Altenberg - Day 3

Before I start with my fun loving post, I'd like to mention the sadder news of the day: 5 bobsledders went to the hospital today, with various injuries from crashes. Quite a few more bobsleds crashed than people were injured, but still, it's no good when we have athletes in the hospital. One of the Irish girls has to stay overnight due to the hit her head took (source: the Dutch bobsled team after they got released with bruises and strains). Sigh.

Speaking of the bobsled crashes, in this picture of Cassie you can see the crazy lines from some the crashed sleds in Kriesel, which had gone over well before this point - all the normal lines are curving down here, and then you can see the one or two deeper lines shooting upward. The lines are also visible in the pic of Cassie and I later on.


Now, on to the happy stuff.
_____________________________________________________

TRAINING & OPTIMISM
I'm pretty excited, and cautiously optimistic, for the race. In training, they've broken us up into two groups, and I've consistently trained in first place in our group; that doesn't mean much, though, since this is the Germans' and Russians' home track and they are in the other group. Looking at the two groups combined, I've been training in about 6th or so (there are 22 women total), so in order to medal, I will somehow need to beat several Germans, and possibly one Russian.

No matter whether I medal or not, it's just exciting that I'm even TRAINING as well as I am, on one of the hardest tracks, my first time here! Trip = a success already and I really can't ask for more.

SLED CHECKS - I passed, phew!
Yesterday, I had my sled checked by the officials (they look at materials, shapes, openings, uneven padding, gaps in the saddle, suspension devices, aerodynamic modifications that exceed allowable specs, runner cuts and diameters, bumper diameters and thicknesses, and so on). Always stressful; I was sure everything was legal, but they change the rules so often that we have to have correcting-modifications made almost every year. It's just nerve-wracking until we are sure the corrections worked.

So they could see inside, I had to pull all the padding off my sled and in the process it tore in several places. I prefer using yoga mats for my padding, since they are thin (to allow me to feel my sled moving under me) and sticky (to help hold me in place on the sled and keep on balance). The current one is a Nike yoga mat, that is the thinnest and best I've found so far, but has the downside of a tendency to peel.

So, I decided to spend some quality time taping up my padding, and spent the morning taping and blow drying, taping and blow drying (the blow drying makes the tape stick better). Now, my sled is all nice and pretty, and after sliding in the wet this afternoon, only one teeny corner in one spot peeled up.



MORE PICTURES - LESS TALKING BELOW :)
Today started off with an on-again off-again snow, though the snow stopped about an hour before our session started, and stayed snow-free for the first run.

We didn't slide until 2:30pm, so beforehand we went up to do a trackwalk. I've been having trouble in turn 9, as well as the long 14-15 straightaway, so a trackwalk was in order. The boys started from the top and met us in kriesel, and Cassie and I parked by the middle and walked down and then back up.

I wanted to post some pictures of kriesel today, the huge 360 degree turn in the middle of the track (aka turn 10). It's a short and tight kriesel and pretty technical to drive.

The entrance is huge! Here's John:


Here's the rest of the entrance:


Some perspective:


Just me:


Cassie and I:


Such good little athletes on Team USA, doing our trackwalk:


Exit of kriesel - we've all made friends with the shortwall (the low wall on the viewers left of the track), as we fall out of kriesel if too high at the end.


After our trackwalk, the boys caught a ride with us back up to the top; our sleds were still in the car so it took some creative seating to fit us into the little Fiat:


Halfway through our session, it started to dump snow, and the track slowed down by about a second or more (some people slowed down a second, some as much as 3 seconds). Watching on the screens was awesome since there was so much snow in the straightaways that each slider looked like he/she was leaving a trail of dust or smoke behind him/her. Poof! I planned on running down to take some pictures of the athletes in the next session, but then they put a hold on the session to give the track crew time to shovel out some of the corners (good idea), so we headed back to the hotel instead.

In the snow, the roads in the forest looked awesome, and it got so dark so quickly! Here's a pic of the roads at around 4:30pm:


On a funny side-note, the boys tried to find a place in town or the hotel to do laundry, but weren't successful. They've already been in Europe for 2 weeks, since they raced in Winterberg the week before we got here, and were in need of some laundry. So, they filled the tub with water and detergent and washed the clothes, then hung them on the balcony to dry. When we got back from sliding, the clothes were frozen: