Peace Be The Journey

I made the USBSF website! I'm official! This is so crazy, awesome!!!!! Nicole Vogt | Athletes | USA Bobsled & Skeleton Federation

It's been exactly one week since the epic crash of Brittany Reinbolt and my last post. Much has happened. Thursday: Highlight of the day was Mr. Matt Senske coming by to show us the race runner he'd just finished sanding. Super shiny. Britt was so impressed.  Matt hangs out with us in Room 141 quite a bit. He has no roommates, and his driver is just now finding him some teammates. He joined our posse early on, and we were glad to accept him as a fellow rookie into our clan. After handing off his race runner, he and Mr. Adam Blanford hung out for a few hours. This picture of Matt with Sineaid's Jane Fonda roller makes me laugh every time.  Friday: USA Team Trials I was sleddogging all night at the finish dock for the USA Team Trials. Driver Bree Schaaf and brakeman Emily Azevedo won on the women's side. Schaaf and Azevedo clocked a total time of 1 minute, 57.87 seconds over two runs to lead the women’s field by over two-tenths of a second.  The 2010 Olympi

Ms. Britt Reinbolt took it like a champ tonight. She's my roomie and fellow rookie, and she got to take the third run with Elana Meyers. She smashed it off the start line with a time of 5.74 seconds. I'll just let you know that's really fast for us girls. The fastest run so far is 5.70 seconds, so she's a solid second right now. We were all pumped for her at the start line. She got a shot and made the most of it. So, they were flying off the start. Elana took it hard on curve 4 and flipped it. Britt didn't even realize they crashed for a second. Apparently she was hanging out of the sled for awhile because she couldn't pull herself back in. So, she slid on her shoulder from curve 4 to curve 18. That's about 3/4 of a mile down the mountain, and it took about a minute. Elana turned around and grabbed her by the ankle to hold her in. Once the sled came to a stop, the track workers came and grabbed the sled. They pulled Britt out by her arms and her first words

I don't have much to add after that long post yesterday. I do have a few pictures though, so enjoy. This is me in the blue suit right before my first run of the season (10/15/11). Like I said last post, I was sliding from with Megan from Start 3. This is going straight into Curve 4. All the big kids are up at Start 1, so we were all by ourselves in the start house. I took a few steps and hopped in for a wild ride. Nice driving Megan! Lake Placid Track Specification Length to finish: 1455 m Length to end of track: 1680 m Curves: 20 Average Grade: 9.8% Vertical Drop to Finish: 107 m Vertical Drop to low point: 128 m Maximum G Forces: 5.1 Maximum Speed: 130 km/h Average Grade: 8.6% My sweet sleddogging bruise. It's been a few days, so this is looking better, if you can believe it. Britt icing her neck after her run from the top with Elana. Very chill. Check out the burn vest and helmet. If you've been wondering what a burn vest looks like (

Recap of the last few days: Thursday - Opening day. The track was really frosty, which is not a good thing. Apparently you do not want frost because it makes the runners stick. Everyone made two trips down the track, and most sleds made it all the way to the finish line. A couple sleds got stuck through the last turn and had to push the rest of the way up to the finish line. I didn't get to slide, so I was sled-dogging all night. Here's a shot of all the sleds up at Start 1. I had to help keep all these sleds lined up and moved down towards the start. As each sled goes down the track, you move the whole row down. I have a nice big bruise on my leg from moving all those sleds through for two runs. Like I've said before, if there's one thing I've discovered about the sport of bobsledding, it's all about the manual labor. You have to be in shape just to move your equipment. It's kind of crazy learning the ropes for a new sport with such expensive equipment

So, here's the deal. I wrote this post yesterday and saved it before I headed to dinner. When I came back to finish, it wouldn't load. I was crushed. Then today, it magically opened, so here it is. Think back to yesterday, my first full day at the OTC, October 11th, 2011... I worked out with Olympians today! So awesome! Olympic gold medalist Steve Holcomb, bronze medalist Elana Meyers, and all the other bobsled girls (including the newest rookies Britt Reinbolt, Sineaid Corley, Ida Bernstein and myself) had a great workout this morning. It was a recovery day for them, so we joined in on their tempo workout. This consisted of a warm-up, hip mobility with hurdles, and then abs with running intermixed. It was a great starter workout for up to join in after a traveling day. I don't think I updated everyone on the bobsled track status, so here it is. Status: The track is not yet open. The weather here has been so warm, the track isn't open until Wednesday or poss

So, I'm back here at the OTC. I made it in this afternoon. It was like a big reunion today, seeing all the friends I made last time I was here. It's so amazing to be here at an OLYMPIC TRAINING CENTER! Crazy! It hasn't totally set in yet that I'm going to be living and training here for at least the next three weeks. So exciting! I'll write more about the experience tomorrow. I got partially unpacked tonight and now my eyes are barely staying open. It's been so warm here the last few days, the track isn't open yet. We won't slide until at least Wednesday, maybe Thursday. Tomorrow is just a few meetings and a workout. Hopefully I'll feel human again after a long nights sleep.