Calgary World Cup.... 17 place!

I finished 17th, that is an excellent placing. I was up to 12.30 last night preparing my sled. When the alarm went off at 5am this morning I did not want to get up, but I hauled my tired body out of bed, and Kelly and I were picked up by Ben and Russ at 615am. We arrived at the track at 6.20am and I set my rock (which is the amount of shape or sliding surface I have in my runners/blades) and headed off for a track walk, a track Walk is when we walk in the track prior to sliding or racing and just see what the ice condition is, visualize what we are going to do in each corner and see if the track workers have changed anything during the night, there is an hour set aside before each training and race day for track walks. The track looked fast and clean. It was very foggy this morning and about -8 degrees (so I am glad I purchased a replacement down jacket).

At the team captains meeting last night our start order was drawn, Kel got 12th, I got 15th and Liz got 23rd. My training runs have been pretty rough this week and I was covered in bruises going into the race. In all my training runs I fixed what I was focusing on but the other sections of the track that I wasn't focusing on were pretty poor so today I had to put them together, which I pretty much did. Nice. All except the exit of 13 on the first run, I dropped out of the corner and hit the right wall sooooo hard that going around 14 all I could think about was whether or not I had a broken arm.... No just the biggest bruise you have ever seen, about 20cm by 8cm down my arm. I usually go Skin to Win, which in part mean not wearing any protective padding on race day, but in my second run I wasn't brave enough and tapped a shin guard to my arm, but my second run was fantastic, and I made sure I did not hit my sore arm. I don't usually get so bruised, I think it is because this season I haven't had much training prior to the races starting.

Kel had an awesome run, she finished 21st with a time of 61.93, she only just missed out on a second run, which is only for the top 20, Liz finished 20th in the first heat and 19th in the second heat with an overall placing of 19th (61.79,61.55) I finally pushed under 6 seconds, in my first heat my push was a 6.00 and in the second it was a 5.99, a personal best.

Ben Sandford had a brilliant first ever world cup race finishing 12th overall (58.08, 57.75), but Russ had bad luck with his visor fogging up half way down the track, which left him sliding blind, he finished 33rd with a 61.39, you can check out all the times and placing of different nations at www.fibt.com

The Kiwis and the South Africans are off to dinner tonight and then every one is meeting up at Cowboys a night club down town, it wont be too much of a late night, because Kel and I fly out to Montreal at 9 am tomorrow morning.

I will write again when I am in Lake Placid. If any one want to contact me my email is lou@nzskeletonracer.com (I am still looking for a sponsor)

Race tomorrow

We have had a couple of very hectic days, here is a run down

Yesterday morning Kel was told her runners were illegal! AAAHHHHH, they are 1988 runners (blades) and had just been worn out with all the sanding they have had over the years, luckily a dutch slider had a spare set that she is able to use, then after training we all had to go and have our sleds inspected, this is the first time that every one has had an inspection and it took a while to get through the 60 sleds, Ben and Russ's sleds failed and at 5pm 2 days before the race we had to find somewhere to get .5 of a mm of steel welded onto their bumpers! AAAAAHHHH, luckily again with the help of Peter a Dutch slider the problem was fixed. Oh yeah and before the sled inspection I was given 4 licences back and told that Ben, Kelly, Russ and Liz all had invalid licences because their doctor had not put a stamp next to their signatures. AAAAHHHHH. After about 1.5 hours of searching for a doctor with a stamp who would stamp their licences with out charging the earth, Uli (FIBT race official) changed his mind and let them use their race licences as they are. Then after all this when we got home I realized at about 10pm that my jacket was still at the track, and in the morning it was gone, and it hasn't been returned, life in a very cold climate like this with out my Mountain Hardwear down jacket is rather numbing... Oh yeah we slid as well... I have been having trouble with the bottom half of the track, losing a lot of time there, and I have about 20 different sized bruises all over my body from exiting Kriesel and hitting the left wall, the good new is that today I fixed it and got two good, painless exits of Kriesel corner, so I just need to put it all together tomorrow for the race... Wish me luck

(I have replaced my jacket, cant live with out it, I just hope my travel insurance will repay me, I also lost my sunglasses and my 10 pass ticket to the local gym :-( - they were in the pocket)

Well must go to bed, I have just finished sanding my runners, and cleaning my sled, as the race is at 8 am Saturday morning Canadian time, ( about 5 am sunday in NZ) I better go and get some sleep.

Well the world cup has started

We have had two days of sliding so far, and well, yesterday was a kick in the pants, I thought that since I had such good, nice, friendly, painless runs last week when I was here that they would continue that way so I put up my rock a little... Oh no, the track has been changed a little, and my first run yesterday was a shocker, I was not in control and I hit the wall entering corner 8, which sent me into 8 late and on the exit I was pushed out into another wall, the impact made my hips twist on my sled and I spent the 80m strait away trying to wriggle my way back into position, which meant I entered corner 9 late and hit real hard on the exit of 9 and did the twisting thing again.... My time was pretty poor so before the second run I lowered my rock again, and had a slightly safer but still bumpy run, my left hip bone is nicely bruised thanks to exit 9. Last night I padded up my sled so I wouldn't hurt my hip again, and today my runs were a lot better. Kelly and I got to the track early and watched the first half of the athletes (there are 60 here) going through the first 6 corners, my goal was to get the first 5 corners clean with out any huge time consuming skids or hits. Well my times and my split show that I did exactly that, my first 3 splits are only about 2/10th of a second off some of the top girls, in the bottom splits I am 5/10th off, so tomorrow I will be concentrating on the bottom half of the track.

Today was not injury free though, on my last run, I hit sooo hard out of Kriesel (corner 9 is a 360 degrees corner) and I now have a very sore, tender, hot and bruised left arm, right the way down my upper arm and my fore arm, I am glad I came stocked with a roll of Chinese bruise tape, it works wonders.

Kelly first run of the season yesterday was "a bit of a blur" as most first runs are, but today, she felt much more comfortable being back on her sled.

Here are the Kiwi's times from today, the first day of official training for the Calgary world cup...
Ben Sandford run one 5.60 20.01 27.04 36.19 48.72 58.72
two 5.64 20.07 27.07 69.21 48.71 58.61
Russ Ward 5.60 20.22 27.46 36.92 50.23 60.92
5.63 20.28 27.49 36.94 50.55 61.45
Louise Corcoran 6.02 20.81 27.98 37.46 50.63 61.25
6.31 21.23 28.43 38.05 51.18 61.69
Kelly Moffat 6.39 21.62 29.13 38.74 52.05 62.80
6.33 21.46 28.97 38.68 52.10 62.79
Liz Couch 5.95 20.86 28.12 37.61 50.71 61.28
5.95 20.75 28.01 37.49 50.56 61.10

Oh yeah, I tried out bobsled shoes which are allowed to be used this season, they have about 100 tiny little spikes rather than the 6 larger spikes that skeleton shoes usually use. I used them my first run and my push was a 6.02 which was a bit faster that it has been, on my second run I put my skeleton spikes on and slipped on the ice and got the much slower push of 6.31......I think I will be buying the bobsled shoes!

Time to go to bed, I am real tired after 2 full on days here at the track and I even managed to fit in a session at the ice house. I'll let you know how we all go in training tomorrow.

It got to -27!

Well, what have we been upto... on the Saturday morning Kelly and I headed off to the ice house (a sprint track on ice that is simalar to the tope 50m of the real track) with Turc, outside the air temperature was -27, that is seriously cold it feels like youve been slapped in the face and you cough if you take any deep gulps of air. Kel had only got about 2 hours sleep and was pretty wacked all day so she didn't slide, but I had a good session on the ice, I was 8 hundredths slower than the previous day but that would have been due to tired legs. I also gave the one handed push a go, I think I could probably get it but there isn't enough time to start changing things with the World Cup this week. Yesterday Kel and I headed off to Dave Grahams to get Kelly's sled adjusted, it now fits her properly. Thanks Dave.

This morning Kelly and I have been out to the gym, it is a little warmer about -8, so we didn't get too cold walking over there, the waterslide at the gym provided plenty of entertainment...

Tonight we are off to the World Cup reception, and tomorrow we are sliding at 11.30 Yaaaaayyyyyyy. AT LAST.

Ice house training

Kelly (who arrived late last night), Liz and I had a training session in the ice house this morning, it was really worth it, my push has improved since last year, but it is hard to tell how much by because the conditions in the ice house are very variable. Since Kelly and I have seriously tight budgets we have not rented a car and had to taxi to the track, but it was only $CA10 which wasn't too bad. After our 1/2 hour session Kelly and I had a track walk with a local slider who is helping us with our lines, it took us 2 hours to walk to the top of the track and walk slowly down though each corner, but the time wasn't the problem, it was about-22 degrees out there, so you can imagine how ridiculously cold we were when we finally made it back to the ice house the warm up. However we now have some good hints on how to find speed on the track. 6 hours out in the cold is really tiring, so we will both sleep well tonight. The temperature is not meant to change till next week so we are in for a real cold weekend.( the funniest thing in real cold weather is when your nose hairs freeze!)
We might get some more time in the ice house tomorrow, then two days with no ice, unofficial training on the track in on Tuesday at 11, with official training (2 runs) on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and the Calgary World Cup on Saturday at 8am.

I will let you all know how our weekend goes.

Banff, Lake Louise, and lots of snow

There has been no sliding for the last couple of days, but I have kept my self busy with trips to the pools, the gym and a day out at Banff. On Tuesday, Tim Cassin took me on a tiki tour out to Banff, on the way we stopped off in Canmore at a welding work shop where skeleton sleds are made, it was interesting seeing the different jigs used to manufacture the different components of our sleds, quite a bit of work goes into it. After a mocha and a tuna melt at a laid back cafe in Canmore we headed onto Lake Louise, on the way we stopped on the side of the road to watch a huge elk that was happily sitting about a meter of the road, nestled into a deep patch of snow, this animal had no fear of cars or the people taking photos from him, when I get a chance I'll try to get the photos put up of him.

Lake Louise is beautiful, there is a HUGE hotel there, built in the late 1800's right on the edge of the lake with mountains towering around it. The lake was frozen with a layer of snow on top, and we passed a bunch of people heading out snow shoeing onto it.

We then headed out to Banff, which is similar to Queenstown but with no lake, we stopped in at the hot pools there, and Tim provided plenty of entertainment to all those in the pool with the "historical swim suit" he rented, covered from thigh to neck with a little skirt, blue and white stripes and buttons on the shoulder, I wish I had my camera.

It snowed all day yesterday and there is more due this weekend, it is a balmy -13 outside and a cold snap has been predicted for this weekend!

Kelly arrives tonight, and we have training in the icehouse booked for Friday and Monday, with training on the track (probably 2 runs) scheduled for Tuesday, World Cup training begins on Wednesday. I can’t wait.

Skeleton, rugby and a night dancing

Well, at 2am Calgary time last Saturday morning the kiwis all got together at Dons house (retired NZ skeleton racer, FIBT official and Russ's dad) to watch the All Blacks get hammered by the Aussies, it was a sad game to watch (but it was entertaining listening to the Canadian commentators mess up all the kiwi names).

It was official training for the ASA club race #1 on Saturday night and as fore-runner I was first off, so at 7pm my name was called to the start line, once your on the start line you stand there with you sled standing in front of you, when you get a green light and a buzzer goes off you can put your sled down and go, your adrenalin gets pumping when your waiting for that green light to go, and you usually only have to wait about 30 seconds, after about 4 and a half minutes I was told to go inside because the back up generator was not going and they needed it for the back up lights, although no one had ever heard of the main lights failing, so I headed inside and 10 minutes later they announced that if they couldn't get it going so training was cancelled. We were all pretty gutted. A bunch of us decided to go to a local bar for a beer, then onto a club where Michelle Kelly (Top ranked slider from last year) was celebrating her birthday, it was a good night. Clubs in Calgary are not quite like the ones back in Dunedin, with half the bar staff looking like play boy pin ups and the prices of drinks reflecting the cost of their boob jobs!

Last night was the ASA Cup race, I only got one run, and the first half of it I was very skiddy, I haven’t skidded since last season, and it took me a while to get the sled back under control, but from half way I had a pretty decent run (6.22/62.10). Ben and Russ got to slide in the Race as they both live here, Ben finished 2nd and Russ finished 14th. Ben also won the Grudge cup (a huge bottle of wine), a prize for who ever had the fastest time and was out drinking the night before.


So I have had my 5 training runs and now I must wait for the World Cup on the 26th to slide again. I have sorted out a membership at a local gym which is walking distance up the road, with a huge indoor running track, weights, bikes, hot pool, hydro slide, wave pool, ice-skating rink and climbing wall, so for the next ten days I will be down there getting ready for the World Cup. There is a fantastic training facility here in Calgary, an indoor ice house, that simulates the start of the track, it lets us practice our sprint with out having to run the rest of the track, unfortunately it costs $200 Canadian an hour to hire out, once a few more international athletes arrive in town I hope to share the costs so we can get on it.

Well I will let you all know how the training is going later in the week.

Day two of sliding was even better.

Well last night sliding was even better, I pushed a little harder, and relaxed alot more. When you slide at night or when it is warmish (ie 0 to -5) the ice can get a layer of frost on it, this slows the track down and makes the ice a bit sticky. Last night it was frosty,and it slowed most people down by about 1-1.5 seconds, but rather than being slower my times were even faster. Which is fantastic. Liz Couch made her first run after taking a year out of sliding and was pretty pleased. This morning I decided to fight the jet lag and get up at 7.30am, and head over to the track to watch the Canadians and Japanese train at 9am, since I am really short of funds this year I haven't got a rental car so I headed off on foot. I stayed here at Peters two seasons ago, and the walk to the track was pretty straight forward, but since then hundreds of houses have been built between here and there and I took a wrong turn onto a new street and got lost. My half hour walk became a one hour adventure accross building sites, barbed wire fences and several padocks covered in a foot of snow, at least I know the neighbourhood now.

It was also Russ's first run of the season.

It is official training tomorrow for the ASA cup race, I will be fore-running.

My times push:6.15 (38.37kmph) finish 62.25 (113.89)
6.09 (38.72) 61.97 (114.22)

Ben:60.36 and 60.02
Liz: 65.51 and 62.53
Russ 67.85 and 62.62

think fast thoughts for us

Lou

Yeeeeehaaaa first run of the season was awesome!

God I love this sport. I was pretty nervous when I got to the track and decided to walk up from the bottom to refresh my memory as to which way the corners go here in Calgary, I have been on seven other track since I was here last and remembering all of the corners can be a challenge. Calgary track is on a mini ski field, with a snow board park and ski runs only about 5meters from the track, so with night time skiers and boarders taking air off jumps next to me, music playing, bobsledders getting their sleds ready, lugers finishing up their session and a start house full of skeleton racers, the atmosphere was just awesome.

Last night was the Alberta Skeleton Association club session, I have been given special permission to slide with them, I was 28th off the top, so had a bit of a wait before my first run, in fact I was talking to Tim Cassin, Irish athlete (and all round good-guy/coach from last season) when he told me that they had called my name and I had only a few seconds to get my helmet on and out to the start line. AAAHHHH. It really was the best way to have my first run, if I had been paying attention I would have gone out to the start line far too early, and spent several minutes stressing out, instead I just ran out there grabbed my sled and went, no time to think about it.

The run was brilliant, you forget how fast it actually feels, and how you can feel yourself accelerating, corner 8 (which was my enemy for my first two seasons - it flipped me onto my back 6 times in the past) was real good, no issues there. I am really impressed that in my first day of training, I managed to feel the pressures, I could tell when I was high and low in the corners, it usually takes me a while to be able to sense them.

In my second run I was a little more prepared and I ran off a little faster, and had a pretty decent down time, the extra speed really increased the G's and my head was forced on to the ice a few time, hence a rather sore neck this morning, but that is standard for the first week of sliding.

Ben Sandford, a Kiwi World Cup athlete, who lives here and is a member of the ASA club, was flying he had the fastest down times of both runs last night, faster than a Canadian world cup athlete! The Kiwis are going to have an awesome season.

My times: (first 50m) (finish time) (speed @50m) (speed on straight away kmph)
Run one 6.40 63.67 37.76 110.73
Run two 6.16 62.16 38.57 111.90

Bens down time both runs 58.63

I am sliding again tonight at 7pm, I can’t wait.

A beautiful crisp, cold winters day in Calgary!

I am here at last. Yesterday I flew from Dunedin to Wellington to Auckland (where I got to catch up with my mum - love you mum), i was delayed in Auckland for a few hours, then on to LA and after about a 7 hour wait I headed off to Calgary, I had no worries getting my 3 pieces of luggage on the planes,( a huge thanks to Grant and Andrew). Russ, one of the NZ world cup team members who lives here in Calgary picked me up and droped me off at Peters. If any family or friends want to get in touch with me here the number is +1 403 249 1313 (please try not to call in the middle of the night!). I am about to put my sled together and see how it survived the trip, I should be sliding tonight about 7pm, I am real excited and a bit nervous, the first run of the season is alway very exciting, but i am sure it will be a good one.
I'll tell you how it goes later.

Thanks to every one who has helped me get here, there is a huge supportive team behind me, who believe in me, with out all of your help I couldn't have done it.

lou
PS I have added a few new links to my website, go and check them out.
www.nzskeletonracer.com

I leave tomorrow! At last!!

Wow, what a crazy few weeks, and it is all about to get even more full on (Yehaa). I leave tomorrow at 11am from Dunedin and head to Calgary via Auckland (where I'll get to see my Mum!) and LA. I have found a wonderful family who are willing to let me and Kelly stay with them in Calgary, so thanks a lot Peter that is a huge help.

I am still about $7000 short of funds, but I can’t let that stop me. Armed with my credit card I am heading off to race. I have got one day to acclimatise to Canadian weather and time zone, and will be sliding on Wednesday and Thursday night, and I may even get to fore-run a race on the weekend. I was really starting to get worried about showing up at my first World Cup race having not been on my sled since last February in Nagano (and I don't remember much about that because I was concussed), but thankfully it has worked out and I will get a few runs and get in with the flow of it all again.

I have got a new product sponsor on board, Nevada Sports is providing me with a fine pair of Merrell boots to keep my feet warm while I am hanging around the track in the snow everyday, and a funky pair of slip on every day shoes, they will be nice and comfy for the long plane journeys.

I have several speaking engagements booked up for next year when I return, no doubt I will have exciting and inspirational stories to tell.

If any one is interested in sponsoring my participation in a race then please email me lou@nzskeletonracer.com .

Well, keep checking in to see how I am doing, because it is all about to get pretty exciting.

Sliding soon
Lou

Head Back to my website here