It is windy and warm

And the track is melting.

Sliding was cancelled yesterday and today, I got there at 5.30 and the place was so quiet, the track had been closed for the day due to the new river running down the middle. I have been pretty lucky to have had so many days sliding on good ice, and considering it is so early in the season , it is amazing that the track crew even had great ice on the track.

One of my sponsors, Bernie, who was a guest up at the Snow Farm for several weeks over the NZ winter, was driving up with his 2 nephews from Rochester (5 hours south) just to catch up and see me in action on the track, but since the track was closed there was no sliding to see. It was great to see them though, and Bernie says hi to everyone from the snow farm.

I got to do some sight seeing today, went for a walk in the woods out to Lake Placid (the actual lake), didn't get to see any bears in the woods, or killer crocodiles in the water, just imagine that... We also went for a walk around John Browns Farm. I am getting jumpy, 2 days off sliding, and I have too much energy, I fly to Calgary from Montreal tomorrow. I'll meet up with Kel in Calgary and we will slide on Tuesday.

Oh yeah, funniest thing Halloween over here, kids don't get dressed up all scary, and nightmarish like you would expect, they come trick or treating as freckle faced cowboys, and pink ballerinas, princess's and the happiest friendliest looking ghosts you've ever seen. Someone needs to splash a bit of fake blood around. It's just one big candy collecting fancy dress party.

Good Bye Lake Placid.

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Happy Halloween

go the Cougars

My first 58

I just got back from the track and had a great run, a 58.86. I did a similar time here 3 years ago during training at the 2001/2002 World Cup, but not in the last 2 seasons, it was a rough run with loads of room to improve room. Yeehaa.

2 more days to get faster.

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Fast ICE

Last night the track was fast, what a blast. I had my 3 fastest runs of the year, all mid 59's, I also figured out a few things about corner 3, and fixed some issues I had in the 4-5 transition, which meant I didn't hit out of 5. I know you shouldn't compare times from one day to the other, but it just feels so good to go a whole second faster, even if most of it is due to the ice conditions.

The sole of my bobsled spikes/shoe is falling off, that is one way to stop me using my toes on the ice (toe steering is not good, it wears through the toes, pulls the sole off and slows you down heaps), bob shoes are expensive, and I was sort of thinking I would be able to get away with using these ones all season, but it looks like I'll have to find some new ones. These shoes are over 5 years old and have had a good life, time to retire them.

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Training

Sliding over the last few days has been good. But with warm t-shirt weather the track hasn't been so fast. Last night my first run felt fantastic, I have got my head down, I am getting through the crooked straight away with out bumping the walls, and I finally figured out how to get out of 10 with out scuffing the left wall of the straight between 10 and 11. I have been working on my push, keeping my feet closer to my sled, and I am improving. I am feeling very comfortable on the track, but I some times think that with a little more pressure or nerves I might focus more.

The group I am training with is much smaller this week, only 8 of us, which allows us to get 3 runs in per session, but there is no down time between the runs, which I am not used to, your still buzzing from one run and suddenly your off already on the next, it's crazy.

Ben (my team mate) has arrived in Calgary where he plans to slide for the next few weeks, Kelly is currently in the last few crazy days of trying to leave New Zealand, I am looking forward to Kels arrival, being on tour by your self isn't quite the same.

Oh yeah, my pumpkin soup worked great, but not as I expected, the pumpkins here taste more like big marrows than kiwi pumpkin?!

I have also seen a live fox, a live Fischer, and a road kill skunk that had just been run over- not by me, and it stunk out my car, and I only drove past it, like you wouldn't believe. YUCK

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Happy Birthday Karen, have a wicked one ;-)

xxx

No new news, I slide tonight at 8ish, I have updated the sponsors page on my website www.nzskeletonracer.com. HTML is a nightmare to understand.

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I saw my first wild deer!

And killed it, :-(

Driving back from the track last night, a deer ran out in front of my car, I slammed on the breaks, and it nearly got out of the way, but I hit its' back legs- a horrible sound. I was pretty shaken up, I have never killed anything (except hitting rabbits and possums but some how they don't count the same way). There was no damage done to the car, just deer hair left in the grill, the poor animal died on the side of the road. I am told that I was very lucky, that they usually do lots of damage to the car and could have come up over the bonnet and hit the wind screen. Lucky for me, deadly for the young deer.

Back at the hostel a plan was hatched to go and get the carcass, but the consensus was that butchering the deer in the garden would be far to messy, so it was left for the coyotes, they need to eat too. I hope they do eat it, as I don't want to see it and feel guilty every time drive out to the track.

Training went well, I was fore running (ie the test athlete for the timing system, and the the groove at the start) the USA National team selection race #1. I had the clean spritzed track, I worked on a few corners and figured out a few things that had been confusing me.

I am fore running the second team selection race tonight. Then the top 12 US men and women will go to Park City for the next round of racing and the other athletes will be joined by any other US sliders who want to try and make the USA Americas Cup team (to race in 3 international events held in North America). So I will be training with them next week.

I am cooking pumpkin soup for everyone today, it seems that here in the states pumpkins are just used for carving up at Halloween, not for human consumption, so I hope it turns out delicious.

Big Wheels

Well my first run on my new runners was 15 hundredth faster than I went when I was here for the world cup last year. I've got to be happy with that. I have no idea how my second run was time was because they deleted the time, and I didn't get it, and there was a timing problem at the start so my first run didn't have a start time either. But the first run felt good. The second run, I must have tensed up because I got this whole body slap going on coming out of corner 14, and continued it right to the finish, all I had to do was relax and I think it should have stopped but, I didn't and continued to bounce on the sled.

This morning I woke up to the smell of real American pancakes coming up from the kitchen. YUUMMMM. Gardner, a local Park Ranger, who stays at the hostel on his days off (when he gets to come out of the woods), let me have some of his maple syrup. His maple syrup was made from 40 gallons of maple sap that he boiled down to 1 gallon of syrup, no additives, no sugars, just pure real maple syrup made in the woods. I feel privileged.

Sliding

Well my session on Wednesday was great, in my first run (my 3 run ever on the new sled) I equaled my time I did here during the Lake Placid World Cup last season (although I did have a rather poor run that day). On the second run I entered corner 12 too late and launched my self on the exit, completely airborne for a split second, quite scary, a good buzz.

Last night training was frustrating, my runs felt better than those the day before but I was 2 seconds slower, it is strange how the good runs are often the slow ones and the crazy out of control ones are faster. I think I will be fore running for the US National team trails this weekend, which will give me a chance to practice getting into 'race mode', today I am going to try my big wheels, big wheels is the name of one of the cut of runners (blades) I brought with my sled. They are a little harder to control, but on the right ice conditions once you figure how to control them, they are supposed to be pretty fast....

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I love my new sled

I just got back from sliding for the first time on my new sled. I was so nervous before my first run, I did my one handed push, and didn't fall over (I had these terrible dreams of falling over). I was physically shaking at the top waiting for the green light, before the run Jimmy (Olympic gold medalist) came over and told me to just relax and enjoy it, harder done than said, but I know it is the key to going FAST. I sprinted off the block (with lots of people watching) and dived on, my new sled makes a lot of rattling noise (due to a new rule that does not allow rubber or shock absorbing components) I was alittle concerned at first. As soon as I was out of the groove and headed into corner one I moved my head to straighten up the sled and it worked, instantly! The sled is so responsive, and it is extremely comfortable. Finally my arms are supported and locked out straight, and it is so long, my legs are fully supported which lets me relax more and my head is not so far over the front that when under high pressure it hits the ice(that used to happen on my old sled). Now when under pressure my helmet is caught (a good thing I think) on the sled and I can still see. My sled just feels so perfect and wonderful and just unreal. I love my new Davenport sled. My times were great for my first day, and some how in the lower section of the track I picked up heaps of speed compared to splits from last time I was here. Also the track manager has offered me a flat rate of $200US for all my training runs, I don't know why when it should be about$18-$20 per run, I guess they like me. My sled is just beautiful in every way! And in corner 18 on my second run, I thought to myself, "Lou, relax,you all tense and fighting it" so I did, totally, for the last two corners...Relaxed.. That might have something to do with the fast split I had. It took me 2 whole years to finally relax like that on my old sled, it only happened in the last run I took at the world champs.

I am eating well here at the hostel, but the last 5 days was not so good with so much traveling and junk food (more than I ate the entire time in Wanaka- YUK). I have got a gym pass for the next two weeks, and I did a good work out today before sliding. The Gym also has a hot tub. Hmmmm.

Skeleton is THE most amazing sport in the world.

In Lake Placid

I flew out of Calgary yesterday morning at 7am, and arrived here in Lake Placid at 6.30pm, having driven south into the States from Montreal. As I expected Air Canada did not have any information loaded into their computer system, mentioning that I was traveling with 3 pieces of luggage, but I managed to charm my way onto the flight with out paying for any excess luggage ;-)

When I arrived in Montreal I called 1800 RENT A CAR and they came and picked me up, but while driving out to their off-airport location, I found that their cars could not be taken out of Canada (I told them on the phone that I was taking the car to Lake Placid- but they obviously didn't know that was in New York), so I was then returned to the airport where I rented a car at expensive drop in rates, the good thing was that they upgraded me to a Chrysler PT Cruiser, I am now traveling in style.

The drive south was a little sketchy at first, on the right (wrong) hand side of the road with a lot of indicator/window wiper confusion.

I am staying at the High Peaks Hostel, a wonderful homely place run my Monica and John a lovely couple who will be cooking fantastic organically wholesome meals for me for the next 15 days. I am in a bunk room, but John expects business to be quiet, so hopefully I'll get to keep my room for my self.

I dropped into the USOTC (Olympic training center, amazing athlete accommodation and training facilities and priced well out of this kiwis budget) and caught up with a few of the US team. The US team and I will be training tomorrow night (all tracks are closed for maintenance on Mondays) at 6pm. There are 22 women and 20 men trying out for the US world Cup team, only 4 men and 4 women will qualify, and I am the only non-American training!

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Arrived in Calgary

I arrived here yesterday evening. Michella Moller, a Danish skeleton racer who lives here in Calgary has let me stay at her appartment. Today I ventured accross town, all the streets here are numbered 1st ave, 77th st, 15 ave, etc, but the city is divided into 4 quadrants so there are 4 15th st, NW, SW, SE, NE, it makes getting around a little confusing at first. I walked 10 blocks, caught the train and then the bus and arrived at Canada Olympic Park and caught up with the Canadian team who where training on the new ice. Nathan Cicoria (Canadian athlete) is going to give me a lift out to Ryan Davenports work shop tomorrow so I can collect my new sled. I am so excited to be here, seeing people sliding today made me realize how much I love skeleton, it is such a rush. I will be sliding in Lake Placid on monday.
I got all my bags (3) on my first 3 flights with no worries, but my old sled went missing in LA and was only just delivered 24 hours late, it looks fine, nothing wrong with the first inspection.

My team mate Kelly has just announced that she has found a sponsor, which is so exciting she will be joining me here in Calgary on the 1st of November. Yehaa.

Here I go, on tour 2004/2005

Well I am on my way, the plane is booked for tomorrow and chaos surrounds me right now. I have got to sort out the clutter (dump all my belongings at dad’s house) cram all my gear into 3 large bags, praying furiously that the reassurances from travel agents regarding baggage waivers will be true. I hope I don’t have to use too many of my well practiced skills at charming the check in attendants just to get on the first of 20 flights!

I start with a long flight to LA and onto Calgary to collect my new Davenport sled (www.davenportsleds.ca), wicked! Davenport sleds can claim 32 World Cup and World Champs medals in the last 2 years. This is the Ferrari of skeleton sleds and is a huge leap forward, 2 years ago I was on a 22 year old banger, the first step in making a world champion is racing the best equipment in the world.

Here are some Davenport sled facts...Davenport Skeleton Sleds has become one of the premier skeleton sled manufacturers in the world. My sleds have now won a total of 158 medals at major international races (FIBT World Cups / Ladies' Cups, World Championships, Goodwill Games, Olympic Games), more than any other sled manufacturer in history. Since 1996, DSS sleds have won 56 % of all major international medals, more than every other manufacturer combined. Numerous other medals have been won by athletes using DSS runners or DSS frames. For nine consecutive seasons now, DSS sleds have won more medals than any other sled manufacturer. ..

And now I own one ;-)

I then head for Lake Placid in New York state (via Montreal), where I have hooked up 2 weeks training with the US national team on the World Cup final track, to learn how to drive this new speed machine. This is the perfect way to start my 5th skeleton World Cup campaign.

Most of this kiwi winter I have trained at the Snow Farm (www.snowfarmnz.com) in the Cardrona Valley, Wanaka. Mary and John Lee have let me use their Tunnel Shed, an indoor ice sheet, it is one of the their testing facilities usually reserved for European cars and high tech winter tyres. Lately it has been the premiere training facility for the NZ women’s skeleton team.

I have also had the privilege of becoming a member the Winter Olympic Performance Programme, a new development from the Academy of Sport South Island and SPARC. This programme has provided me, in the last 3 months, with professional sport science advice, physiotherapy, physical training, mentoring and the beginnings of the plan needed to get me to the Olympic podium.

Fundraising might as well be my full time job. Surprisingly I seem to have got something right with my approach this season, as I have a great support team of both product and financial sponsors, notably John and Mary Lee at Snow Farm, with out their support I would not be leaving tomorrow and I would not have my world class Davenport sled. However this season will not be easy, in fact I leave New Zealand knowing that I haven’t yet secured the funds to complete the season (or pay for any excess baggage!), but you must not let lack of money get in the way of your Olympic dreams.

You’ll be hearing from me from training and competition venues across Europe and North America while I compete in 7 world cup races, as I improve my world ranking of 18th, and nation ranking of 8th, and qualify for the 2005 World Championships in Calgary Canada next February. You’ll also hear of the antics of the New Zealand skeleton team, as the six of us race down icy skeleton tracks, reaching mind blowing speeds of 130kmph and being squashed by G forces similar those jet pilots endure! It will be wild. I am glad to have you all on tour with me, grab your helmet, lets go.