Team Selection Races and SALT LAKE CITY!

My First Team Trails

Our first face was scheduled after only 2 weeks of on ice training. As a new slider, I was a little concerned about this. Last year it took me months to slide well! To make things worse 3 days of sliding were cancelled due to unseasonably warm weather. So with around a week of training we had our first team selection race.
Day one went pretty well. I ended up 10th overall. It wasn’t what I was hoping for but it still gave me enough points to put me in a position to make Americas Cup. I was actually shocked at how well I did because my runs were messy and slow.
The next day I had a bit of a mental break down. I was so worried about placing that I didn’t focus on sliding enough and ended up 12th. At this point I started to care less about team trials, which probably sounds bad. I figured what ever was going to happen was going to happen and would be meant to be. I stopped trying to get pumped up for my races and just tried to relax and concentrate on sliding the best that I could.
I think relaxing worked pretty well because things really started to come together for me. I slid 8th in our next race and 5th in the final race. My total amount of points put me at 8th overall! Which secured me an Americas Cup spot!
To those who don’t understand the circuits of skeleton, there are 4 circuits. Americas cup, europa cup, intercontinental cup, and world cup. To make the team you must make one of the “cups”. World cup is top 3, intercontinental cup is for those who finish in 4th and 5th place. Europa cup is 6th and 7th, and finally Americas cup is for 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th. If you did not make any of those teams then athletes stay in LP and train, with out promise of races.
A lot of the races for the second half of the season are coaches’ discretion for AC and EC. I am hoping to do well enough in the AC races to go to Europe second half. We’ll see how I do on new tracks first.
My first races are in Salt Lake City, Utah, then 2 more races in Calgary Canada, and hopefully 2 more in Lake Placid, NY.
I am so thankful for my family and the support I received in Lake Placid that week. Although I wish I could have relaxed and focused sooner to place higher over all, the AC circuit will help me to develop as a slider. I know that next year’s team trials will be even better with everything that I am learning.
To my family and friends at home:
I’ll be home for thanksgiving and Christmas! However, its not looking like I will be home for more than a few weeks this summer. The weight lifting coach really wants me to stay in NY over the summer. I know that the Olympic gym will help me to make greater improvements than the make shift gym at home. I want anyone who wants to, to come visit me! I miss everyone and would love to see people and potentially send them down the bobsled track for a skeleton experience.
School is going really well so far. I have good grades and I’m managing to complete all of my work even while we travel. Penn State has been a blessing and I credit my ability to participate in this sport their online program!

First day on a new track

Going down a new track for the first time can be pretty nerve wracking. No matter how many times you watch video or walk the track you still don’t really know what to expect the track to feel like. The Salt Lake track is much faster than Lake Placid. There are lots of double pressure turns and double oscillations. Which will also be a new experience because the Lake Placid has only single pressure turns and no double oscillations.
When I slide Lake Placid I know when I am in trouble. I have a lot of “oh shit,” moments that require me to drive hard to fix mistakes so I don’t hit walls or lose time. I was worried about going down a new track because I would have no idea if I were headed for trouble in a curve. I have no experience on this new track to know that if I go into this curve late, I need to down steer really hard or I will flip. So basically, I could be heading for disaster and not even know it.
This is pretty much what I was thinking when I was on the starting block about to take my first run. Probably not the best thought process. Strangely enough I was not nervous at all to go down this new track. Up until about 2 minuets before I was about to go. I was nervous that I wasn’t nervous….if that makes sense? “I’m not ready for this, why didn’t I get nervous? I should be nervous!” Not being nervous made me feel unprepared. However, as I took my first run everything turned out fine. No injuries and I actually had fun.
My second run was a bit of a fiasco. I had decided to push faster now that I was a little more comfortable and I popped the grove. This was my first “oh shit” moment on the PC track. It got even worse as my sled managed to do a 180, and I started sliding backwards. I had a moment of panic and my “oh shit” moment turned into a OH F***!
On this track you reach speeds up to 80mph and all I could thing about was reaching those speeds backwards. (Apparently there was an Australian chick who went down half the track backwards) Fortunately, I managed to get turned back around before curve one. The rest of my run was obviously pretty slow due to my trick start. I still can’t believe I managed to go backwards on my second run. At least it wasn’t on my first!
All and all I really like the PC track., it’s fun and fast. I’ll be training on it for another week and a half before our first race here and it should be fun. A lot of other countries are here as well, Korea, Mexico, and the British bobsledders, (who painted their faces for sliding on Halloween).