La Plagne, France! World Cup #2

(I've given up trying to get video put together for the second and third World Cups, but will try to get them up later! So, with some delay, here is the post for World Cup 2, December 9th and 10th.)

After Igls, I was DEFINITELY excited to move on to a new track.

Not just the next race, or a new track this season, but a new track completely! The last time La Plagne was on the World Cup tour was possibly a decade ago...meaning that a large portion of the World Cup sliders hadn't been there before. Exciting!

The drive was even exciting! We started off in our VW caravan.


New scenery, since we'd never driven this way...


Stopped at the Geneva airport to pick up Katie Uhlaender (she'd skipped the first race in order to compete in weightlifting, to try to qualify for Olympic Trials in that sport - which she did).


We also passed by Chamonix, famous ski area.


After Geneva, we accidentally split up. Our GPS told us to veer left, while the boys' GPS told them to veer right. Oops! So Annie and I were on our own for the next 2 hours, and it was so pretty! We drove through Annecy, (put in a bid for the Olympics recently) by the lake:


Annecy is a place I'd like to visit now!

Then we saw the mountains, and got a little nervous about all the switchbacks facing us.


After a search for gas (4 stations, 40 minutes, 1 that worked), and the fall of night, we made our way up the mountain.

21 sharp switchbacks later, we found the track, built into a gully deep in the mountains:


A few more switchbacks and we found our hotel and reunited with the team. Phew!
(PS - the garage was a little tight, but the European drivers had no trouble.)


It was beautiful in La Plagne - something we didn't know until a few days later when the clouds finally lifted!



The track was super fun too, more technical and very long. For example, in Park City a fast time for women is 50-51 seconds; in La Plagne it was 1:03 or so, more than 10 seconds longer!

The start was one of the longest that I've ever seen. In Park City I'll take 14-16 steps but in La Plagne I took 20 steps; in Park City the push record is something like 4.94 seconds but in La Plagne it's now 5.35 seconds (Annie broke it in the race!).


This was from a training run:


A few days in, I realized that my balance point had shifted, so I needed to put more weight in the front of my sled. With the coaches gone to the track already, and the weights locked away, I had to improvise.

Hmm. What do I have around that I can use?


After some finagling to fit them in....yeah, that should work.


Hmm. That might be a bit rattly.....ah! Solved. Not quite duct tape, but...I had a pseudo weight plate!


It worked, and that day I was over a second faster per run in training! Phew.

World Cup Race, Saturday 12/10/2011
The day of the race came around, and I was feeling pretty good. My pushes the day before the race were in the 5.70s, and usually I push 0.15-0.20 seconds faster race day.

But then, for some reason when I heard the coaches shouting for me to push, I got off rhythm and loaded off the wrong leg, tweaking my hamstring and pushing slower than I'd hoped. Gah!

Still, the run was overall the best of the week, though I messed up curve 16, dragging a toe the whole way through and bleeding time. Still, I was in 15th place, better than the last race!
INSERT RUN 1 HERE

Getting ready for my second run, I realized my hamstring was super sore and it made me nervous. The PT was awesome and he did what he could; I managed to push a bare 1 hundredth faster which was a triumph since I expected to be slower!

The run was worse at the top - flopped off curve 3 and missed the second steer in curve 6, but at least 16 was better! Bottom of the track was "a dream." I dropped one spot to 16th, which was disappointing, but also great since it was better than Igls! Baby steps.
INSERT RUN 2 HERE

My teammates excelled though - Annie finished in second - her first World Cup medal! - and Katie finished in 3rd. Woohoo! 2 medals!


(I'd post the photos from the award ceremony, but.....my phone died and though we tried everything, the only way to fix it was to restore the phone with a backup from 2 days prior. Yes, I lost everything from the race!)

Odds and Ends
The best part of France was the food. Wine with every dinner (not that the athletes could really imbibe, but a nice touch nonetheless), cheese, amazing bread, desserts to die for. Ok, so really the meals weren't so great, but the starters and finishers, mmmmmmmmmm.


Oh, and on an outing to the grocery store, I found a bit of home away from home, an old sports shop:


Then it was off again - World Cup #3 awaited us in Winterberg, Germany.