Calgary proved to be a challenging track in many ways.
The first challenge was the weather up here. All this week it has been -24 degrees Celsius, or about -8 or so Fareignheight. I love the cold, but that is too cold even for me when I'm standing outside essentially in my underwear. It makes it very hard to sprint at my best physically because it is so hard to get warm and damn near impossible to keep warm.
The second challenge was directly related to the cold. Some of you may not realize this but ice can have varying degrees of hardness. The colder it gets the harder the ice gets. The problem is that the ice can get so hard that you can't cut into it at all. when that happens, your spikes don't dig into the ice when you run and your blades don't dig into the ice when you slide. The result is a lot of skidding and slipping all over the place. That's what happened to me this week. No dig in the ice at the top and no traction at the top of track on my sled. It didn't help that although my new sled saddle is amazing I still need to get used to being locked into position right away after my sprint. I was a bit fidgety this week and that wasn't helping me to not skid. The whole thing was so frustrating. I couldn't get a decent push the whole week and I only had one decent run down the top portion of the track.
The biggest challenge by far though was the 6-7-8-9 sequence of curves. Training in Lake Placid I always heard that people from around the world fear my home track. I never really understood why that was until this week. The reason is because Lake Placid is so much different than every other track in the world.
Lake Placid is infamous for its short, quick labrynths of curves. Every other track in the world however is characterized by large, sweeping turns with two or more oscillations separated by long straightaways. If others fear the relentless barrage of turns in Lake Placid, I fear the huge sweeping arcs of every other track in the world. They are a totally different animal than anything I am accustomed to.
That's what has me worried after this week. I am not a natural at this sport. That is not being negative it's just honest. I can and have learned- but only after repetition. I need practice. I don't know how I am going to learn to drive the big curves I experienced the last two weeks if I can't practice them at home. Its a problem I am going to have to come up with a solution for.
So those are the big takeaways from this race. As for the race itself it wasn't anything spectacular to say the least. My pushes were slow and my driving was poor. I kept catching air out of 8 and although I didn't flip again I only had one even almost decent line out of there the entire week. During my first run I skidded at the top and during the second I hit really hard out of 9 and lost a ton of speed. The track definitely got in my head and I just didn't feel comfortable or confident in what I was doing.
So it was a learning experience. I will take a lot out of this week and I will be a much better slider overall for it, but its going to take a few days to let the disappointment die down. Ill be glad to go home to Lake Placid. I'm going to work hard on taking my sliding to the next level. There are some things I can do already in Lake Placid to begin that process and I will after a little bit of R&R.
So that's it for race day #3. Definitely a learning experience. I did however have a great time at the after-race party. I had a blast talking with team Japan who knew about 20 words of English but had the most amazing translator I have ever seen. I haven't laughed that hard in a very long time.
There will be a picture of me doing a car bomb with some of them posted as soon as I get it from the guy who took it. Great times.
Right now I am typing this on my phone as we caravan down to Salt Lake from Calgary. 14 hour drive in near white-out conditions. Awesommmmme. Ever been to Shelby, Montana? Because I have...
It will be nice to have a few days off.
Thanks everyone for the support and for following along. It means so much.
Catch you at the bottom of the hill-
Bradley
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
No comments:
Post a Comment