First WC

We are In Igls Austria for the first world cup. This is one of my favorites stop on the tour, the scenery is great (although the weather has been cloudy/rainy) thus we haven’t quite yet been able to take in the mountains. Usually the weather here is perfect sunny and just cold enough for a fast track. I also like it because I am very familiar/comfortable with this track. As a junior athlete we spent a lot of our free weeks training here in Igls. So of all the European tracks I would say I have the most runs on this one.
Getting into a race week after the many week of preseason training is a breath of fresh air. I enjoy training because it is generally low stress and I am able to focus on the basics of sliding and y weaknesses, but the excitement around racing is one of the factors that drives me forward in the sport. It is what I have prepared for all summer, and now I have the opportunity to see where I stand against the fellow competitors from around the world. We will have our Qualifying race on Friday, followed by the world cup on Saturday.

Heading to Europe

Somehow my first blog entry has been deleted ( I am sure it was user error) so I will make this entry longer to cover (and repeat for those of you who read the first blog) the first part of the season.
I spent the past six weeks training in Lake Placid, NY with the team preparing for the world cup season. It was a really productive 6 weeks. The first two week we weren;t on ice yet. It was a finally push in our physical training, and ensuring our bodies are ready to hit the ice. We completed our Physical testing (which is 1 of the first steps in qualifying for the world cup team). And we also had our US National Start Championships, where I placed 2nd. My teammate Ashley Walden edged me out by .006 of a second. Although I of course want to win every competition, it was nice to see her back in action after missing much of last season with on going health issues. Her and I are constantly pushing each other to be stronger/faster starters, so that we can beat out the Germans in the winter season.

We got on ice October 15th and it was a very easy transition to fall back into sliding mode. The anticipation of the first sliding session is always the most nerve wrecking for me personally. You never quite know where you stand until you hit the ice. Even after a long summer of training and feeling like I am in shape, I need the numbers on the paper to prove that my training has been productive. I am really happy with how the season has started off. I changed my training pretty drastically this year in an attempt to maintain my health and ongoing neck problems. I cut way back on the time I spent lifting and incorporated a lot of swimming, agility, plyo workouts to maintain my strength while basically trying to keep my body “happy”. I used to have the mentality that I had to be as strong as possible, and that bigger muscles meant more strength. But I have now learned that I can train “smarter” and achieve the same results. I have also seen what scheduling rest and days off can do for my body in the overall picture. So to sum it up I am feeling physically quite healthy and am very happy with my start times and overall strength heading into the season.
The first few weeks of sliding were all about settling into my groove and falling back into rhythm with sliding. After I felt I was satisfied with my level of sliding I started testing some new equipment. I have learned a lot over the past year and a half about the importance of having a sled be perfect for you as an athlete. I have individual strengths and weaknesses and it is important over the next few years to make sure I can make adjustments to my equipment to mirror those strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately this is something that will definitely not happen over night. It will take many runs, many hours, money, lots of tweaking my sled, and lots of writing in my journal/collecting data to figure out what is best for me. For now that aspect of sliding will take a backseat to preparing for the world cups. We are given only 6 runs prior to a world cup and it is important to just focus on sliding and learning the track, and not be adding another element of difficulty by constantly adjusting my equipment.
Our first stop in Europe is Italy for the international training week for World Championships, which will be held in January. This is not a track I am all that familiar with (I have only slid there once before, and it didn’t go all that well) I am looking forward to further learning the track, and then hopefully start putting some runs together, as the biggest race of the season will take place there.
For my friends and fans back in Maine; The Maine beer and wine distributors and myself put together a great new PSA for Thanksgiving that will be airing on the radio over the next week. ☺

Yours in sport and health,

Julia

Day 1!!

Yesterday morning started out like any other travel day for our team. We had a 4:30 wake-up, followed by a 5 AM departure for the airport. We returned our rentals cars, checked in, and made our way through security. We all sat in silence, waking up at 4:30 is one of our least favorite activities, followed a close second by sitting in the airport. Our flight itinerary was Salt Lake City to Vancouver with a stopover in San Francisco, CA. The moment we landed in Vancouver I quickly came to the realization that this was going to be anything but an ordinary travel day. To clear customs in Canada, they had a special line designate for Olympic participants followed by immediately being greeted by members of the USOC that had our credentials for the games, and were there to make sure our travel went as smooth as possible. We picked up our bags loaded a shuttle bus and were on our way to team processing.
Team processing consists of picking up all your clothing/gear for the games, as well as having pictures taken, talking with the media. It was such a great afternoon, In addition to hopefully being the most successful team; we are undoubtedly going to be the best-dressed team at the Olympics. Ralph Lauren and Nike did a great job designing our outfits. As I Walked through the line picking up my clothes I kept thinking this is my favorite piece, only to be outdone by the next piece of apparel I received. It took about three hours to complete team processing.
We are now sitting on a bus heading up to Whistler village, once we get there we will quickly change and head out the track for our track walk. We walk the track to look at the ice conditions and shape of the track. You can tell a lot by the shape of curves and how much/ how little ice in on the curves. It helps to set a “game plan” for the first run of training. With only 6 runs of training it will be very important to have the track dialed from run 1. As much as I enjoyed yesterday and the excitement surrounding it, I am happy to be getting back to our normal routine and start focusing on my competition.

Oberhof, Germany

I drove through 5 different countries yesterday en route to Italy. The trip took about 10 hours, it is one of the amazing things about central Europe in a few hours you can be in a different country, it really makes you realize the proximity of everything. Last week was mostly a disappointing week both training and competing. I was never really able to get a grip on the track and feel comfortable sliding. We are only allowed 6 training runs prior to the race and generally I am able to pic things up on the first day of training and then move forward in finding my comfort level and extra speed in the runs. This week just didn't go that way. I have had really good training and races on this track before but I wasn't able to turn it around for the weekend and I finished 14th in the WC. We are in Italy nor for a training week, it is European Championships this week, but since we aren't European we won't participate. I am looking forward to a stress free week of just sliding and not worry about having to master a track in 6 runs. It will be nice to just slide and really work on the small details of sliding without having to worry too much about the consistency. I have actually never slid hear before so it will be an exciting "down" week.
Lastly I am selling t-shirts to raise money to help cover some of my expenses I have already endured this season as ell as a last minute fundraiser as I push towards Vancouver next month. I am selling the t-shirt for $20.00 e-mail me clukeyluge@googlemail.com if you have any questions or would like to order one.

Winterberg WC

We have had two races since Christmas break and while I have finished 7th and 10th I still have a lot of things I still need to improve upon before Vancouver. Some athletes are simply satisfied with finishing a race, or just qualifying for the Olympics; I am definitely not one of those athletes. I set daily/weekly/monthly/yearly goals for myself and am constantly analyzing myself athletically. Don't get me wrong I do enjoy everyday, and I am very fortunate for the life I have. But I will always be a fighter, and doubt there will ever be a day in my athletic life that I can't find something that I can improve upon or do differently. Some people would disagree with my mentality, but I see it is a strength. While some athletes find it easier to make excuses or try and justify a weakness or result, I a, always looking inward first.
My main focus for the coming 4 weeks of training/racing we have is to just take every run to fall into a complete comfort zone on my sled. Luckily we have a week of just training coming up next week and I hope that we are able to slide double sessions so I can get my run count up. I am still 80 runs behind on the year compared to my teammates. Which if you multiply by the average run time (45 seconds) which works out to about an hour of time on my sled (again my over analyzing/tracking every aspect of my training). So from here on our any extra runs I can get are going to be very valuable.
We are In Oberhof, Germany now for our next world cup. I enjoy sliding on this track, it is a real luge track in the sense that you have to really drive the sled in every curve. This style of track suites my natural abilities better, as I have a tendency to overdrive a lot. We race Saturday afternoon. Stay warm!!!

Julia

Happy New Year...New start!!!

The past few weeks have been extremely busy, productive, and pleasant. I spent ten days in Lake Placid, training and recovering there. The training center was practically empty and I was able meet and work with the trainers a lot. I left there feeling near 100% and with full confidence that I will be more than ready come our World Cup race next weekend. I went home to Maine for 5 days and had a great Christmas with my friends and family. I spent a lot of time with my sisters, and nephew. He just turned a year old and I can’t believe how much he changes while I am gone. He is becoming his own little amazing person. I can already tell he is going to be a great athlete. ☺
It was really nice to be home although it went by very quickly and I was extremely busy. I am so gracious to everyone who has been supporting me these past few months, and the community planned a great send off celebration for me. Thank you to everyone who came, it was so great to see all of you, and many of you I haven’t seen in a few years.
We just wrapped up our first week overseas, I had my best finish of the year, finishing 7th in the world cup. I was mostly pleased with my race, more than anything I am thankful that my health has kept up and I have been able to maintain the great feeling I had at home, while hopping back on my sled. I pulled my fastest start time ever here, and had a really good week of training. I still have some work to do in my sliding, but this is a great place to start and I hope to only move forward from here. The next month my only focus will be using every run to get more comfortable and natural feeling on my sled, something that for me comes with taking many runs. We are packing up now and heading to Munich for the night before we move on to Winterberg, Germany.

Happy 2010 everyone! We had a nice mellow NYE, which for myself concluded at 10:30PM (we had qualifying the next day) We did however light off a bunch of fireworks, which is the biggest bonus of spending NYE in Germany.

Vancouver Bound

I think the title says it all!!! I will have a longer post in the near future.
Our team will be formally announced on the Today Show Fridy at 8AM!!!