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I spent all last week in Whistler volunteering at the IBSF World Cup races as an official. There were three days of official training, and five races (W-skele, M-skele, W-bob and 2M-bob (x2)) over two days. It was really tiring (I spent 48 hours at the track in five days!) but it was also really fun and cool.

I did a lot of temperature taking, runner wiping, sled marshalling, bobsleigh weighing, icebox timing, scabbard heaving, and many more behind-the-scenes tasks. In between I got to watch a lot of the action and hang out with friends. No cheering though! Officials are neutral.

Me and Martins Dukurs! The Usain Bolt of skeleton. He has won 6 out of 6 of the races so far this year, and is on track to win his 7th World Cup title in a row. He has something like 50 World Cup gold medals in his trophy collection. Basically he is my (and everyone else’s) hero.

Women’s skeleton! I got to do one of the pre-race jobs so that during the race I could actually watch. I started up top, so I could watch one of Jane Channell’s famous extra speedy starts, and then slowly walked down to the bottom watching a person or two go by at every corner. Normally the whole track isn’t open like that so it was cool to watch people’s lines through some of the upper corners.

I watched the last bit at the bottom right beside the finish line where (some) girls were smashing into the wall extremely hard (like me).

Tina Hermann smashed the hardest and she won… so I guess it is a “good” line. Jane came 4th, after setting a new start record.

 

Men’s skeleton! Again, I finished up my tasks early so I could watch the race. Scott, Rosemarie and Liz came up to meet me too. It was SO COOL seeing all the ultra fast guys run. Some of them can run soooo far!!

Martins hadn’t had much luck in Whistler in the past, he lost the last World Cup in 2012 to a German, and lost the Olympics in 2010 to Jon Montgomery. All through training he hadn’t really been doing that well, so I actually started to doubt whether he could keep up his gold streak.

Buuuut… that was foolish, because as usual he blew everyone away. He even set a new track record on his first run. His brother Tomass set a new new one in his second run, but Martins still had enough of a lead to stay in first. Good day for the Dukurs family!

Jon Montgomery was there, watching. He held the track record since the Olympics until that day! Nice guy. I asked him if it was weird for him to be there not as an athlete and he said it was just nice to not have to deal with the pressure.

Sunset view on a mini break to the icebar and VIP tent with the volunteer crew. So pretty. So needed at that point. Rosemarie and Liz got to go in too since they did some volunteering for guest services too. :)

The bobsleigh races were hella exciting. Super duper close races, track records galore, crashes, the atmosphere up top, holy moly it was awesome. I was “working” but still managed to somewhat follow what was going on.

Photo by Charlie Booker.

Scott, Rosemarie and Liz had a blast cheering and hanging out at the finish with the bobsleigh guys. They all had raspy voices from screaming so much. GO GO GO GO GO! That’s Chris Spring and Lascelles Brown (who Scott is hugging hahahaha) who won gold for Canada!

Then afterwards Scott and I went out to the Longhorn for the afterparty with all the other officials (and a lot of the athletes). Scott talked to a lot of them. I am too shy. He got an awesome terrible picture with Martins where Scott looks like this :D and Martins looks like this >:( hahaha. Fun times.

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Vancouverites are so lucky when it comes to sushi.

Ask me what my favourite sushi place is and my answer is something like “Cheap sushi? Fancy sushi? Mid-price sushi? Am I with people that like mayo? Do I want to be able to have conversations? Any neighbourhood?” and so on. It is impossible to narrow it down to one.

Sushi Oyama is my favourite mid-priced, mayo heavy, Burnaby sushi joint. Ha.

We’ve been here many times before.

Rainbow roll. Tamago, tuna, salmon, tai, tako, ebi, avocado, mayo. Basically a bit of everything! Very delicious.

Sound trap roll. Cucumber, avocado, eep fried prawn, tuna on top, tempura bits, mayo. Too much mayo in my opinion though, and I am a mayo fan! And weirdly sweet.

We also had yam tempura but it was not very photogenic. Tasted good though.

Sushi Oyama Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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We were craving something warm after a cold morning of errands and shopping at MEC. I saw the sign for “ROBOT CUT NOODLES” and the decision was made.

This is the robot. I should have taken a video, but basically the robot is holding a big chunk of noodle dough in one hand and its other arm moves back and forth and shaves off little bits of irregularly shaped noodles which the dude is collecting in a basket.

Sichuan pork ribs (?) shaved noodle soup

Beef shaved noodles with sour spicy soup

Both soups were good. The noodles were nice and chewy, the broth flavourful. We ate and slurped and splashed droplets all over the table. It was spicy but not too spicy.

Old Ginger Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Way back on Scott’s birthday I brought him to the Downtown Eastside for a surprise dinner at Ask For Luigi’s. We got there just after 5 (they open at 5:30 for dinner) but just missed getting a table in the first seating (they don’t take reservations). But no worries, they take your phone number and text you when the table is ready. So we headed down the street to Alibi Room and had a drink while we waited. PS totally need to go back to Alibi Room sometime, it’s cool!

Anyway Ask for Luigi’s is a teeny tiny Italian restaurant on the edge of Gastown. They have a small menu, a bunch of wine, and cozy atmosphere.

We started with the crispy bucantini and fontina crocchette. The waitress described it as blended up pasta, mixed with cheese, deep fried, in a rich tomato sauce. It was yummy.

Scott ordered the tagliatelle with rabbit ragu, porcini and olives. With tons of parmesan of course. Salty. Very tasty.

I ordered the (whole wheat) pappardelle with wild boar ragu. Plus parmesan. It was nice, a lot like pulled pork. Very generously meaty and very manly.

I ended up liking Scott’s more than mine and he liked mine more, so we switched plates part way through. Which amused me, because I purposely didn’t make Scott change his order (I have a terrible habit of telling him what to get) since it was his birthday, haha.

We both left happy and very full. However, both of us didn’t feel super great that evening or the next day. I wonder if it was because everything was super rich? Maybe our stomachs aren’t used to that much butter.

Ask for Luigi Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Just a quick update before I head to my work Christmas party and then back to Whistler.

It’s been a busy few weeks since the NAC races. I went back to Whistler for a couple days to volunteer for the ICC races, which was pretty fun. The volunteer crew is a great group of people who do a lot for me as a slider, so I try to help out when I can. Plus watching all the good athletes is very inspiring and exciting. Can’t wait for World Cup (January).

Then a couple days after that I went back up with Lauren (C.) so she could watch me slide. It snowed A LOT. I thought we were actually going to get stuck up there because the highway got closed right as we were about to leave but they actually managed to clear the accident pretty quickly. It was a slow drive back to Van though (THANK YOU LAUREN FOR DRIVING). I missed the dinner part of Scott’s work Christmas party, but he saved me a plate of food. Tru luv.

We played games with Lesley and Ruana (and partners) and Lauren stayed with us for a night on her way back to Ottawa. Her and I had a delicious breakfast at Jethro’s on Fraser.

I’ve been working here and there, but not a lot, to be honest. Bit of a slow month, but it’s kind of convenient because it’s such a crazy time of year.

So thanks to Rosemarie being assertive/complain-y, 14 of us got free lift passes for Whistler (long story), so we skied last Saturday and it was FUN. There is SOOOOO much snow up there compared to last year. It was pretty windy, so a lot of the lifts were closed, but it didn’t matter because the snow was so soft and fluffy and lovely and we all had a great time. Lauren (B.) is a better skier than me now!! He is braver and has more stamina than me, haha. Anyway so Rosemarie, Lauren, Scott and I are not THAT different in skill levels now so we can all go together, which is pretty awesome.

The drive home that night was awful though. OMG. It looked like this all the way to Squamish:

I think it was Scott’s first time experiencing snowy warp drive. He said “THIS IS THE MOST AWAKE I HAVE BEEN IN MY LIFE”.

Scott’s birthday was last Sunday. We had a quiet day, but I made breakfast and we relaxed all day and then went out for a drink at Alibi Room and then to Ask For Luigi’s for a delicious Italian pasta dinner, which I’ll post about later.

This weekend is BC Cup 1 & 2, and I am busy tonight so I did my 2 official training runs last night. Well actually I did 2.5 runs because I crashed on my first run!! I haven’t crashed in over a year!! The first crash since I changed sleds last year. I think what happened is my first 5 corners went so well I thought the track was slow, so I understeered in corner 6, and ended up rising too high and falling off my sled. The track wasn’t slow at all!! It was a fairly smooth crash though, I didn’t hit my head or anything and I only slid down 2 more corners before I was able to stop and climb out of the track. I saw my sled right beside me after I fell off but I didn’t decide quick enough to try and grab it and get back on. I don’t know how people do that. Anyway so then I had to break my personal rule of only doing 2 runs a night and after checking my sled and talking to my coach I went back up to the top to try and do my 2 OT runs. I definitely did them a lot more cautiously. The drive home last night was terrible again, it was snowing all the way to West Vancouver!

I feel a lot more sore today than I thought I would though. I must have jammed my thumb/hand somehow because my right hand is quite sore, and my left hip/thigh area is pretty tender. I think I’ll take it easy in the races this weekend.

Tomorrow is Santa Day, so the gang is getting back together and skiing tomorow. I’m pretty bummed I won’t be able to do it this year since I’m busy with my skeleton races, but it should be another good weekend anyway. Just wait until you see Rosemarie’s Tree 2.0 costume, it is SO AWESOME!!! Fingers crossed the drives tonight/tomorrow/Sunday are better than the last few drives.