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You may have already seen it on Facebook, but my first night skeletoning back at Whistler after Calgary was quite eventful. I was super nervous about sliding fast again after slow and bumpy Calgary. But my first run was fine. It felt so smooth and lovely. My second run was even better. It became really obvious to me how much I learned the week before. Everything was making sense!

And then on the third run I tapped after corner 6, entered corner 7 super late, dropped a toe to correct…. and then ended up spinning around backwards!! It was freaky. I didn’t know I was supposed to bail if that happened, so I just stayed on the sled. It was surprisingly smooth, and I was pretty calm (since I didn’t actually know how dangerous it was). My coach was SO MAD. I got quite a lecture for not ditching my sled. Apparently I am the first person ever to go around Thunderbird backwards ahahha. I went 112 km/hr BACKWARDS??!! I feel so lucky that nothing bad actually happened.

I took a few days off after that, haha.

Rosemarie and I had a girly weekend up at Whistler last weekend. She watched me slide on Friday night, and she skied and I slid on Saturday, and then we skied together on Sunday. SO FUN! We stayed at the athletes accommodation which was nice and comfortable. I love sister time.

This coming weekend is the last bit of skeleton for the season (except for the BBQ). It’s the provincial championships and there are going to be a lot of people competing this time! It sounds like there will be about 12 people going from the top, around 8 from corner 3 (including me), and another 8 from corner 7. Us corner 3 people are apparently doing a consistency race. The person with the four most consistent runs will win. I think this is pretty boring, but it’s because we’re all at different levels so can’t really compare. I have a feeling we’ll all still be looking at the times in the end though, haha.

My fancy new helmet arrived last week and I’m feeling good about my sliding. I fixed a major problem last week that I had been struggling with for a few weeks (that darn tap after corner 6!!), so I’m very excited to race this weekend. Here’s hoping I have four consistent fast runs.

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I did three more runs from corner 3 last night, much more successfully than the other night. Matt and I have been getting times within a few hundredths of a second so the (friendly) competition is fierce. I’m not going again tonight because I’m still getting over a bad cold. I don’t want to be sick for our big trip.

Leslie’s mom is in town so we all went out for brunch this morning. Rosemarie AND Scott were able to come too so it was really nice. We went to the Twisted Fork Bistro and ate lots of eggs benedict and frittata and baked eggs and banana french toast. I love going out for breakfast with people! I miss our monthly brunch club with Zsofi and Jess.

Oh yeah I also have purple hair now??!! Leslie helped me do it yesterday. :D

I’m working tomorrow (ummm better figure out how to put my hair in a bun) and then we’re off to Toronto, so my next post will probably be from Ontario. See ya.

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It’s been an interesting and eventful week of skeleton.


Last weekend I slid on Saturday and Sunday with the regular skeleton school. I wasn’t sliding that well… didn’t even crack 120 km/hr and was mostly coming in last place each run. It was still fun though. Leslie came to watch us and took a few pictures. The best part of the weekend was that our coach said that Matt and I could start coming up to slide on weeknights with the BC team. After 2+ years of skeleton school…. we have graduated!!

Thursday night BCBSA sliding was awesome. We got to do a track walk for the first time. I was surprised how steep it was. One guy almost took out the whole team when he fell down, haha. My first run was wild and not great, but then Ivo reminded me about how I need to keep my toes together the entire time and my second and third run were much better. I even beat Matt on my last run. Ah, everything returning to normal. ;)

I went up again on yesterday too. I did one mediocre run from corner 7, and then Ivo got me to move up. Starting at corner 3 adds about 4 seconds on to your run time and up to 10 km/hr faster. It was scary!! The first run I did from there was ok… I had a couple big bumps, went 126 km/hr. Exhilarating!

My second run from corner 3 was more exciting… I fell off my sled!! I drove up a corner so high my sled tipped me off and I couldn’t get back on. I watched my sled disappear in front of me while I slid down the ice on my stomach. It actually wasn’t that bad though, it didn’t even rip my suit. I walked off the track. I’m a little sore today but not in any particular area. For a first crash, it went pretty smoothly.

So now I’ve got two more days of BCBSA sliding next week before I head to Toronto/Ottawa/Calgary. These team sessions are so much better than the schools because Ivo has so much more time to spend with us. I feel like I’ve learned so much in the past few days. I’m so excited for Calgary too…. a slower track, a new track, running starts, fresh start. YAY!!

And to finish off this post, here is my first One Second Everyday video! My project this year has been to take one second of video each day with the 1 Second Everyday app which stitches all the clips together into a video. Here is the January 2014 instalment:

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Rosemarie got Scott (and me) a voucher for EXTREME trampolining for Christmas. It was way harder than we expected. We were there for 1.5 hours and got so tired. It was fun trying to bounce from one side of the room to the other without stopping, and flipping into the foam pit. If I ever go there again I know I need to bring tape to wrap around my socks… they come off soooooo easy in the foam pit!!!

They randomly turned the lights off for about ten minutes. For once I was actually wearing the right clothes for black lights. I felt like I was in a Sia performance.

I donated blood for the first time this week. I always thought people were exaggerating when they talked about how big the needles are there…. they are not!! The needles are like straws!! But anyway it was fine and I enjoyed my juice box and cookies at the end. I will most likely go again in 58 days when I am allowed to come back. Why not?

I also recently signed up to be a bone marrow donor. Did you know that donating bone marrow is a lot less painful than it used to be? Sometimes they can get the stem cells via a vein in your arm. They even give you back the parts of the blood that they don’t need. Sometimes they still have to tap the bone, but if it’s going to change someone’s life then a little bit of pain is worth it, in my opinion. They really need donors, especially young ethnic males. You have to be between the ages of 17 and 35. When you sign up for One Match you do a little online quiz, then they mail you a cheek swab kit, which you mail back with your samples. Pretty easy and pretty cool! I hope some day I get a call.

Leslie, Rosemarie and I went to Ladies Night at Mount Seymour last Monday. In case you haven’t heard: winter here in Vancouver was been extremely mild. The mountains barely have any snow at all. Whistler’s base is about one quarter as deep as it was last year at this point. I guess most people have given up on winter sports because Ladies Night was deserted. There were like 12 people on the whole mountain, haha.

I was a little overdressed in my (new) parka. The snow was more like little balls of ice water. We could take our gloves off no problem. We couldn’t even see our breath. It was still fun-ish, although Leslie was having equiptment issues and my toe was realllllly hurting (more about this later). We stayed a few hours but left early. Still okay for $5 (for charity!).

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Last week Leslie, Scott and I checked out Las Margaritas Dine Out menu. Three courses for $18. Because there were three of us, we pretty much got to try everything, which was fantastic.

We started out with lime margaritas. Blended for Leslie and on the rocks for me. My margarita was decent. Not much to say about it really, I’ve had better ones other places.

We ordered one of each of the appetizers. The first was a poblano pepper and corn soup with crispy tortilla strips. It was nice… sweet and spicy. The second was two tiny empanadas filled with chorizo and potatoes. They were served with two salsas. The green salsa was the best part… the rest was pretty forgettable. And the last was a “masa boat” filled with refried black beans, chicken, lettuce, salsa, sour cream and cheese. The boat tasted like a thick corn pastry and was really delicious. All three of us thought this was the best appetizer.

For the main course Leslie and I ordered the Chile Colorado. It was beef simmered in a rich sauce, with rice, beans, guacamole and corn tortillas to put it all in. Both of us liked it a lot. Very filling.

Scott ordered the Chile en Nogada which was a poblano pepper stuffed with turkey, vegetables and apple, covered with a walnut cream sauce and pomegranate seeds. It also came with rice and beans. For something so fancy sounding we were a little disappointed. I didn’t expect it to be cold? The flavours were all interesting and fine, but it just didn’t come together into a delicious dish for some reason.

Then we had Tres Leches and churros for dessert. I had been wanting to try Tres Leches cake FOREVER!!! Unfortunately they only had one piece left so I didn’t get to try a whole lot of it… but the bites that I had were super delicious. I need to try and make it myself immediately!! The churros were also great. Covered in sugar, crispy, warm melty chocolate to dip them into… om nom nom.

All in all a very good meal. I would recommend the masa boat, the beef chile, and the tres leches cake.

Las Margaritas Mexican Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato