Bye Bye 2013
Greetings from one of the last places where it is still 2013.
I just skimmed all my posts for the last year and have come to the conclusion that my 2013 revolved around three things: FOOD, NUCLEAR MEDICINE, and SKELETON.
FOOD: wow we made and ate a lot of food this year! So many delicious things. Good thing I also started going to the gym this year otherwise I’d definitely be heading towards 900 lbs.
NUCLEAR MEDICINE: I graduated from BCIT, passed the CAMRT exam, and eventually got a job. That all worked out nicely! I’m incredibly grateful that it did.
SKELETON: the thing that gets me through the winter tbh. I went 120 km/hr, got the hang of lower ladies start, made the BC team (sort of), made new friends. All good stuff.
I was also lucky enough to go to LA, Fiji, Hawaii and Osoyoos this year. I love travelling with Scott, every trip has been fun.
Life has been good to us in 2013.
We’re off to do some NYE bowling tonight. Happy doo doo, see you in 2014!
Leisurely Days Off
I LOVE DAYS OFF!
Not that I’ve done much with my time. Mostly all I’ve been doing is watching tons of Bob’s Burgers and Suits and making and eating food, haha.
We haven’t done Christmas yet. We’ve made up our own arbitrary holiday and it happens on January 1st. This means we could wait for boxing day sales and get MOAR PRESENTS for less $$. The day is also going to involve the polar bear swim, an egg hunt, a big meal (not sure what yet), stockings…. basically just all the fun parts of other holidays.
Did I ever write about how our TV broke and was deemed unfixable by the repair shop? Well that happened. We went to Costco on Boxing Day morning to replace it. I was expecting it to be a madhouse, but actually it was totally quiet. I have never seen Costco so empty, it was lovely. We ended up getting a cheap 32″ TV. It’s nice being able to watch TV during daylight hours again.
I don’t work again until 2014. I have two and a half weeks solid of training in January but then I’m not on the schedule after that. I’m sure I’ll pick up some shifts here and there but I think I’m not going to be very busy for a while. Perhaps I’ll go back to nights at the data centre? We’ll see we’ll see.
Crashes Of All Sorts
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…
A+ Skeleton Weekend
Last weekend was SO FUN! Skeleton, Santa Day, Hotel, Hot Tub, etc etc!
Scott, Rose and I drove up to Whistler super early to dress as Santa and get a free lift ticket. There were 165 Santas this year!! You can see a bunch of pictures here. Scott and Rose had a great day on the slopes but I am saving my ticket for another time because I had skeleton.
It was pretty warm out so the skeleton track wasn’t its fastest, but I still managed to go 120.07 km/hr on one run on Saturday. I’m still the only one of our little group to go 120+ and now I’ve done it twice!! Hehe. The track seemed extra smooth? I don’t know, it felt like a different track than last month. I didn’t have any of the same problems I had last time.
Sunday was even warmer. We shared the track with some sliders from Korea and the US, plus two 2-man bobsledders! It was actually really cool to watch the mega-thighed Koreans and the crazy bobsledders. Do you know how often bobsleds crash?? A LOT!!! (Although we did not see any crashes.) I do not see the appeal of bobsled.
I had a couple great runs and a couple terrible runs! Lots of bumps, oops. I feel like I am learning tons at the moment though so it’s all good.
And the best part…. I get to be in a race this coming weekend!! I will be competing in the BC Cup Race 1 and 2. :D :D I am so iksidid!! I will go up on Friday for practice, and then the races will be on Saturday and Sunday. By the way I am still not sliding from the top but there are enough of us that can go from Lower Ladies that we can have a real race.
The other part that made the weekend supah fun was that we booked a hotel room for Scott, Rose, Chris, Matt, and I to all cram into. Hot tub party times! I really enjoyed myself. I rate last weekend A+. I hope we can have another like that again.