Day One of Training

Day one of training is in the books.  It's still really warm up here in Lake Placid (65F) but everyone was excited to get back on the ice.  It must be said that the track crew here in Lake Placid is great, and they made the ice usable for us under extremely challenging conditions.  I know I speak for all of the athletes today when I say, Thank You.

I didn't really know what to expect going into today.  I knew what I WANTED to happen, but of course you never know how things are going to go and they usually don't go the way that you envision them in your mind.  One thing I did notice though, was that I wasn't nervous going off the top the first time.  I took that as a sign that I am finally not a rookie in this sport, and deserve the spot I earned last season on the World Cup.  It was just back to the office for me, and I couldn't have been happier to be there.

My goals for the day were really just to stay relaxed and stay focused.  I wrote yesterday about distractions, and honestly that was on my mind the most today.  I took particular care to remain in the moment.  So, a midst the hugs of reunion with friends I hadn't seen since last January I was all business in my head.

Overall, the day went very well.  I don't have the official results yet, but I'm pretty sure I pushed only .02 seconds slower than my best last season on the first push of the year, in 65F weather.  That's exciting, and hopefully shows my off season training was productive.  Next thing was relaxation.  I was REALLY happy with this today.  I didn't get nervous or tense the whole trip down and that's great for the first day since that is half the battle.  

The only thing that didn't go as well as I would have liked is I was picking my head up way to much into and out of corners.  That will change with more laps on the track.  Overall, I can't complain and I feel good about the whole day.  The biggest thing I'm trying to tell myself now is not to let one day get me too excited or too down.  For now though, I'm pretty excited.

Enjoy this YouTube video of a photo/video montage from today's training!  I'm the very first person running it off the top.  My form looks SOOOOO much better than last year.  This summer was a great training summer, and I'm ready to bring home some hardware this season.

(Video Montage has been taken down due to YouTube saying I don't have the copyright to put music over it...sorry!)

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-Bradley