I was dragging behind my sled with one finger hooked in, going through 3 corners. I burned through my suit and scrubbed a lot of time, however, I managed to pull my self back on and finish. I finally got the part figured out and the problem was due to a misunderstanding of the amont of steering input....... and maybe direction. It may not sound like much, but in skeleton when we go through corners we experience osillations. We go to the roof, back down, back up, back down.... The amount and number of oscillations are affected by the g-force, duration of the corner and speed. If you steer corectly you minimize the up-down, if not.... well. So I was steering up when I should have been steering down and the end result was a t-bone into the inside wall and then followed by a roll-over. But all is good, now we just have to do it better....
Today is an off day and it is into the city of Salzburg.... Tommarrow off to La Plagne, France. It is a very rare opportunity to get to slide there and even our coach has never been there.... so well see how she goes.