by ·2 Comments

Sooo let’s just ignore that some of these pictures are like three months old……

Rosemary Rocksalt bagel with salmon, avocado and cream cheese. How can you even improve on this?? Perfection.

Two kinds of ceviche, guacamole and pico de gallo at La Mezcaleria. OM NOM NOM. With a ludicrously expensive margarita. (Best margaritas in town though).

GIANT VOLCANIC BOWL OF MOLTEN CHEESE AND CHORIZO. So greasy, so amazing. This is a once-a-year (or less!) food.

Pork tenderloin kebabs with vegetables and halloumi. Homemade tzatziki and tortillas. This was a team effort meal with Scott, Rosemarie, Lauren and I that magically all came together perfectly despite little planning.

Rosemarie and I finally did the crayon art project that she gave me for Christmas/AFFH. Making the crayons melt was so addicting.

The Jornas, at the PNE this year. Lesley took this picture.

I had a jalapeño popper grilled cheese. It took them like 30 minutes to make. Le sigh. But it tasted pretty good, it had cheese, peppers, cream cheese, corn chips!

Me broad jumping at the bobsleigh/skeleton summer tryouts. I did pretty bad, it was sort of embarrassing. But still fun, kind of. I think I was a lot better at running this year compared to last (still too slow though) but I actually got worse at broad jump (down to 1.75 m from 1.78 m). Yikes. And I was HORRIBLE at the underhand medicine ball toss. It kept slipping out of my hands!! Lots of work to do if I ever plan on being competitive.

So many more people than last year!! It was nice seeing some old friends from last season, and great to see some new faces! I am hoping that the group of recreational (and BC development) sliders gets bigger this year. It would be fun to have races with more people, especially girls!!

Manicure from last week. Stained glass/negative space. I did my left hand. Scott had to help me with my right hand. Maybe Rosemarie will post a link in the comments to the Salon Jorna picture she took.

A made pie! Peach pie! We had picked a dozen or so giant freestone peaches in Osoyoos last week at a giddy u-pick session. I whipped up two pies with homemade crust and everything. I usually don’t like pies because I hate cooked fruit, but peach pie is pretty good. Maybe because the texture of cooked peach isn’t very different than raw peach? This was my first time making crust and it went… ok. It’s a little tough. I think that happens when you overwork the dough? But overall the pie tastes GREAT. Making pies is very satisfying.

by ·2 Comments

My level of motivation for training for skeleton goes up and down dramatically all the time. It varies from WHAT’S THE POINT, I’M NEVER GOING TO BE A COMPETITOR to I TOTALLY COULD BE A COMPETITOR!!!

Right now I’m in the I TOTALLY COULD BE A COMPETITOR state. I’ve actually been doing sprints!! Running is definitely my weak point, since ummm… I hate it. But I watched a billion videos on youtube and am now full of all sorts of tips and hints to make me faster. Today I videotaped myself at the track and reviewed after each sprint and it actually helped A LOT. The videos helped me see that I was planting my foot too far forward, heel striking, and looking too far down. Lots of problems but at least I know some specific things to work on.

I’ve also been doing lots of shrugs to help develop my neck so I can resist G forces better, upright rows so that I can lift my own skeleton sled into the car, cleans for power, etc etc. The off-season is all about doing everything you can to be a better slider without having any ice available.

I know it’s not very likely that I’ll ever be going to the Olympics or anything but it would be nice to not have to be embarrassed by my start times. My goal for this winter is to move up to starting from the top of Whistler, but maybe my goal for after that could be competing for realz. I would love to be able to do the Canadian selection races (one in Calgary and one in Whistler) so that I could have a ranking. Forerunning big races could be cool as well.

I was invited to participate in the Calgary icehouse push camp this August but unfortunately I am scheduled to work every day that week. That would be a lot of money to give up, plus I don’t even think there is anyone available to cover me. Plus flights and everything = $$$$. Sigh. I am hoping there will be another trip at some point over the winter again though.

So the next thing coming up is the summer testing. In the meantime, MORE RUNNING/LIFTING/JUMPING. :D

by ·2 Comments

I finally got around to uploading the video of my very last skeleton run of the season. They had the CCTV going during the BC champs and I got one of the Alberta guys to record me. I cringe when I watch it, because it definitely wasn’t my best trip down the track, but oh well, it’s still kinda cool. (click through to my blog if the video doesn’t appear in your feed reader)

You can see the funny “flop” starts we were doing during that race. There are no grooves at corner 3 so it wasn’t safe to do much more than a step or two before laying down. We were doing a consistency race so while my start wasn’t very nice looking, or quick, at least it was the same every time.

And some final statistics and achievements of my 2013-2014 season: 71 runs (60 in Whistler and 11 in Calgary). 58 minutes and 29 seconds on my sled. Top speed: 127.9 km/hr. Competed in three fun races, didn’t do that well, but I never had many female competitors so I could say things like “Came in 1st in my category”, lol. Got to travel with the provincial team to train on a new track. Achieved my goal for the year of doing a running start (in Calgary). Moved up to corner 3 in Whistler. Made a lot of great new friends, aww.

by ·0 Comments

Last weekend BCBSA was nice enough to let us bring two noobies to try skeleton for free. I brought Rosemarie and Scott. I was pretty excited for them to finally try it after so many months listening to me blabber on and on about skeleton.

All the sleds. The friends and family got VIP treatment, us athletes and track workers had to haul the sleds around for them!!

Everyone waiting for their turn from Maple Leaf (corner 11). There were about 30 sliders all together.

Scott’s first run. His feet are nicely glued together, but straighten those legs!!!


Rosemarie wearing my speedsuit and shoes. She did very well. She wrote a funny blog post about the day as well (while still on an adrenaline high, I reckon). (Picture from Matt.)

Both of them had a fun day. They got to do two runs, and then we went out for pizza afterwards. Rosemarie loved skeleton and wants to do it again, but I think Scott plans on sticking to golf.

A few pictures from the BC race the weekend before:

Me coming around Thunderbird (corner 16). Wish my feet were touching.


Awesome picture Scott took of me walking up the outrun ramp! I love this picture.

Bonus pic of Scott at his first hockey lesson. :D

by ·0 Comments

This past weekend I competed in the BCBSA BC Championship Race up in Whistler. It was a big race for all the different levels of skeleton and bobsled to wrap up the sliding season. Provincials! We had official training on Friday night, then heats 1 & 2 on Saturday, and heats 3 & 4 on Sunday.

There were 7 of us sliding from corner 3. Our coach said we would do a consistency race since we are all different sliding levels. The person with the smallest time difference between their slowest and fastest run would win. Maybe not the best way to calculate consistency in a four heat race, since the track had quite different conditions each day, but that’s what they decided on.

Training went fine, and my first and second runs were okay. They weren’t my best runs ever by any means, but they were very consistent. I was sitting in 2nd place with a time difference of 0.12 seconds after heats 1 & 2. Unfortunately my third run was very very slow. The ice was very soft and there was snow on the track. My gap widened to ~2.5 seconds!!!! For my fourth run I just tried to slide something in that (very large) window between my first couple runs and my third run, which I did. But that 2.5 second difference put me out of the running for medals. Bummer.

Ah well, it was still fun hanging out with all the other sliders. No one crashed and everyone had a good day. All in all it was a very enjoyable race experience. I will have to wait till next year to try and get my first skele medal!!