8th AT NATIONALS

Nationals and Americas Cup

This past week was a pretty eventful one. The world cup team came back to LP from the World championships. Having them around changed the atmosphere a bit. Official training started on Thursday, and the first day of racing was on Friday. Initially, the races were supposed to be on sat and sun but because of warm weather they moved them up a day. On Friday there were 2 runs, and sat there were 2 runs. The combination of all 4 of your times added together determines your final place.

The Race wasn’t until 6 at night. I actually liked that because it gave me a chance to sleep in haha. But pretty much race day went something like this.

Wake up. Eat. Watch film of training runs. Sand runners. Eat. Warm up. Head to track. Set your rock. Get in order. Wait an hour. Warm up again. Get ready to go.

Just to clarify. Setting your rock is when bow the runner so that there is less of the runner on the ice. Having less of the runner on the ice makes you go faster.

And referring to getting in order, we are all put in a random order of who goes down the track first. So if you are listed to be the first sled off, you have the put your sled in slot number 1. If your second, you have to put your sled in slot number 2. Ect. Ect.

On race day the race officials also sand our runners over a few times, and wipe them down with acetone, just to make sure there is no substance on there that’s gunna make us go faster. They also carry our sleds to the starting block for us and hold them while we wait for our turn. Which is nice because in practice we have to carry and hold our sleds ourselves.

FIRDAYS RACE

The ice on Friday was very hard and fast. Weirdly enough I wasn’t really nervous. This is gunna sound bad, but I just figured no one expected much out of me because I am so new to this sport. And because I felt no one really had any expectations of me I was pretty relaxed. Normally I put a lot of pressure on myself too, but I didn’t really know what to expect of myself either so I felt like no matter what I did I was gunna surprise myself.

I slid realllyyy well that day. After my runs on Friday I was in 6th place. If only I could have done as well on Saturday! I would have gotten a medal!

SATURDAYS RACE

Saturday was a little more stressful. Because I had done so well the day before, there were expectations now. And I put pressure on myself to try not to drop down any places. But again, I was pretty calm, my runs were not as good as Friday and I ended up in 8th place. Still amazing for a new person.

Heres an article on the national championships.

http://bobsled.teamusa.org/news/2011/03/05/oshea-and-antoine-named-u-s-skeleton-national-champions/41254?ngb_id=23

WHATS NEXT

So as far as racing goes I think I may qualify for team trails this fall! Which would be amazing. Because I did so well at nationals I ended up getting picked for the FIBT driving school and to race in the last Americas Cups race in April. There are 15 girls, and only 4 of us got picked to stay and compete. So I will be at the Training center for at least another month after all!

School is a different story, I will be going to the local community college all this summer to get more credits, and ill take block classes until October. So that school will be over just in time for team trails. Long term, I’m thinking I’m going to get my associates degree from NOVA CC, and then transfer those credits to Pen State online. Which will work out really well for me, because apparently next year the team is going to be traveling a lot.

I love this sport and wish that everyone could come up and watch it in person at some point. Its just not the same seeing videos and pictures.