A lot happened last weekend.

It all started on Friday. Of course it had to snow 10 cm on the one day that I actually had to drive to work (I was supposed to pick up my skeleton friend Matt and drive straight to Whistler after work). The roads were horrendous. I got to work no problem (yay Subaru) but I had to park on the street and was worried all day that someone was going to slide and smash into it.

…And someone did. The back left corner was pretty smashed. The front is damaged as well from hitting into the car parked in front of me. At least the person left me a note. This was my first time dealing with an accident so I wasted a lot of time figuring out what to do. Unfortunately because of that I couldn’t meet up with Matt in time and I had to miss skeleton practice. Usually that would be fine, but it was a race weekend (BC Cup) and Friday was “official race training”. I got some texts from Matt and our coach saying that I might not be eligible to race on Saturday or Sunday because I missed the training. I was double sad.

The next day I was told that I could still come and be a forerunner (test person) and they would try to make my runs count as official race runs. I was told they would have to talk to the jury and see if they would let me participate. Of course I really wanted to!! My first ever skeleton race??!! So exciting!

I didn’t find out I was actually racing until the very last second. I was frozen because one of the bobsledders sliding from the top crashed and we had to wait for a long time while they inspected and fixed up the track. I was first to slide after the crash. My first run was ok until the last straightaway. I ping ponged a bit before the finish line and lost a lot of time. I had the worst time (out of the three of us). Then we went back up, the bobsled crashed again and we got re-frozen and I had another bad run.

There were three skeletoners and one bobsled going from the top, and three skeletoners and two bobsleds going from Lower Ladies start. It was a weird mix of official and not official… the people going from the top were competing for medals and points, but we weren’t really… yet we had a race official with us and had to ask a jury for me to be allowed to participate. Iunno.

Race 1 was disappointing but I just kept thinking Race 2 is its own separate thing and I’m going to do awesome. Our coach found speedsuits for us (that we can keep!) and everyone was pumped. I was optimistic and less distracted (I thought).

Everything was feeling good and then the bobsled crashed again. This time was pretty bad, he crashed in corner 4 and slid the whole rest of the track upside down. We saw him come by our start area upside down making a horrible scraping noise. Not cool. (He is fine though). The track was pretty gouged and we had to wait a long time before it was cleared for sliding again.

Again I had to go right after the bobsled crash. Frozen and distracted. I steered myself right into the wall at the start. SO DUMB. Even though the rest of my run was fine, I lost a lot of time with my start so I was in last place again.

Then one of the skeletoners from the top hit a wall and flew off his sled. So crazy. (He is also fine though). That scraped the track quite a bit too so more waiting, more freezing. Last run of the weekend what do I do?? STEER MYSELF DIRECTLY INTO THE WALL AT THE START AGAIN. I was like “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” down the rest of the track.

Matt and Grant had some great runs. The track was fast and they got some PB times. I beat them a lot in practice but I came decisively in last place in both races. Sigh. The pressure got to me I guess! I think the cold and stress of the car might have had something to do with it as well. Anyway it was still fun and I’m glad I got to participate, and I can’t wait to beat those guys in the next race. :D I’m going to go do some track visualizations now…