drug testing

What a day in the kiwi camp, yesterday, we slid at 2pm, and as I was walking back from town in the morning there was a man and a woman standing in the car park with a clipboard, name tags and looking very keen to talk to me… turns out that the New Zealand anti doping agency had arranged for the Canadian anti doping agency to come down from Montreal to ‘out of competition test’ us. Just wonderful, we just love peeing in a cup in front of complete strangers. Just as they identified me, Ben, Iain and Tionette pulled up so with an hour to get our lunch and head off to the track we all had to go through the testing procedure. Kelly showed up at the usual time to collect us, but the testers had to chaperone her to the track where they had to wait until she was ready to pee, and then she had to fill A sample and B sample containers and test stuff in the start house full of athletes. I had good runs, the Canadians, the Irish, Aussies and the Japanese have arrived, it is good to see our sliding friends after 8 months away, everyone is looking fit strong and fast for this Olympic season. I am liking my new runners, they are a bit different to the ones I was on last season, but I think they are faster, I went faster than some of the boys today, when I am usually at least a second behind them. Took 3 runs all good, getting faster.

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Bobsled hits skeleton athletes in Calgary.

The kiwi team have had an eventful day today but right now all our thoughts are with the US team in Calgary and particularly Noelle Pikus-Pace, the world cup points leader from last season.

We just heard that during their training session while waiting at the end of the out run for a truck to pick them up (5 US women were waiting) a 4 man Bobsled, with a rookie pilot and rookie breakman took a run and for some reason did not break at all, the sled flew out, off the end of the track, through the group of waiting athletes and landed 30m way, it is a miracle that none of the skeleton women died, the only serious injury was Noelles broken leg, which I hear she is having surgery on right now. We are all quite rattled by this, as it should never have happened, there are far too many close calls at tracks, we need beter safety standards, and facilities where we can wait to be collected knowing that we are not in the path of danger.

These are dangerous sports but the the danger should be controlled by us and the decisions we make while decending the track not by the poor safety prceedures, facilities and lack of risk management by others.

We all wish Noelle a fast recovery, and hope we can see her sliding for the second half of the season or even earlier if possible. No doubt the whole US team will be shaken up by all this, I just hope it can bring them all together and not shatter their team spirit in this Olympic seasonr.

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Back to the two handed push

Well sliding has been going great, I am getting the feeling for it all back again, and my push is just amazing!!!! I have been very worried lately as my push seemed to have become so so slow and terrible that I was starting to think in a very negative way about the season ahead .When performing my best last season, my push was still around the 4^th or 5^th slowest on tour, so with my times over the last week being half a second slower than that I realized I had made it into the all time slowest-snail push category and something had to be done about it otherwise this season was going to be a waste of time. With my injured shoulders, I have not been able to do any upperbody weights, and I have become very weak and unstable across the shoulders, although my one hand sprint training was going fantastic up in the ice tunnel on the snow farm, since getting here it has become slower and slower. Yesterday I pushed a 6.45 while actually trying to push fast, I was gutted. So I decided it was time to try going back to the two handed push. And unbelievably I pushed half a second faster with it!!!!!!! When I switched to the one hand push, I went so much faster, I had many bad habits with my two hand push, it looked terrible and was slow, but not any more, I obviously have learnt something with the one hand push that has transferred over to improve my two hand push, the only awkward thing is that with one hand I run on the right side of the sled and with two I run on the left hand side of the sled, so I am now diving on from the left, and I need to get smoother with it so I don’t bump my hip bones on the way in. Tionette crashed out of 14 today, but was OK, no injuries just lots of adrenaline no doubt. Kelly had a personal best push, Kel who was pushing two hands last season and going real slow, like 6.30’s here has switched to a one hand and today pushed a 6.02. It is funny how we have both switched technique and both are running faster.

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Yesterday was the 8th day in a row of rain, it is as if we are training in Winterberg Germany. Peter, Kelly and I were pilot sleds for the womens bobsled race again, i too two good runs, no major mistakes a few great corners.

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Yesterday was a good day on ice, Kelly, Peter and I foreran the US team trails race 2, I took two runs, could have had 3, but i had a heavy weights session in the gym in the morning so by the time my third run came around I was lying down in the start house ready for a snooze, Kelly took my third run for me. 3 days ago my new Uvex helmet arrived, I had started to worry that it was not going to show up, and I had had enough of my old helmet, it wasn't protecting me out of corner 14 and I have a bruised chin and neck from a few rough rides with a slopy helmet. But the new helmet is beautiful, and my chin is fully enclosed in it. I thought this would mean no move cut chins or blood platters on the sled, but this is not so. On my first run yesterday I put my rock up to where it was at the world cup here last year, and i was a bit nervous about it, so when i dived on and skidded between corner 1-2 (which is unusual for me) I shuffled back by a cm so that i had a bit more control, but this put my chin with in striking distance of the front of my sled. I took a bumpy line from 6-7 and whacked under my chin on the sled, opened in nice little cut, so far I have cut my chin every single season, this is however the first that has not needed stitches. A sticky plaster fixed it.

The second run I got the start line and took off, and realised as I was sprinting looking at my hands, that I did not have my gloves on!! STUPID. So that run was spend trying to squeeze my hands in and make then as little as possible so that there was no chance of hitting a wall and loosing skin. Thankfully I had a clean, very good run and no skin lost. The funny thing is that the run turned out to be one of my fastest, and I cant remember some sections of it, i was sort of on auto pilot just thinking about keeping my hands unscratched.

Ben, Iain and Tionette (all kiwis) arrived at the Hostel last night, Iain has come from a 10 session in Lillihammer, and Ben and Tionette have been in Calgary. We'll all be on ice tomorrow.

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US team trials.

Today Kelly Peter and I foreran the US Olympic trails. It has been raining hard all day but the track here is all undercover so you don't get wet until you exit the finish curve. I had 3 good runs, but we were asked not to push just take a few steps and get on so my times were not as good as they could have been. I am a bit bruised and bumped from the last few days of sliding, the track is very bumpy and my hip bones are black and blue.

Yesterday Peter and I moved into the Hostel here in Lake Placid, the High Peaks Hostel, it is a lovely homely place, tomorrow 3 other kiwis arrive, Ben, Iain and Tionette, and Kim Hardy an Aussie slider.

We have race two of the US team trials tomorrow, then the top 12 Americans are off to Calgary, it looks like we'll stay here and continue sliding here, but I haven't made my mind up totally on that one, I have tickets booked to go to Calgary but I have not got the money for once I am there and it is cheaper to stay here..... Will have to decide soon so I can change my flight if I need to.... Calgary are charging $50 per run, where as here I have purchased a season pass and can have as many runs as possible.

I met the rep, Bill, for an awesome toy called the airboard last night, he was staying here at the hostel, an airboard is a skeleton style inflatable sled to use on ski fields, it is slowly getting permission across the world to be used on commercial fields, it has full control and looks like a whole lot of fun, Bill called his boss and now I have scored one of these sleds to play on for next New Zealand winter, it would be wild to take through a boardercross course... some sliding fun for the off season.

Yesterday we did two sessions, we foreran the skeleton trails training and then the bobsled trails training all up we were at the the track from 12.30 until 8.30, a bloody long day at the track but I got some quality runs in.



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training

So we slid last yesterday, a double session, we were on ice at 3pm forerunning for the US national team selection races, right now they have a week of official training, then we slid with the US Bobsled team. All up we got 4 runs in, but it was a long day at the track we got there at 2pm and did not get home untill 10pm, and grabbed a pizza on the way home, not the best food for an athlete, but it tasted great and we did not disturb others in the house by cooking up a storm in the kitchen. My runs were great, the track was very frosty, so the times dont really count for much, but the good news is that this season i have had 6 runs so far, and from the very first run I could remember everything I did in each run, exactly where I was on the track at all times, this is something that usually takes a while to get up to speed with at the start of the season, I am stoked it has come back to me so easily, basily your mind has to slow every thing down to be able to take in all the details with so much accuracy, then I can go over the run in my mind from top to bottom and write it down and decide what went wrong and what worked, and what line I was spit out of the corner on after playing with some new steers.

My sled is a bit tight around my ribs, so this morning Tim heated up the front corners of the saddle and bent them out by about 2-3mm on either side, just the tiniest amount, but now i should be able to dive into the sled weith out catching my ribs on the saddle, I have two matching sore bruises that I do not want to get any worse. Now I need to go and pad the saddle and handles.

My Davenport runners arrived yesterday, so I am going to try my big wheels tonight, I am a bit nervous, as big wheels are meant to be harder to control, last year I thought I was on big wheels but it turns out I had womens big wheels, my new ones are mens big wheels and may be a bit harder to control as I am lighter than the ideal weight for them, but if I can control them, then I should go faster...

We slide at 8pm tonight with the bobsledder, I am sliding under the alias of 'forerunner number 1' as the official word out is that there are no foreign sliders here right now.


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ice

Yesterday I took the first runs of the season, first run since the 28^th of February! I was a little nervous because I had changed my saddle, moved it in a bit so it was a snugger fit, but I landed in it fine and took off down the track. The first 2 corners where a blur, my eyes were not used to the speed, I bumped my way around corner 3 and shot into corner 4, then the speed really kicked in, corners 5,6,7,8 and 9 were a blur, with me trying to fumble my way through steers I used last time I was here, chances were I was too late with every one, I entered corner 10, which is one of my favorite corners, it is a tall sweeping corner, you get high up on the wall, and felt the sled rise up to the roof, then I popped it out and down the straight to corner 11, I entered late so my attempts to keep it on the corner long were a waste of time, I got out of 12 nicely with out hitting the entry of 13, not sure if that is because I drove well or the it is cut easy, probably the later, I flicked through 13 and 14 in quick succession, and flew out 14 into the 100m flat ‘chicanes’ straight away and bounced along managing to avoid the walls, into 17 I really felt the pressure and my helmet hit the ice, 17 spat me into 18 which thankfully didn’t flip me into 19 but I did get a good bump, and then it was all over as I hit the wall coming out of 19 as I crossed the finish line. YEHAA.

The second run was a little more exciting when my helmet tilted and I couldn’t see through corners 5 to 9, the track manager said I had the most exciting line he had seen through 7, 8, 9 in a long time, so I am glad I couldn’t see what was happening.

So that was my first day training of the season, my times were good, and the sled felt great, and it was bloody brilliant to get that rush from sliding again. Adrenaline is an excellent pain killer so the shoulders were fine afterwards too.

Since arriving here in the states my training in the gym and sprint sessions have been great, and I have been pushing heavier weights than ever in the gym. I have two new sets of runners that should be delivered today, so it will be an exciting week learning how they work on the ice.

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sled work

So today I worked on my sled, my beautiful very expesive and fast sled that the Snow Farm sponsored me with. I am a bit leaner now than I was when I was orriginally measured for it two years ago, so I rattle around in the saddle a bit now, so we moved the saddle in by an inch and a half, this envolved taking the saddle off the sled, which is easy enough, but i did not want to destroy the great padding job that Steve Gurney did for me so I had to be very careful, Tim Nardiello (coach) and Peter van Wees (dutch slider that I am rooming with in Tims basement, amazing snoring abilty) were helping and would have much prefered to grab the padding and rip it off when i was not looking, but the padding survived the ordeal, arc welding, grinding, hammers and all, we also tilted the front part of the saddle which cups my upper ribs inward and it no longer digs into my arm, and I am way more comfortable on it now. I thought it was great last year, but now I have changed it it is a much more snug fit.

Still havent been on the ice, it has been around 25 degrees most days here and today the ice in corner 7 melted, no sliding for anyone today.








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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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