The colours of fall are decorating the Calgary skyline and with this change of scenery, winter athletes are becoming all too aware that the off-season is quickly morphing into therace-season. If everything goes according to plan, we will put our sleds on the
ice in less than a week from today.
I do the majority of my training at Canada Olympic Park. And although we don’t
slide in the summer months, we are fortunate enough to have an “Ice House” at
our disposal. This narrow, four-story building is home to a sheet of 143 m (almost the length of one and a half football fields) of practice
ice. All the sliding disciplines use this facility to practice their start –
which is a very crucial element to any race. Be it Luge and their seated
arm-powered start or Bobsleigh and Skeleton’s leg-powered push start. This approximate
5 seconds, is the only time we have to actually create velocity before
competing with physics and an array of variables to find that elusive “perfect
line” down the track. An experienced and well-tuned driver will use their fast
start to help create an even faster downtime.
Now, there is a great deal of seemingly ridiculous demands among a good cross
section of sports. In the past, I have launched my body onto a polished gym floor
to keep an inflated ball in-play, I have (repeatedly attempted to) hit a tiny
pitted sphere with an even smaller surface area on a stick and I’ve even ran
full speed at stationary objects with no intention of stopping. Yet, nothing
seems to compare to the anti-athletic form caused by forcing Skeleton racers to
run bent over. Not only that, we have to keep one arm firmly planted on our glorified steel and carbon fiber tea tray; doing these things – as fast as
humanly possible– we are then expected to jump on our sled and instantaneously
become completely still and calm.
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| COP Ice House/ Maison de Glace |
immediately good at this? … Yeah, this is not a skill that any athlete comes by
easily.
Over the last two years, I have taken a couple hundred runs down Calgary and
maybe a dozen or more at the other tracks around North America – as mentioned –
the start only lasts 5 seconds. This means I have only been able to practice
the skill of “the start” at the actual track for something like 125
minutes. A Hollywood movie lasts longer
than that.
I’m making a face right now – I’m sure you can imagine it.
So, to say that pushing can become an overwhelmingly frustrating skill to perfect, is
an understatement.
And it’s definitely nice to have a few more seconds to try and work on it.
An hour at the Ice House can get us anywhere from 3-8 pushes (depending on the number of Skeleton athletes
there at one time). We set a clock and test our skills, and sometimes we don’t,
but work on technique instead.
Some days I feel great – like I am just gliding over the ice; other
days I feel flat and slow, which can indeed cause me to develop an urge to run screaming from the building. Regardless, I push on.
Each step along this journey is tough – but I’m strong and getting stronger
everyday. My goals (often) seem impossible – but that just means they ARE possible and that 90% of people will find this too discouraging; creating more opportunity for
my own triumph.
