I spent the past week hanging out in ritzy Park City, UT watching bobsledders and skeleton athletes go flying down ice covered tracks down the side of mountains. I made a pit stop during my trip from Minnesota to San Diego to support my girlfriend, Mia, during her team trials for U.S. World Cup team. It was an impressive week watching everyone run and push 400+ lb. sleds down ice tracks. Hanging around my girlfriend all week gave me an inside look into everything that is involved with the sport. It is quite the production!
Everyday the athletes get to track and start at the bottom of the mile long length of ice track. They start their track walk hours before they actually start sliding to go over the curves and turns and dips. This helps them to get a good mental image of the track and visualize what they are about to drive on at over 80mph! It's pretty amazing. Once they start sliding they get to runs down the track which takes about an hour and a half total depending on the amount of athletes training.
During race day everything is a frenzy. The day before was spent sanding runners. Runners are the blades of steel that the bobsled rides on down the ice. Runners are very complicated from my perspective. To me they are just pieces of metal, to bobsledders they are incredibly important. First of all, the metal needs to be blemish free. There can be no nicks or scratches. It is the smoothest metal I have ever seen. Bobsledders spend hours sanding these steel blades to perfection. They use all kinds of different grades of sandpaper to get the steel ultra smooth. After the blades are sanded, acetone is wiped across the runners to clean them. After the runners have been finished they are basically untouchable. I was not allowed by Mia to handle the runners very much, and if I did, I had to use extreme caution. It was stressful.
The competitions just finished today. There were two days of competitions, with a total of four runs down the hill. Mia did a great job with the equipment she was given to use this year. Not all sleds are created equal which really minimizes ability to get a fair and accurate measure of any individuals skills. It is a long and frustrating problem to explain, but there is a issue that needs to addressed in that sport. I am very proud of Mia though for all the hard work and commitment she has put into her sport, she is a very inspirational woman an amazingly gifted athlete.
Here is a cool video of bobsledding. It is of a 4 man bobsled team. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofzbV9-Nyag
My week long pseudo vacation has come to an end and now it is time for me to get back to work. Tomorrow morning I will be driving 11 hours from Park City to San Diego. It is tough to leave this comfortable resort I have been staying at, but I need to keep from getting soft mentally and physically! I am very excited to start up a new season of training. The only bad thing about leaving tomorrow, which is a Sunday, is...I'm sure you can guess...yup, I will be missing the Viking and Steelers game. It's going to be a long drive...
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Going back to Cali...
This was a great week for our country and for our President. In case you were avoiding any news, President Obama was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. I was pretty excited to hear this and my initial reaction to this news was "wow, seriously?" I asked my dad what Obama got the award for and he said "promoting peace." I didn't even have to give it a second thought. Even before the presidential nomination, Obama was conceptualizing and verbalizing peaceful ideas for the country under his leadership. I was extremely happy and proud at the same time that our President would be chosen for this honor. I said to my dad "This is going to look good for the U.S. Maybe this will shut some critics mouths and they'll give the President some respect." Oh man was I wrong on that thought.
As I went through the rest of the day I heard more people than not saying how ridiculous it was
that Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. Far right Conservatives in the media tore down the honor of the award and even went on to say the award has been tarnished. I couldn't believe my ears! Even on Facebook I had friends posting negative views on the event, whom I'm sure were spouting commentary they heard from various media outlets. How could anyone not be happy for what the award represented for the country? I was purely looking at the positive side of things, I still can't see how anyone could take such an honor and turn it into something negative. It really makes me question the patriotism of people.
I was really disappointed that I didn't see more positive backing and acceptance of this award for our President and more importantly what our country is trying to represent and promote, peace. I did find a very insightful and well done video segment posted by one of my friend's on their Facebook homepage. I wish this video was played all over for people to see what should be seen, the positive nature of the honor for our President and our country after years of disapproval by much of the world. It is a major step in the right direction for our country and the international community. Here is the 11 minute video segment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMJuEOaF84o
Anyways, enough about political stuff, this was my last week here at home and it has gone pretty fast. Two months of hanging out with family and friends and now it is time for me to get back to work. I'm a little bit bummed out but at the same time I'm excited for the start of a new training year. The time I spent at home was much needed and enjoyed. I was able to help out my parents a great deal with landscaping around the house and other little chores, mostly to earn my keep! I was able to hang out with my brother Sam almost every weekend at his college of Winona State. That was important to me to be able to spend that time with him.
This weekend I had the chance to go to the University of Minnesota Homecoming football game against Purdue in the new TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. It was the coolest college football experience I've ever had! I wanted to go to a game so bad while I was home and I accomplished that goal. I can now go back to San Diego happy!
I will be leaving for San Diego this Friday but will be breaking my trip up with a week long stay in Park City, Utah where my girlfriend, Mia, will be training and competing for a spot on the World Championship team.
As I went through the rest of the day I heard more people than not saying how ridiculous it was
that Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. Far right Conservatives in the media tore down the honor of the award and even went on to say the award has been tarnished. I couldn't believe my ears! Even on Facebook I had friends posting negative views on the event, whom I'm sure were spouting commentary they heard from various media outlets. How could anyone not be happy for what the award represented for the country? I was purely looking at the positive side of things, I still can't see how anyone could take such an honor and turn it into something negative. It really makes me question the patriotism of people.
I was really disappointed that I didn't see more positive backing and acceptance of this award for our President and more importantly what our country is trying to represent and promote, peace. I did find a very insightful and well done video segment posted by one of my friend's on their Facebook homepage. I wish this video was played all over for people to see what should be seen, the positive nature of the honor for our President and our country after years of disapproval by much of the world. It is a major step in the right direction for our country and the international community. Here is the 11 minute video segment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMJuEOaF84o
Anyways, enough about political stuff, this was my last week here at home and it has gone pretty fast. Two months of hanging out with family and friends and now it is time for me to get back to work. I'm a little bit bummed out but at the same time I'm excited for the start of a new training year. The time I spent at home was much needed and enjoyed. I was able to help out my parents a great deal with landscaping around the house and other little chores, mostly to earn my keep! I was able to hang out with my brother Sam almost every weekend at his college of Winona State. That was important to me to be able to spend that time with him.
This weekend I had the chance to go to the University of Minnesota Homecoming football game against Purdue in the new TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. It was the coolest college football experience I've ever had! I wanted to go to a game so bad while I was home and I accomplished that goal. I can now go back to San Diego happy!
I will be leaving for San Diego this Friday but will be breaking my trip up with a week long stay in Park City, Utah where my girlfriend, Mia, will be training and competing for a spot on the World Championship team.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)