Another stunning day up on the snow farm

Just got back from the snow farm where I was training in the proving ground ice shed, Garrick was helping me cut the ice and filming again, it was a good session, and I am worn out now.

Yesterday I had a pilates session and a Plyo session and in the evening I was the guest speaker at the Wanaka Rotary Club. They hold their meetings at Te Tawara a great local restaurant, the dinner was delicious, and everyone seemed to really enjoy hearing about how I got into skeleton and what my future goals are. I had my talk filmed as I need to show the speaking agencies my presentation style before they will list me as a speaker, next year I hope get several paid speaking engagements to help fund my training.

I have just found a place to push my wheeled sled, a local business man Derek Thompson is letting me use the underground car park of a new building that is being put up, it is the flattest longest stretch of concrete around town, and if it is raining I'll be under cover so it is perfect really.
I am about to have a yummy feed of pesto and pasta then I am off to the physio to get my shoulders worked on and then a weights session followed by an ice bath (wonderful). I also need to get my lovely little mini checked by a mechanic today, it decided to break down in the middle of the main street yesterday, thankfully 3 English tourists offered to push start me, I was blocking the traffic, quite fitting for a skeleton racing mini to be push started, I didn't even get to say thanks, just a wave and a toot and I was off trying to keep her running so I could get home, she sounds like a tractor at the moment. It was one of those embarrassing moments where I just had to laugh, I really hope it is not too expensive to fix.





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A great day training

I picked up the Academy of Sport timing eyes this morning from the gym, and at 9.30 Garrick and I headed up to the Snow Farm to train in the proving grounds ice shed. Wanaka and the surrounding Southern Alps are looking unbelievalby stunning right now, with the fresh snow and perfect weather it was a great drive up onto the Pisa range where the snow farm is located, the view looks out over Mt Aspiring National park, endless snowy mountain peaks. Gorgeous. After giving John and Mary Lee "skelly boy" and "skelly girl" tshirts, the ones Kelly and I made up as a fundraiser last season while on tour, we headed to the shed and cut the groove, and set up the timing eyes, but we couldnt get them to work properly, and had to flag the timing, so I focused on technique for the session. I got linear, lower, kept the sled ahead of me and learnt that if i focus on keeping my head still I am less likely to swing out wide, so a very productive session on ice. I am stoked with my loads at the moment, despite having a lot of shoulder trouble and not being able to do bench press, or anything with my shoulders at the moment, my loads are real good, landing chest first and controlled, better than I was last year when i had perfect fully functioning shoulders... After cleaning up the shed, filling in the groove and pouring water all over the ice I had scuffed up, we headed back to Wanaka.

I had a freaking cold 'recovery' bath, they are not so bad after the first minute once your numb, and followed up some sponsorship leads.... fingers crossed.

Just got back from a strength session at the gym with Jon, it was great, I love feeling healthy again.

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Good training this morning

I had a good training session this morning with Jon, a strength session, followed by 11 minutes in the ice bath, my legs were sooooo cold, but they feel good for it now. It also looks like the New Zealand selection criteria for the women's skeleton team for the for the up coming Winter Olympics is nearly finished, I cant wait to have it all documented and set so we all know exactly what is expected of us this coming season, it is not as straight forward as just winning, as qualification of one athlete is based on a nation ranking to which several athletes contribute points.
I've just been skyping with Peter van Wees (Dutch slider) who is training over in Lake Placid, he has the shop on his website www.skeletonsport.com all set up, everyone should go and check it out and support this website by buying a tshirt, last season several times the site nearly shut down because Pete was busy racing on the world tour and didn't have the money to keep the site on line, buying a tshirt will help keep the best skeleton site on the www(this site is undoubtedly the top source of skeleton information). The t-tshirts are only $US20 and that includes postage to NZ, a good bargain.

Kel is going well over in Lake Placid, although she missed her sled while pushing on ice the other day and landed on top of, instead of in, the saddle, and now she has bruised ribs that hurt when she laughs and trains. I hope she heals soon. I am training on ice up at the proving ground tomorrow, I just hope no car companies show up and kick me off, fingers crossed.

There has been 75 cm of snow here in the last week at the local ski field across the lake from where I live, and the ski patrolers there are throwing bombs to control the avalanche danger, the noise echoes around the mountains and the whole house rattles when they go off, it's like there is a war going on up there.

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Healthy again :)

I got home from my mums two days ago. I have had two sessions in the gym, I am still pretty weak, but thankfully my chest infection is gone and I can get back into training. I tried squats yesterday, I haven't been able to do squats since I injured my shoulder, Jon had come up with a way I can hold the bar across my shoulders holding rope rather than holding on to the bar, which means I can avoid putting my arm into the dislocation range where I injured it, it seemed to work well, but this morning my shoulder is rather sore, so I may have to go back to doing leg press. Jon convinced me to have an ice bath after training to speed recovery, and they are nasty, I yelled through the whole 5 minutes, next time I'll try to make it through to 10 minutes, but I tell you it was unbelievably cold and unpleasant, but I guess my legs must be feeling better this morning for it.

I went out to the airport yesterday, looking for an area where I can push a wheeled sled that the New Zealand Academy of Sport has made for me, I had spied a patch of smooth concrete between some hangars out there, but when I checked it out it was actually pretty bumpy. I ended up trying the sled on a smooth new road in a new sub division, but there is lots of friction when you push on tarmac, and the road is not totally flat so the sled veers to one side. I'll keep looking. I also finally put in my order for two new sets of runners from Ryan Davenport, my sled builder. They are going to cost $CA600 each, I spent ages thinking about what cut/style I wanted, but finally I think I made the right choices, I'll see once I am on ice with them, unfortunately I can't try before I buy. I was supposed to be training on ice up at the Southern Hemisphere Proving Ground on the Snow Farm yesterday and tomorrow but paying customers showed up wanting to test cars on ice, so I will hopefully be on ice on Monday now. Today I am going to do some sprints and core work.

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I've been a bit crook lately

I am in Blenheim visiting my parents right now, I have been sick since last tuesday, a bad chest infection, bronchitis, and apparently a touch of pneumonia, not fun, and not really the best state to be in when you need to be training hard. Since I was so crook I decided to use some of my airpoints to visit my Mum and be looked after. It took two 18 seater plane rides to get here! Tomorrow I fly home to Wanaka, feeling a lot beter no more fevers or painful breathing, must stay healthy now.

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busy week

I just picked up the car this morning, the fern on the roof looks awesome. I had a tv interview up the snow farm yesterday with Kelly Swanson Roe from tv3 for sports tonight, it is probably on in about 2 weeks, it was a real good day on the ice, and they got some great shots, and the footage will be re edited for Freeze tv which goes out to over 100 million in Europe!! The auction Julianne Brae (NZ's top Snow Boarder) and I began organising has been taken over by Katie Scott, a local woman I met on the plane back from Calgary, she offered to take over running it so we can concentrate on training and other stuff! And another fundraiser is being organised for Julianne and I by the owners of Café FE, who are very enthusiastic. Today my sponsor, Grant from Alpine media, who supported my trip to Calgary is meeting with the NZ marketing manager of a large international car company in Auckland on my behalf... things are looking positive there. I have had several articles in the paper and on the radio and loads of personal best milestones in the gym since being back, now I know my injury wont effect my racing I am more focused than worried. I have secured two new product sponsors, and look like I will be heading to Christchurch for some sprint training with Bev Petersen.So in all I have had a very productive and busy week.



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