Altenberg - race 2

The day of Race 2 dawned crisp and clear...such a rarity! In fact, it was so amazing that I took a picture of the sky, yes, that amazing:


The forest looked so pretty:


And everyone came out to play in the sun. Sledding:


Going for a walk (yes, no sidewalks so we were constantly dodging pedestrians):




We ate breakfast, finished prepping for the race, then headed down for an early lunch. We've started this game of trying to guess the meal based on the silverware - we pay for full board with our rooms, and as a result don't get to order, they just cook a set meal for all the guests. Hmm, what was our lunch going to be with THIS silverware?


I guessed quiche, Luke and Daly guessed fish, Cassie guessed cheese, and....

The boys won.

The fish tasted good, but the others don't like fish, and the thought of warming up and burping salmon made me gag. We left our untouched plates, ran upstairs, loaded our sleds and gear into the cars, and drove into Altenberg to get Doners at the train station. Mmmm, gyros. By the time we got to the track, though, our appetites had diminished and the doners sat untouched until the (again) long gap between runs.

Anyway, back to the race...
I was again 21st off, so delayed my warmup and followed basically the same procedure as the day before. I finally got to the line, talked to the ice, and reminded myself not to make the same mistake as in Race 1.

Backtrack: I didn't mention in my Race 1 post the error I made in my first run. I was going into curve 2, near the top, late, and instead of just taking the line and fixing it in the corner, I tried to fix it in the straight. Not a good idea - steering in the straights cause skids, and indeed I broke into a skid and scrubbed speed, skidding into and out of curve 2. Oops.

Back to Race 2: I mumbled to myself "Just take what you get, don't overcorrect." Bad omen....

Run number 1 turned out to be my slowest time all week! As I approached curve 2, I again had a late line, but this time I decided not to correct it, and just take it. Well, in practice I had never entered 2 so late, and thus had no idea what was coming:

• Approached 2 super late
• Thought I was going to miss the curve entirely
• At the last second, got sucked up on the end
• Panicked and lifted my head
• Pfwoop!!! I was airborne and sideways
• Bwap! I landed on my elbow and skidded on my side, off my sled, into curve 3
• By this point, I have no speed
• Steers were almost unnecessary in Curve 4, the "big dangerous" one:
• 
  
• I thought "you can't make any more mistakes"
• had a clean run the rest of the way down, but no speed
• 55:94 or something like that. (I've blocked the painful time from my memory.)
• Still, somehow in 15th place

Second run (after eating my doner, showing my teammates the HUGE hole in my speedsuit and the little hole in my elbow, and watching recorded TV episodes on my iPhone, yes I'm a dork but it was BORING and I wanted to distract myself) went much better. I was a little over-cautious after the first run, so my time wasn't blazing, but it was enough to climb 4 spots to 11th.

It's funny - I told Cassie that I burned a hole in my suit out of curve 2, and she thought it was a tiny little hole. Then I turned and showed her...no really, I burned a HOLE in my suit:


Not the top 10 I'd wanted, of course, but considering that my first run was almost 2 seconds slower than my second? Well, I'm pretty happy. And I still LOVE the track - it's one of my favorites if not my favorite....I want to withhold judgment until after Cesana and Sankt Moritz. :)

After the race, we went down to the awards ceremony again, since John took second place in the second race. Nicely done! Here he is pushing down the LONG LONG start ramp:


I felt such a sense of pride seeing the American flag raised up, even if not in first place. I can't wait for it to be raised from a race I placed in, but I felt the pride for John nonetheless: