ICC 2009-2010, Cesana ITALY!

Yes, I'm a bit late posting this, per usual.

The day after the Königssee race and Krampus (what a party!), we had to drag ourselves out of bed and drive nine, yes NINE hours to Sestriere, a couple hours past Torino, Italy. It's pretty much a day that fades into the memory, since it was just driving, sleeping, stopping for gas/food, and more driving. It was beautiful, but 9 hours in a van will make that enjoyment disappear after a while.

Anyway, we arrived safely in Italy around 9pm, grabbed some dinner, and went to sleep. After hauling all our stuff upstairs.




There was no sliding the second day, so it consisted of unpacking, eating (it's Italy, after all, and they feed us incredible amounts of food, 1-2 hour meals each time), sled work, etc.

The second day we did a track walk. The Cesana track is notoriously difficult, and is a track where you can't let your focus slip for even one moment.

Such serious faces!


Coaching.




I was a good student. Mostly.


The ice wasn't always curved either; here's Stokes showing how vertical a certain curve is, comparing it to his pen.


We got a little lost and bumbled around for a while, then finally figured out that we had to climb a wall and fence to get out, oops.






Hmm, it was really funny when we took the pictures, but I guess you had to be there.

The track crew had taken a couple days off after the World Cup the week before, so there were lots of ice bumps formed by water dripping off of the shades. They took care of them before we slid, but still, there were some, um, funny ones. That's all.


Sorry, couldn't help it. We laughed about that for days.

There isn't as much fun stuff to do in Cesana/Sestriere as in Winterberg or Königssee, but we managed to get out and have some fun.

A couple of us (I missed this one) went for a night walk in the square:


We goofed off in the start house (such tall ceilings and windows!):


We went to the ski lodge and drank coffee in the sun:




We enjoyed the views from our hotel:




Sliding went well, but I don't have any pictures of the races or training. I felt pretty comfortable, surprisingly, and even managed the last day of training to completely screw myself: a personal record (PR) by over 1 whole second, 9th and 12th in training.

Why does that screw me, you ask? Well, it's my experience that if you have an amazing day of training, you won't have an amazing race.

And it was true. I came out in the race 17th after two not-hot runs, and had to remind myself that
a) it was 7 spots better than last year,
b) at least I got a second run,
c) both race runs were faster than my PR last year, and
d) I PR'd both pushes in the race (5.17 and 5.15, whew!)

All in all, it was a success, and I started to really enjoy the track instead of dread it like last year. See you next year Cesana!