Altenberg - race 1

The day for Race 1 started, like most days, quite gloomy and foggy. I've posted quite a few fog pictures, but here's another of race 1 day. Suffice it to say it wasn't much different!


We arrived at the track a bit early, since we wanted to make sure our sleds were in the Parc early enough, and that we would still have time to set our rock and all that jazz before they closed off access to the sleds so they could do equipment checks.

Then, I had a lot of time to kill:

• We had 15 minutes until the parc closed
• We had 45 minutes from when the parc closed until the first forerunner, and there were six, yes SIX forerunners!
• I was nearly the last off (I drew 21st), so I had to wait for e the 6 forerunners, then thich woue 20 sleds ahead of me, which would equal about 40 more minutes.

Everyone else went out to warm up, but I didn't want to warm up then sit for an hour. So, I wrote in my sliding journal, listened to music, walked around, etc. Cassie was 6th or 7th off, so I took pictures of her. On the starting line:


Pushing for run 1:


Then, I went and warmed up thoroughly, got into my gear, and got ready to go. I had my headphones cranked up so I couldn't hear the times for the women ahead of me, to avoid hearing an amazingly fast time and psyching myself out. (I need to get some uber good ones, the over-ear type I think, to do better at that in the future.) I was mostly successful, hearing only one time, though unfortunately it was the time of the number 1 German girl, who has slid on this track for 5+ years, and who ended up winning both races. Oops!

I got up to the start line, feeling a bit nervous, but not too badly. I bent and talked to the track again, though this time it failed me, and I slid to a low 54 second run, putting me in 9th place, out of 22. My goal was to be 6th, so I knew my second run had to be better. I got back to the top, ready to rumble....

....only to find out that the boys were only halfway through their first run, and that there was going to be a half hour hold on the track so they could do a spritz! Now, a spritz was going to be nice, but after all was said and done we women had a break of TWO HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES!!! between the last woman of the first heat, and the first woman of the second heat! Which meant, since I was 11th off, that I had an additional 15 minutes on top of that. It's so hard to maintain composure and focus with a break that long. Sigh.

Anyway, by the time I got to the line, I wasn't nervous anymore. The faster ice would be good for me, since I slide better when it's fast. That's not true for everyone, of course, and there were a couple more delays before I slid due to two crashes (they are ok, just lost their sleds out of kriesel). I pushed off, jumped on my sled, and had what felt like my crappiest run to date! I hit out of the big curve 4 for the first time all week, fell out of kriesel and hit uber hard, and came across the finish line feeling like it was all over.

To see a 53:03 on the time display. Uh bwuh huh??? No way! In the end, I moved up a spot, finishing my first Europa Cup in 8th place. Not quite the 6th I HOPED a bit unrealistically for, but super amazing to be in the top 10! Phew!

Then it was down to the finish area, to cheer as my teammate John received his third place medal, then back to the hotel to cram down some dinner and spend a couple hours polishing runners again and prepping gear for race 2. So tired!