Another day here in Lake Placid, I still couldn't go to the gym at the OTC, tomorrow I am going to sign up at the comercial gym in town (minimum sign up of 1 month) as it could take a week to get my OTC pass processed, I helped out with Tims new house he is building on the back of the section, staining the batons for the outside of the house, a few hours a day earns me my keep, pretty good really. Huge winds blew two trees over here (huge limbs of trees, the limbs may have well been trees) one hit the new house and the other hit the neighbors, power lines were blown over as well!

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sprint training

I had good sprint session this morning in the blazing sunshine, by body was loving the vitamin d, I went down to the running track here in Lake Placid it is very old, and not in suitable conditions for and races but good enough for my 30m sprints, the US national Luge squad where there being tested, lugers sprint train as well, that is something I didn't know. The track is where the opening ceremony for the 1980 Winter Olympics was held, so there are the flags of all the participating nations and the Olympic Flame monument, it is surrounded by horse padocks and stunning scenery. I was hoping to use the gym in the afternoon but my traning center pass is not printed yet, which means I am not allowed into the gym, it is a pretty amazing facility and they are strict as to who can come and go, so will have to wait till tomorrow. Tomorrow I am going to get my sled out and look at changing the saddle, I am a bit skinnier now than when I was measured up for it a couple of years ago so it needs changing for snug tight fit. Tomorrow I'll be doing some painting at Tim's new house he is building, earning my keep here.


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I just got a camera a couple of days before I left Wanaka, unbelievably, I have raced 5 seasons, travelled all over the world, and not owned a camera! I figured that I would just kick myself in the future if I had no photos to show off all my adventures, so this blog will now have lots of pictures to help tell the stories, this one is of beautiful Lake Wanaka, just a couple minutes walk from where I live i took the photo last Saturday.

So today was spent getting access to the gym at the Olympic Training Center sorted and visiting with all the people at the track and training center who have the authority to say yay or nay to us being here, in all it was a good day, and I went to the track and saw that he ice is slowly building on the lower track! But at about 2pm the jet lag sleep monster got me, and I dropped dead asleep until 6pm, I woke up to barbecued burgers ready and waiting for dinner, wonderful.

I have had a lot of difficulty sending out the email below, I sent it 3 times, I think the last time most of you should have received it, if any of you want to receive email updates through the race season then email me lou@nzskeletonracer.com and I will add you to the email list.

I am in the process of building a new website with the support of my new sponsors www.webfarm.co.nz, I hope to have this blog hosted on the new site and new video and photos page as well, I'll let you all know when it is up and running.

I took this photo from the top of the track today...
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In Lake Placid

This is the first of my ‘on tour’ updates, if you’ve been added to my mail list and want to be removed or know of someone who would like to get regular updates of my progress then just drop me a line.
Finally the time of the year has come for me to pack my bags and hit the road again. This will be my 6^th season racing, proudly wearing the silver fern while zooming down the track at exhilarating speeds, in the most magical and exciting sport, that I am totally passionate about: Skeleton. This is an important race season, the Winter Olympics will be held in Torino next February.

I have been based in Wanaka for the winter, training on ice up at the Proving Ground (formerly part of the Snow Farm). A freak accident on a trampoline slowed me down for a bit back in April, but since then my training has been focused and good, I am the leanest, fittest, fastest I have ever been and in great condition. In July with support from Alpine Media, I took part in an on-ice training camp in Calgary with the US National Skeleton Team, I learnt so much at this camp, and since returning to Wanaka I have continued to improve my push technique and speed on ice at the Proving Ground.

On Sunday I departed Wanaka head for Lake Placid New York, I arrived about an hour ago, 55 hours after leaving Wanaka at 7am Sunday morning!!! I will be based for the next 4 weeks, dry land and on ice training before heading to Calgary for the first world cup of the season. The last day I slid in Calgary I took a second off my personal best time, so I am really looking forward to getting back on the track, repeating that run, and then doing it even better. I have 7 world cup races this season, Olympic selection will be made after world cup 5.

This season Kelly Moffat, Peter van Wees (The Nederland’s) and I will be coached by Tim Nardiello, coach of the US team, we will be traveling, training and living with the US team. The US have 3 women ranked in the top 10, working with them is a great privilege, I am lucky to have been offered this chance to work with and be surrounded by the best athletes in the world, I am sure some of their winning ways will rub off.

In the last 12 months I have had huge amounts of media coverage here in New Zealand, 64 newspaper articles or mentions!! 5 magazine articles, 4 TV interviews, and over 100 Radio mentions. And then there is the 52 million who tuned in to watch the world cup races. Pretty good coverage really.

This off season, the support I found in Wanaka has been overwhelming; Julianne Bray, New Zealand’s top snowboarder (she came 5^th in a World Cup in Chile last week) and I ran a joint fundraising campaign, we held an auction and a raffle and Radio Wanaka ran a fundraiser, all up we managed to raise $14,000! A HUGE thank you must go out to all the people in Wanaka who donated cash, goods or their time, and those who bid at the auction and bought raffle tickets. If this fundraiser had not been such a success I would not be over here now. With added support from Snow Farm, Base, the Skeggs Foundation, Olympic Solidarity funding, my brother and money I have saved, I have managed to raise $16250, once my equipment costs, airfares and insurance are taken out, there is not a whole lot left for the 5 and a half months of hotel, meals, training fees, race fees, car rental, and the occasional phone call home to Mum to cover… not sure how I’ll do it, it is going to take some clever budgeting but I will get there, in the past I have always found a way, and it helps that I am staying in my coaches basement for the time being. So if anyone has any ideas let me know. I have just had a trust set up to help me this season and through to the Vancouver Olympics, if anyone would like to know more about it they can contact John Guthrie at JGuthrie@business.otago.ac.nz

Apparently they turned on the refrigeration plant at the tack here in Lake Placid just last night, so soon we will have ice. Yay.

I will keep you all updated on how it goes…the fun part starts soon.

Louise Corcoran

PS check out the articles about my skeleton career in this months North and South magazine, New Zealand Fitness Magazine and next months Wilderness magazine.

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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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Check out my current world rankings and results, see the Eurosport or Speed Channel broadcast schedule.