Well I didn’t spend the ENTIRE weekend sliding down ice tracks at 115 km/hr.
We also played board games (Wasabi), had a fire, watched lots of No Reservations, did homework (me only), etc etc. It was a very fun relaxing weekend.
Brian and Morgan just moved into their new place in Creekside and we were their first guests ever. :D I like their apartment. I would totally live there!!! Both of them still need jobs but they have lots of relevant experience so I don’t think they will have any trouble.
Whistler skiing is probably not opening for a couple more weeks. It was still verrrry green and wet when we were there.
I like that the lines on the carpet make Scott look speedy.
I’m back at school this week and next. Being at school is definitely much worse than being at clinical. Although I do appreciate being able to sleep in a bit.
This past weekend I did skeleton school up at Whistler. We did 3 two hour sessions, one on Friday night, and on Saturday and Sunday afternoon.
Although the ‘school’ didn’t really have any extra lessons or anything, it was a lot better than the sessions I did last year because coach Ivo talked to us a lot more. He gave us personalized advice and tips. Plus from doing so many runs in a row we were able to learn new things, try them out, and practice. I am now much much better at skeleton.
DAY ONE:
putting on my spikes
We started from Maple Leaf start. That’s about 1/3 of the way up the track, with only 6 corners. This is what a start looks like from there:
It was actually pretty weird skeleton-ing at night. I found it a lot harder to see, even with all those bright lights shining on the track.
I did pretty mediocre on the first day. Didn’t quite find the best sled for me and ended up with below average results. My fastest speed was 95.40 km/hr. Quite a few bumps and ping pongs.
DAY TWO:
It was POURING rain. I worried that the rain was going to make the track slower (warmer weather makes the track slower) but we actually ended up with slightly faster times. My fastest speed recorded was 99.7 km/hr. Two of our runs didn’t get printed this day though. I don’t think I broke 100 km/hr on day 2, but I was okay with it because I was trying out a lot of new things.
Coach finally started teaching us really how to steer. We needed to be able to steer if we would move up starting positions. Especially on the last two corners. I tested out all the new techniques and finally found a couple sleds that worked for me. I stopped hitting the sides in the straightaway section at the end of the track. This was a major achievement.
I felt really really good and comfortable on the track, even with all the rain. I was focused and able to keep position a lot easier than before. I also knew all the corners very well and what would be happening next and what I needed to do.
At the end of Day 2, coach told us that we would be moving up the next day. WE WERE TERRIFIED!!! Brian and I both didn’t sleep very well.
DAY THREE:
This is a funny picture because it looks like I’m planking. I was actually practising steering. You steer by doing pretty subtle movements with your shoulders and knees. I am looking down because I can see the runners on the sled flex with the pressure I am putting on the different parts of the sled.
We didn’t actually end up moving up right away. We did 7 more runs from Maple Leaf start where coach watched us all on corner 15 and 16 so he could decide who could move up. I got my fastest Maple Leaf speed ever: 101.05 km/hr.
Out of 12 of us, he let 6 people move up. It was kind of a big deal because the next starting position up is actually under construction, so we had to move up TWO starting positions.
I got picked, and so did Brian. It was five boys, plus me. I was much less terrified at this point because I had a good sled that I could really control, and had lots of practice by then. I was so so so excited.
Our very last run of the weekend was to be from Junior start. That’s quite near the top. 11 corners! 5 new corners!! I started to get a bit scared again when we had to get into a smaller truck that could bring us up to the top. The road was pretty steep! WE WERE SO HIGH UP!! We knew that by the time we would reach the part of the track where we were normally going very slowly we would already be going ~70 km/hr.
Anyway there wasn’t that much time to dawdle around at the top so before I knew it I was lying face down about to be pushed off from junior start. And there I went!!
It was crazy fast. There was way way more G force on the last corner! I bumped an edge about half way down but other than that I didn’t hit. I didn’t put my feet down at all. It felt like a pretty good run!
I went 115 km/hr!!! I beat all the boys by 6 km/hr. In skeleton-world, that is A LOT to beat them by. It felt good because from Maple Leaf I never seem to be able to beat the physically larger guys. I still haven’t received our official split times sheet on that last run, which sucks because I can’t wait to see all the little (1)’s beside my times!!!
victory
That is clearly not my picture but I thought I’d post it because it looks so cool!
The group.
And there’s my worst bruise. From rides on crazy sleds. SLED 26 FOR LIFE NOW.
A huge thank you to Scott for standing out in the rain and taking pictures and videos of us. The pictures are so awesome!!
I had such a great weekend. PERMA-GRIN for sure. I can’t wait to go back. By the way, my goal last year was to go over 100 km/hr, which I achieved. My goal this year was to move up a starting position, and now I’ve already done it!! It’s gonna be a good year!
Oh yeah, I’m back from Whistler. I had an incredible time and I can’t wait to tell you about it and show you the pictures/videos, but I have one more test to get through this week before I have time to do that.
In the mean time, I thought this was a particularly good Toothpaste For Dinner comic from the other day:
This semester is FLYING BY! I’ve already finished 2 out of 3 rotations, and that is great.
Epson is sending me some free ink because I called to complain about my printer saying it is empty even though I can hear ink sloshing around inside of the cartridges. The free ink is awesome, but the whole problem started because of the extreme crumpling action that the printer does every once and a while and that is not fixed at all. Blergh. I do not recommend Epson printers.
Our Halloween was very uneventful. We didn’t have any trick-or-treaters because we live in an apartment building. We didn’t carve a pumpkin this year. We didn’t dress up or go out. We didn’t even buy any Halloween candy!! WE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE ANY CANDY AT WORK!! >:(
This weekend should be plenty exciting though. 6 hours of skeleton!!! I am extremely excited. I’m not sure how fast we’ll be able to go though because it’s still quite warm up at Whistler. So I might not break 100 km/hr this time, but I hopefully learn some new stuff, and after I’ve finished the “course” my options for skeleton are much better.
Wait!! Scott did carve a pumpkin this year. At work!! He won a prize! Actually that is a pretty epic hamburger pumpkin. I am super proud of him.
+ Scott and I figured out how to make kettle corn at home. It’s super easy. I may never eat anything else again. I will take some pics and post the recipe the next time we make it (probably tomorrow, haha).
+ I won a scholarship for my performance at school last year. YAY! It’s the Brenda Clark Nuclear Medicine Technology Scholarship. How fancy.
+ I was thinking maybe I could do some posts about nuclear medicine. I could write up some of the explanations that I give to patients and show you some of the equipment and maybe some of the types of pictures we take? I am tired of people having no idea at all about what I am studying. Would you be interested in some “intro to nuclear medicine” posts at all?
+ Scott and I are (probably) renting a car this coming weekend and going up to Whistler. Brian and I are going to do skeleton school. And Brian and Morgan have moved up there permanently now, so Scott and I get to stay with them. :) Was that confusing? Hope not. Anyway of course I am super pumped about skeleton and if we get to do the course we will be able to join any training sessions now instead of relying on the SFU ones. WOOOO. Brian really got hooked last year so he’s probably going to be doing it a lot this season!! Hopefully I get to go a few times as well.
+ H&M has SPACE PANTS and I really want a pair. The H&M at Metrotown didn’t have any though. I’ll have to check out the store downtown.
+ And this is the best sweater ever. They only have it at the American Forever 21 though. Bummer.
+ My hospital placement is going fine. Not great, but fine. I don’t think I could ever be loud enough to fit in there, really.
