Shoulders get a wake up call.

Wanaka turned on one of it's stunning perfect winter days today, clear clear blue skies, tall snowy mountains, lots of sunshine and a crisp bite to the air. I love this place. My shoulders are getting better, my physio here thinks I am not progressing as fast as I should, so she pushed me pretty hard in our last session, which wasn't fun, but with lots of rehab and time spent in the gym everyday I will regain my full range of motion and strength back, it is just frustrating how long it takes.

I had my second flight lesson today, it was amazing, I love it, I was in the air for an hour, we flew from the airport out to Hawea, then towards Wanaka and back to the airport and back around the loop again. I practiced climbing and decending and turning, learning to fly straight and level and of course, hovering, lots of landing and taking off, and an autorotation (which is when the engine fails and you decend rapidly with out any power, but in a controlled manner, sounds pretty scary but wasnt too bad, didnt have to land it though, I think the first time I land an autorotation might be a bit hairy... I guess I will find out soon).
I am very shaky with my hovering but aparently everyone is for the first several lessons.

Oh yeah, Midas South City, the mechanic shop that forgot to finish putting my mini's exhaust on properly, they agreed to pay for the repairs and a little extra, I had to remind the what customer service is but they ended up doing the right thing :)


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iceland

My brother and his wife are working in Iceland on a glacier, they are also waiting to hear if they got the jobs they went to Europe to be interviewed for... working for the Brittish Antarctic Survey, they have a blog too, www.thekarenandbenshow.blogspot.com check it out.



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Learning to hover

I arrived in Wanaka late Friday night, all was going well on the drive from Christchurch untill I was decending the last pass into Wanaka, and my exhaust fell off. I spent over $1000 on my car last week, including having a brand new exhaust system. It was just before dusk, I was in the middle of nowhere and there was no mobile phone coverage, I was feeling like a real damsel in distress, untill Robin Junkins came to my rescue and reattatched it with a wire coat hanger! What a ledgend. An hour later I got here safe and sound. A mechanic has since attatched it a little more securely and said that the all important nut that keeps the exhaust attatched to the car was NEVER PUT ON! Midas South City Christchurch will be paying for that mistake!

I back from the gym, it's good to be back in my old gym. My exciting news is that yesterday I started training for my Helicopter Pilots licence. I am now studying with SIT and Wanaka Helicopters, working towards my Commercial Pilots Licence, (with a student loan of course). I had my first lesson yesterday, and it went well, I managed to hover for 10 seconds (that is really good), but the rest of the 45 minutes was spent being out of control and over correcting every wrong movement, but I can see how it can be addictive. I found I could relate flying to sliding very easily, they both require very subtle movements when steering and being relaxed is very important, and if you take it one way you need to adjust something else to keep balance. Next lesson 9am monday :)

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It has been a long time since I blogged, before the Olympics even! Things got pretty hectic before the games and blogging fell off my list of priorities. But I did write email updates that I sent out to friends and family during the Olympics, so i will put them up in the next few weeks.
Since the Olympics I have been living in Blenheim at my Mothers place, and I have had six trips up to Tauranga to see my surgeon with two shoulder operations, ACC has been brilliant and helped me get my ops done in the quickest time possible and have been shuttling me around to the gym and physio while I cant drive, you usually hear nothing but complaints about ACC but I really cant complain. It turned out that I had two very serious injuries and that the right one ( the one that gave me less grief) was the most serious. Left shoulder is healing nicely, and we expect a full recovery, and right one we hope for a full recovery but there is a chance I will be left with some instability in that one. I had the surgeries only 5 weeks apart, which meant there were some pretty horrible weeks there when I had very very little movement in both arms, thank god I had my mum there to help me. Now though, life is a lot better, finally I can drive my car (HURRAH) and I am strong enough to complete all the neccesarry tasks of living ( cook, drive, use a knife and fork, get dressed, lift light things...), and life is no longer on pause. I have driven 5 hours south to Christchurch and tomorrow I am headed 6 hours south to Wanaka, it might take me 8 hours as my arm will get very sore driving for that long and i'll need a break, probably somewhere near Tekapo where I can see Mt Cook. I am really looking forward to getting back to Wanaka

I have been working with a physio to regain my range of motion in the shoulders and rebuild my strength, which is going good, but I have a long way to go and I am looking forward to working with my wanaka physio Gin Bush, who was the Olympic team physio. The months ahead will see me training, getting strong and healing in Wanaka. And of course I need to secure sponsors for the up coming race season... it is an endless mission.

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-22 and sun shine in St Moritz

Well official training was full of the highs and lows that seem to be a theme this season for me. I did a track walk with a bobsled coach at the start of the week, and because bobsledders and skeleton sliders drive very differently the language used in the track walk could not be the same, instead we talked about where the pressure needs to be in the corner (rather than where to steer and how to steer). We also did the walk from the bottom of the track up, rather than the top down, again a different perspective. It was good to think about the track differently. My first run of official training was excellent and nearly everything I learnt from the track walk worked, but then the second run did not go as well. Second day of official training, I completely oversteered everything, it was terrible and I had one of the slowest speeds on the track possible (I am used to having a very high speed not the lowest). So I was quite dishartened by it all after day two, I was going so slow, I hit a few walls hard, and the walls here in St Moritz are not smooth like other tracks, here the ice on the walls is sharp, pointy, and great for ripping speed suits. So yesterday before training I spent a lot of time watching all the video that has been taken of us sliding, and going over the track notes I wrote last time I was here, I realised that I was just doing way way too much, and needed to be still and relax more. So I did, and I had two much better runs. With the 10th fastest speed in the second run (20 kmph faster than I went the day before). Today is a day off for the women, a day to prepare our sleds, sew our race bibs so they fit, and to go and watch the mens race. Ben and Iain race today, and Peter (dutch) will be making another attempt to meet his countries qualification rules, he has met the FIBT standards and the IOC standards, we are all hoping this will be the race he qualifies at. He was allocated a spot at the last Olympics but his country wouldnt send him. It would be tragic if it happened again, as Peter has earned his spot, and really deserves to qualify.

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back blogging again.

Well it is time I started blogging again, there have been many different reasons why I havent been keeping this diary upto date over the last few months, sorry if you missed it.

Kelly and I are now in Switzerland staying at Hotel laudinella where the US team and Peter from holland are as well, Peter did not get his top 15 he needed int he last race, he is half way there to qualifying, hopefully this week he will get there.

Ben and Iain are here in St Moritz as well, Tionette is staying in Konigssee where her partner Angus is sliding with the kiwi bobsled team.

I am so stoked to have qualified. Still waiting for the official announcement from the NZOC, they are waiting for a form I need to fax them, and I am waiting for hotel reception to print it for me so I can fill it in, has taken them over an hour so far...

I will back date some of blogs and put up the emails I was sending out to friends and family. But right now it is dinner time, having spent about 4 hours at the track today in -10 degrees I am ready for hot meal. Training for the women starts tomorrow, they expect lots of snow this week so it will be interesting to see how that effects us.

I promise to keep you all posted on it all goes.

Lou

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Race day with my new Speedo skeleton suit

On the start line with coach Tim Nardiello

Waiting for the green light with cameras on me.

and I am off...

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A day of Harry Potter

Today Iain and I are going to see Harry Potter at the movies, Jack (my coach's son) saw it last night and said it was good. Iain only just discovered Harry Potter and has been reading the books non stop this last month after years of laughing at people who read the books, now he is hooked.
I ate something a bit dodgy the night before the race and all yesterday afternoon, last night and this morning I have been a bit queezy and crook, I am so glad I didnt feel like this during the race. I might have to catch a cab to the supermarket and get some fresh fruit, all the food here in the restarants are so greasy and ick. But now I am going to be adventurous (or perhaps foolish) and venture away from the bathroom to see Harry Potter, I hope it is as good as the book.
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Lake Placid World Cup

Today I raced in the 2^nd world cup of the season here in Lake Placid New York. Training this week has been great, my first run on the first day back was a new personal best time (unfortunately I didn’t beat it today). The weather here this week has been crazy ranging from 16 degrees with sunshine on the last day of training, blustering snow showers that caused heat one of the men’s race to be cancelled, and -10 degrees today with super cold fast ice for the women’s race day.

In the first heat this morning I finished 16^th out of 29, today was the first day this season that I have been on real cold ice and I was skidding a lot in the straights, and I had been getting corner 3 perfect every run but today I hit the exit hard and lost lots of time. I also made a big mistake in corner 10, so I was pretty sure that I would be able to improve on the 16^th placed run for the second heat. I fixed some of those mistakes and was two tenths ahead going into the last section of the track in the second heat, but lost time in the bottom of the track and finished 18^th. My overall placing was 19^th, with a 58.50 and a 58.62, it is a better result than last week, but I know I am capable of much more. The race was very close with in the Kiwi camp with Tionette finishing 20^th (58.55, 59.08) and Kelly finishing 21^st (58.77), it will be good to see all three of us in the top 20 in the next race. My world ranking is 22^nd (26 points), Kelly is at 25^th (19 points) and Tionette is at 27^th (17 points).

Our overall nation ranking is still 10^th but today we beat Italy and Russia, we were only 2 points away from beating Australia and Norway, and five points away from Japan, so I am still confident we will be able to recover our top 8 nation ranking.

The men’s race was yesterday and it was very exciting, it was snowing heavily, which should not have been a problem here as they have built roofs over most of the track, however the roof covering the start was removed so that Eurosport could get a good shot of us diving onto our sleds. The people sweeping the start trying to keep the snow out of the track where inconsistent with their sweeping and some athletes had a cleaner and faster track than others. At least 6 protests were filed and at the end of the first heat a team captains meeting was called, the heat was cancelled and the race was started again with only one run being held and it was made sure that the track had the same amount of sweeping and cleaning before each athletes run, and in the end a fair race was held.

Ben Sandford finished 14^th and Iain finished 31^st, which for Iain was a great improvement on his finishes he had last season. The men’s team is also ranked 10^th in the Nation standings.

Ben has already flown out to Switzerland to have his sled worked on by the builder, the rest of us head to Europe on Monday for the international training week on the Olympic track in Cesana Italy, after that we move onto Igls in Austria where the 3^rd World cup of the season will be held.

So I have a few days of rest now, which I feel like I really need, time to recharge and catch up on some sleep after a challenging full on start to the season. I have not been able to relax on my sled the same way I was able to at the end of last season, I haven’t found that beautiful peaceful flowing feeling on the sled yet, I remember exactly what it feels like, I just need to replicate it again, I will have the chance to find it in Italy at the Olympic track next week.

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Today was the last day of official training. When I woke up I went out side to see how many layers of clothing would be needed for the cold day at the track, and found that a singlet would do, it was 16 degrees outside!!!!! When Kel and I got to the track we did a track walk, and when it is real warm the track is usually very frosty, but it was too warm for the frost to grow, the track was one big wet slippery water slide, ice melting quicker than the refridgeration plant could refreeze it. They had a lot of difficulty maintaining the groove so alot of people were popping out, but i managed to stay in both runs.

My first run was fantastic I finished 11th and pushed close to my personal best, at one stage during the run i was in 9th. I should have left it at that, it had been my plan to take only the one run today with the ice conditions so poor, but my good result egged me on to try and do even better and in the second run i steered too much for the conditions and I finished 19th, but it was a very good run, i just cut too much ice for slow soft conditions.

So that is all the training over, tomorrow the guys race at 9am local time, and we race the following day. I just got my race bib and sticker, I drew 18th, not a very good draw but it will have to do, Kelly got 11th (very nice) and tionette got 21st (very good, top number in the 3rd draw). Our race bibs are sooooo huge, as big as a baggy tshirt, so i have had to sew the seams in so that it fits snugly and wont flap as I slide.

Kelly Peter and I went to collect our speedo speed suits that were being made especially to order for us, but when we got the the hotell where the speedo crew are staying i found out that they had lost my measurments and did not have one for me :( Kelly got a great black suit with hood, thumb loop and booties, real nice, they are going to send me two over to Itally next week, and for the race on friday i have a spare one that was made for the americans, no hood and the zip is at the back rather than the front but it fits good, and will be better than the ones that I have.

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