Winterberg, Germany, World Cup 3

After a relatively solid race in La Plagne, it was time for one of my least favorite tracks: Winterberg, Germany.


Winterberg itself is a cute little town, and since it was the holiday season there was a (tiny) Christmas market to visit. Doesn't this crepe (with Nutella, totally healthy) look amazing?


But the track. Oh, the track. It's one of those tracks where the slightest mistake will completely kill your time - there's no coming back! It's relatively slow - maximum speeds are much lower than elsewhere - and half the curves are uphill so any loss of momentum can't be gained back.

After a 19th place finish last year, I was ready to redeem myself. I wanted to have a positive relationship with the track, let bygones be bygones.

The weather, however, had something else to say. As I've said before, Winterberg (meaning really is Winter-berg, or town) has many nicknames: Wasserberg (Waterberg), Regenberg (Rainyberg), and my new favorite, Sommerberg (Summerberg).

The first day or two lulled us with a false sense of security. "It's sunny!" "The weather is amazing!" "I took a photo of the blue sky!"

We even wore sunglasses!

Ok, goofed off with sunglasses.


And training the first few days also went well. I was still slow, but figuring things out and getting faster, bit by bit. From a training run:

Then this rolled in.

When race day arrived, it was snowing so hard that they canceled our first run, before we even took it. There was lots of sitting around, and then...the race jury decided we would have a one-heat race.

My run felt amazing, a few minor issues but overall: solid. But it was one of those runs where you feel fast, but aren't. Gah! I can't tell you how many times I've had a super smooth run and then been shocked by a terrible speed, or how many times I've had a crazy train wreck of a run only to have it be fast. It all comes down to a couple issues:

1. My head was too high in Igls...and like any good athlete I overcorrected. Too low, bumping on the ice and slowing myself down.
2. Overdriving. My Winterberg run was good, but too much driving = too much cutting the runner into the ice = losing speed.
3. Oh yeah, well, and sliding through a couple patches of snow, breaking trail where others hadn't been...that isn't fast either and didn't help.
4. Oops.
   

I finished in 17th place, and was pretty disappointed to say the least.

At first. Then, upon further reflection, found a couple glimmers of happiness. I realized that:

• even if only by two places it was still better than my finish last season,
  
• I'd slid a lot better, and
  
• it was time to go home!
  

Three bits of happiness, so I did my best to put it behind me and move on. Time to go home, put first half of the season behind me, celebrate the holidays with Brad and get ready for second half!

PS - speaking of Brad, I bought this for him since he love Baileys...it was going to go in his stocking.


But checking in...my bag was overweight, and the lady at the counter was NOT helpful. I'd already put as much heavy stuff in my other bags / carry on as possible, and the only small heavy thing was...Brad's Euro Baileys.


I had a sample, for Brad of course...then sadly threw it away. Sorry babe!