Friday November 18, 2010

My start from the top of Mt. Van Hoevenberg bobsleigh & skeleton track.


"Great Job!"

"Ouch. What happened?"

"Lookin' Good"

"Thought you were flippin' on that one!"

The words of wisdom I've heard from Coach Don this week. One day I seem to have it all together, then next day I'm trying to flip myself in curves 4 and 12 on every run! It hasn't happened yet - but wow - there's nothing like being air-born at 70 miles an hour. I think every time I've had that feeling, my mind has flashed "Should I close my eyes or just take what's to come..."

...pretty sure I close my eyes and say a mini prayer...

So, I've really been rather bruise-and-scratch-free to this point. I have some bruising under my left arm, and some bruising on my right hip, and scraped my shin while practicing starts at the push track. Other than that, I've been pretty happy about my lack of pain.

Last night I had a doozie though. We had two runs down the mountain in the morning, and three runs in the late afternoon. My two morning runs felt pretty good... but the late afternoon ones - man oh man. My first run felt pretty smooth. The second one felt sloppier, but I still wasn't trying to flip myself like I had been the last two days...

The third and final run of the night though was rough. I didn't flip, but I was lacking control of my sled. Nothing new, but for whatever reason, I was ping-ponging a lot of the straightaways, which sets you up poorly for the next curve on the track. After holding my breath and closing my eyes on several curves (which, by the way, is a terrible way to approach things when you're 70 mph on a sled thats responsive to your every twitch), I crossed the finish line.

At the finish line you're still probably going 50mph. I immediately shook my head and stared down at the ice, in dismay at a terrible run.

There's a gate towards the end of the track that bobsleds are shuttled on and off the track through. A tiny portion of that metal gate sticks out into the ending portion of the skeleton run. At about 20 mph, with my head hung in shame, my helmet clobbered the gate. DONE. Done done done done done. Get me off of this thing. I need a break. And an Advil please.

About 30 minutes later my headache had ceased, and my mind was back into belief that this skeleton thing is fun, and I wanna do it again. Trust me, with all the bumps and bruises, this sport is worth doing again and again and again...just maybe with some breaks in between!

So today is Friday. It's 8:40 now. At 9:00 we have a light workout with a volunteer coach from Chicago, Kash. At 10:45 we meet at Mt. Van Hoevenberg (the ice track) and slide for 2-3 hours. Then lunch. Then back to the ice track from 4:30-6:30. Then dinner, and then a core workout with Kash. Busy busy days this week. I'm excited to have this weekend off for some relaxation, recovery, and time to study my notes that I've been taking the past 2 weeks.

I'm missing "turkey killing weekend" at home this weekend. As morbid as it sounds, I'm really going to miss it.