USA Skeleton Olympic Dream

This past week was the first week of training up in Lake Placid since my sliding school a couple weeks ago. I was so excited to get back on the track and begin my training.

The drive from my home in New Hampshire, through the mountains of Vermont and into the Adirondacks of New York, is a great way to clear my mind and reflect on the journey I’m about to take. This sport takes a lot of patience and determination…a lot of patience especially. My development coach, Don Hass, said to us during our skeleton school, “I’ll get you within one second of the world cup times by the end of the season, but that last second will take you between four and six years to hit.” This was very surprising to hear as a brand new slider. This is a sport of hundredths and thousandths of a second; it should take that long to make up that time difference when you are going up against some of the fastest athletes on the world. I kept asking myself on that long drive, “Do YOU have what it takes?”, and the more I thought about my own personal drive and goals, the more I believed that I am 100% committed to this sport and the long haul that I have in front of me to one day make it to the Winter Olympic Games. Let’s go!

The first week actually sliding was a very interesting one. The weather was inconsistent and my sliding showed it. The first couple days were warm out and that meant that the humidity made the ice frost and therefore slowing us down. I felt like I had so much control but at the same time the times were almost 10 seconds slower than normal for everyone! On that Wednesday the temperature dropped a decent amount so that the track was almost back to normal. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing for me though. Since the track was so much faster, everything happened that much quicker and I was behind on my steers, consequently leading my right arm into the right wall out of turn 12. I messed up my arm pretty badly but it was just swollen and bruised.

The next day was a bad day mentally. I kept asking myself that same question, “Do you have what it takes?” I could barely make a fist because of my arm and sliding with that hurt arm will only make it worse, but you have to get over it and slide anyways. After a couple runs and only a couple more bumps on the walls, I regained my confidence and just in time for my new sled too!

I am renting a sled for this season from Don Hass, who builds the majority of sleds for the National team. It is a different saddle design from my school sled with much much much better runners on the bottom. I shaved off over 4 seconds from my previous down time in one run with the new sled. I am excited to see how the times are effected when I get more comfortable on my new baby who has yet to be given a name.

Well, that is it for week 1, the week full of ups and downs and some new experiences. I can’t wait to have some time off this weekend, heal up, and get after it next week. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. Show your friends, family, and peers how to keep up with my journey to the 2018 Games!