The Pursuit of Excellence

What kid doesn't want to be an Olympian?

When I was in 7th grade, I became heavily involved in cross country and track. At the time, I was a tough farm girl who knew what it meant to work hard, and had some ( ok, they were little) muscles on my bones. Many of my fellow teammates were still coming on to their athleticism, which only meant I had a head start.

So, in 7th and 8th grade, I had my heart set on becoming a nationally-known runner. I was winning medals, and began decorating my room with quotes, and put my whole heart into the sport. The possibilities seemed to expand into the sky.

When I entered the varsity xc/track teams, I found myself among some very athletic (and, more mature than me) women. I was no longer winning the 100m hurdles, or taking the top spots in cross country invitationals. I still put up a fight for my competition, but the experience was humbling, and I suppose the dreams of becoming a nationally-ranked runner, waned.

I hit the peak of my performances as a sophomore, and spent my junior and senior years of high school, chasing the times I had put down earlier in my career. My love for playing violin became a distraction as well, and a few of my coaches correlated my decrease in athletic performance, to my increase in time devoted to the violin. I began to lose interest.

Upon entering college at Penn State Behrend, I joined the cross-country and track teams, but with a wavering heart. I had originally told the coach I would not run for them because my heart and mind were no longer in it. After several hours on a campus-tour with the coach, I realized I couldn't turn back on something that had been such a big part of my life.

My cross-country career never really took off, but my times on the track began to improve again, as I rekindled my love for spikes and the rubber-topped oval track. But, Olympics? Or becoming nationally-ranked? That was long past, and the fire that drove me to run faster times, was simply the fire that challenged me to always be at MY best. It wasn't to prove I was better than someone. (There are some high caliber athletes here at the OTC who just want to prove they're BETTER than you). It was to prove to myself, what I could do.

To be at MY best.

So, now, Here I am, at the opportunity of a lifetime, and with the possibility of competing in the Olympics is in the closest reach that it has EVER been. And I got here on ACCIDENT! How does this happen? And how will I ever measure up to an 'Olympian'? Most of the women here are jacked! Muscles abound, big round bums, and super quick feet... where do I fit in? HOW do I get to the point of fitting in?

well...

I've been going to Bible studies with Pastor Derek Spain from the Baptist church up here. He is a really great guy, and correlates the studies with our lives as elite athletes.

I've now gone to Derek's church twice, and to bible study twice, and both times I come away being more energized and with my mind more straight than it has been in weeks.

Last night, Bible study concentrated on the "Pursuit of Excellence"
http://ncministries.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/the-passionate-pursuit-of-excellence/


How do we get to our 'best'? In the work place, on the athletic field, in family life? Do you weigh yourself against others? Do you give in to temptations? Do you work hard, or try to take shortcuts? What conscious decisions do you make that will help you to improve in the areas you lack?

I recommend everyone to click on the link. He really breaks everything down well.

So, I came out of yesterdays study, feeling more confident about my own 'pursuit of excellence.' I'm excited to be here, and know that my effort to date is minimal yet. I will keep taking step after step to achieve my own 'Excellence.' To be at MY best. I'm not there yet, and I don't know that you can ever be at your VERY best. There are always ways to achieve an even higher level of excellence.

As my ninth grade teacher, Mr. Srock once said "It's not enough to be good, if you have the ability to be better."

Turkey Day!

There are SO many advantages to gravity sports.

1) I sprint for 30m and then my athletic ability no longer matters... take me away, gravity.
2) I will get to the bottom of the mountain no matter what. There's no option for quitting.
3) The heavier I am, the FASTER I go!

...and heavier, I am.

Ok, maybe not THAT much heavier - but I deserve to be after this Thanksgiving!

I've been following a diet that includes low-carbs, and no (or few) sugars. Therefore, I don't eat desserts, and avoid sandwiches and unnecessary carbs. Now...don't get me wrong, I do cheat from time to time... but YESTERDAY...oh, my.


OTC Cooks!

Let me preface yesterday's meals, by filling you in on my last week of dining here at the OTC. It's been crazy! Normally, the OTC can occupy as many as 250 people. This past week, there has been less than 30 of us. It makes for a quiet week, but the cafeteria food is incredible! Six eager cooks whip up some fancy made-to-order menus. This week, I've been choosing from the following:

a) NY Strip Steak
b) Marinated Chicken
c) Shrimp Scampi
d) Marinated Swordfish

"Yes, may I have a medium NY Strip Steak?" ..."with some blue cheese?"

YUM. So, this week my stomach has slowly been expanding as I've been filling up on all the goodies being offered to us. I mean, next week, we'll be back to the normal big-batch-cooking-style. The cooks do a great job year-round, but wow they've really outdone themselves this week.

So, I knew that with only 10 of us coming to Thanksgiving meal, it was gonna be AWESOME. And, that it was.

I first went to OTC breakfast, where I dined on chocolate chip pancakes and a blueberry muffin... yes, CARB overload for me. Then, two and a half hours later we had to leave for Saranac Lake for the day, so we ate our Thanksgiving meal at the OTC only 2 hours after my very filling breakfast.

Everything your grandma makes for Thanksgiving, and then some. It was sooooo delicious. Plus, I had to have some pumpkin roll, and stuff down an extra slice of turkey for good measure. And cranberry sauce is really good for you, right? I hope so. I could have eaten buckets of it.


Kristina, Mike, and Greg being goofs at our Thanksgiving meal at the OTC

Six of us rolled out to the car and drove down to the Saranac Lake Adult Center to help serve a Thankgiving meal to elderly from the area. The other volunteers greeted us with "GREAT to have you! How bout you sit down and eat first?"

"Nooooo, thank you but no. Really, sorry. No. No, you don't understand. We just ate. JUST ate. like, A LOT."

The dinner ended up being a little slow, though it was obvious that we were genuinely helping a few people there to have a great Holiday. Just providing a meal, a smile, or offering some competitive spirit in a mean game of Chinese Checkers. In whatever capacity, it was great to get out there and volunteer. Bravo to Kristina Hull, the leader of our group of 6, who was the one who organized the trip.


Greg, Kristina, Mike, Tyler, Me (Matt had to leave early)

We left the Adult Center around 5, still unable to fit anything more into our stomachs... OK, OK, so... I did fit in a piece of pumpkin pie with a dollop of whipped cream... I couldn't resist!

We came back to the OTC for a light dinner and some fun terrorizing each other in the dorms with a few friendly pranks. Despite not being home around family, I had a great Thanksgiving!

And to top it allllllll off -

My Cousin, Annie, Had a Baby!!! Congrats to Annie & John on Baby Wyatt!

Monday November 22, 2010

Training with Coach Kash


AAAaahhh, a nice relaxing night at the OTC.

I needed a break from sliding. Last week, being the first week from the top, really rocked me. I'm having a hard time figuring out how much pressure my sled needs to steer, and what variables are keeping me from getting some fast times. The types of runners (those steel things that the sled slides on), the weight of the sled, how well balanced the sled is, and how good the driver is - allllll come into play when talking about speed. Granted, I get a beautiful run now and then, but I'm still not even sure HOW I do that!

Steering is one of my biggest problems (I know...probably should figure that one out pretty quick, huh?). Basically, It's like being 16 and driving a car for the first time. You learn how hard to spin the wheel to make a certain turn radius. In skeleton, all the driving comes from your shoulders, knees, and toes. Ideally, you should never drive with your toes - that means you're directly putting your toe on the ice (usually to keep from skidding) and therefore adding force against the natural speed of your sled. If you want to win - you don't drive by putting your toe down. If your new, and prefer not to die - you put your toe down.

The most preferred way of driving the sled is by using your shoulders. We lay belly-down on the sled, with our shoulders resting directly on the 'body' of the sled. If I wish to steer right, I push down on the sled with my left shoulder. If I wish to steer left, I push with my right shoulder. Our knees also are great for steering, as there are driving bars underneath them as well. If I wish to go left, I push down with my left knee, and vice versa.

That all sounds easy until you remember that we're 'driving' on ICE! Skidding sideways down straightaways is one of my specialties! And my 'panic' button is demonstrated by immediately dropping both my toes, legs wide apart, and holding on for dear life... Just like this video (courtesy of my hilarious and awesome teammate, Kristina Hull...I edited out all the laughing):


Me, skidding out of control between curve 2 and 3

So after runs like that all week, I erased any thoughts of doing skeleton on saturday, and took the whole day to chill, and get caught up on things like GETTING A JOB.

Wooohooo! Somewhat unsuccessful...but I at least got somewhere. I'm hoping to get on a babysitting list for Whiteface Lodge, where i'm promised to receive at least $60/sitting. It's a beautiful hotel, with many amenities, and usually quite wealthy guests. I also signed up on a website as a babysitter in the area, and have been contacted about babysitting in December already. We'll see... I'm guessing I'll need something more than babysitting once January hits.

So, today is Monday. I got back in the groove of sliding today. Got a great workout in, and spent some time babying my sled... I put on new runners (maybe my last runners were reason for my steering problem?), and wrote "Diesel" in orange duck tape on the pod of the sled, as well as tried to make the runners super smooth by sanding them with sandpaper. My sled looked pretty snazzy :)

The ice was slooooooow today. Really slow, due to frosty conditions. The weather up here has been warm, and rainy, and therefore all the moisture in the air collects on the ice, making it more sticky. But, it was nice to be able to hold my head up off the ice and see where I was going - normally you can't do that due to the G-Forces you experience on the curves. It was a nice confidence booster!

It will be a rather relaxing week, with only 2 runs down the mountain per day, and a workout every day. I'm excited about that, but already am missing being home with my family for the holiday.

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.

Tuesday November 16, 2010

Curve 10 - "Shady" - biggest curve on the Lake Placid Track


Phew!

Feelin' pritty beat today.

The energy needed to write an exciting blog post is really just not in me.

We're really upping our game this week. Woke up, sore from yesterday's workout, and headed to the push track at 9am. Spent 45 minutes and 3 good pushes at the track, and then headed over to the ice track... but today was not just another day - we went from the...

TOP!!!! YEAH!! I had around 80 runs from the top of the mountain last year, and so to be back at the top again is a great feeling.

Yet, starting at the top not only means top speeds, but it also means you must fully warm-up because you push and mount the sled before the 'ride.' It's a bit more exhausting than just starting from curve 4. After three runs, we drove back to the OTC, grabbed a quick lunch, and then headed back to the track at 3:00, for another 3 sprinting runs from the top.

Mike & I headed to the cafeteria straight from the track to grab some grub around 6:45, and by 7:30 our entire crew had met in the gymnasium to do a balance & core-based workout with Kash, a volunteer coach from Chicago. A lot of planks, med balls, dumbbells, and balance disks... I'm going to be a bit sore tomorrow from the workout, and we meet with Kash at 9am tomorrow for a more 'intense' workout, we're told.

Though i'm tired, I really do love the feeling of all this hard work. I finish the day, like right now, satisfied with my effort. There's always more to do, and things to improve on, but the steps I'm taking right now are headed in the right direction. Patience, commitment, & hard work. That's what I need, and that's what I'm striving to do.

Sunday November 14, 2010

Oh my gosh! I have access to wooden furniture with small storage units inside… I think they call it…dressers?! Oh yes, today I ended my week-long life of a nomad, and established my home at the OTC.

For the first time in 8 days, I can actually set my toothbrush on the sink, without worry that I’ll forget it before my next relocation. I even have a room all to myself tonight… seriously…that NEVER happens at the OTC. But, I think God knows that I could really use a night to myself after jumping from couch-to-bed-to-bed-to-futon-to-bed-to-OTC this past week. It’s great.

This was a really awesome weekend. Saturday I watched goalball with many of my skeleton mates. All the men on the team are, in some capacity, legally blind. Every athlete wears a blindfold, and the entire game is played based on hearing and touch. Each athlete must have trust and faith in their teammates that they will A) avoid running into you B) stop any balls flying in their direction and C) have their trust and faith in you as well. It's really cool- and very inspirational.


U.S.A. goalball scrimmage

I alllllllso got a new helmet today!!! Well...new to me. The helmet is a very well respected brand in the skeleton world (UVEX), and is being sold to me by Katie Uhlaender, 2010 Olympian, at just over 1/2 price. Katie had stripped the padding out of the cheek pads (her personal preference) - so my friend, Greg West, had a field day padding up the helmet for me. It looks AWESOME now!

We went to the push track for a few runs today. I brought the new helmet to give-it-a-go. In my old helmet, I had to breathe very shallow before sliding, so as not to fog up the shield. I let out a couple big puffs of air in the UVEX, and NO FOG!!! I can see! I can see! Jokes about me needing a windshield wiper may begin to cease now... psssh


Video of my push at the push track today

Tomorrow another group of new sliding school athletes will be arriving. It's great to meet so many people from many different backgrounds - including a wide range of athletes with really impressive stats. National track athletes, professional soccer players, weight room trainers, football players, etc. ... My claim-to-fame of being a middle-distance runner doesn't fit-in with the background of most of the crowd...but that's ok, i'm still majorly pumped to be here :)

Friday Nov. 12, 2010

Put everything away. Take it back out. Repeat. Find this here. Lose that there. Repeat.

That's sorta how I've felt this past week. Here's my 'living' schedule/situation:

Saturday Nov. 6: Leave Butler @ 2am for Rochester. Leave Rochester @11am for Albany (to see Katie Springer!!).
Sunday Nov. 6: Leave Albany @ 10am for Schenectady (to see Heather Furman!!).
Monday Nov. 7: Leave Schenectady @ 6:15am for Leah's friend's apartment in Lake Placid.
Thursday Nov. 11: Leave Leah's friend's apartment and enter Amy Will's apartment.
Saturday Nov. 13: Leave Amy Will's apartment and enter Leah's apartment.
Sunday Nov. 14: Leave Leah's apartment and enter Olympic Training Center (OTC)


It hasn't really been all that incredibly crazy except that I'm a naturally unorganized person.

I mean, I haven't even brushed my teeth today because I couldn't find my toothbrush. I should probably go do that now though...when I was at the top of the mountain a few hours ago, I found it in my skeleton bag...how It got there, Lord only knows. I just made sure not to breathe on anybody, and chewed a lot of gum.

So, in between my moving around... I've been doing a lot of sliding on the ice track, and also have spent a few days at the push track.


Practicing at the 'push track'

In sliding sports, there is no way to practice only one curve on the course. It's sort of an all-or-nothing type deal. The push at the beginning of the race is extremely important, and the "push track" has been rigged up so that athletes can practice the sprint without having to actually slide down the mountain.

We've spent 2 days now doing sprint pushes at the 'push track.' I've been feeling pretty good about my pushes, and am excited to actually get to run a few times from the top on "real" ice next week.

Every day since Monday we've had between 3-4 runs down the bobsleigh/skeleton track. I can't always see improvement in myself, but Coach seems to have faith that I am improving, and that patience is key.

Today, for the very first time, I felt like I WAS my sled. It was a very strange, very wonderful feeling. Usually I feel as though I'm just a passenger, being jostled around, a bit at the mercy of my sled's own thoughts. But not today! I can't even begin to explain it...but for about 30 seconds, I actually felt like I was totally in control, as if the metal runners were directly attached to my thighs. It was AWESOME!


View from Curve 4 (there are 20 curves in total)

Needless to say I'm having a blast :) Two beautiful bruises on my right leg are all i've racked up so far...many more to come i'm sure!