Peace Be The Journey

I'm writing to you from the beautiful Whistler, British Columbia. We had a great week in Calgary. The rest of my training runs went well. No crashes the entire week. So exciting! Several of the boys in our house and all 5 girls rented the ice house for an hour on Wednesday afternoon to work on our push technique. This is an indoor, ice start ramp. It's the same concept as our push tracks in Lake Placid or Park City, but it's much more realistic since we're on ice. I've been to the ice house several times to watch or film, but this was my first chance to actually push. We learned lots, and it was great for Anna and Kelsey to get pushes in since they are both so new to the sport still. Getting better everyday. Thursday and Friday were our women's races. Anna was on brakes that first night. We had some trouble at the start, but we ended the night in 6th with my 2 fastest down times yet. It was my first runs under 60 seconds, and I was thrilled. Since we finished ...

I'm in Canada! After a week of forerunning in Park City, I struck out for new adventures in far away places. I ended up with 54 trips in 14 days in Park City. A grand total of 35 trips from the top as a driver. If you know nothing about bobsled, let me assure you that's a ton. I was glad to have all those reps as a 4-man forerunner though. Somehow I was nominated to be the first forerunner everyday. I was impressed Mike, the head sled honcho up top, had that much confidence in my driving abilities. It still boggles my mind that everyone's runners and sleds that cost thousands of dollars are allowed to go based on my say so as a forerunner. So much responsibility! The weather was gorgeous until 4-man day. Then we had whiteout conditions. I'm talking snowing sideways. I'm talking can't really see Curve 1 conditions. My visor fogged in Curve 6, and I drove over half the track by feel. And we made it across the finish line. I was very, very glad for all those trips ...