Getty stock photo shoot

I was fortunate to be included in a stock photo shoot on Easter Sunday 2008 with Getty Images at the bobsled track in Park City, Utah. I wasn't even supposed to be there, but they made a last minute decision to include a separate two man sled crew in the shoot. I spent my first season in Lake Placid doing both bobsled and skeleton, but my bob skills were a bit rusty. I was also a bit cautious as it was the two week anniversary of my appendectomy.



The art director for the shoot, Stephen Schauer, posted an excellent entry ("Operation Snowflake") on Getty's blog that describes just about every aspect of the shoot in some detail. In addition to a good read, there are photos from behind the scenes and also a few from the actual shoot. Ryan McVay was the lead photographer, and he was supported by a great crew who were really down to earth and friendly. Amy Uratsu was in charge of everything else such as catering, logistics, procurement, wardrobe, you name it. The shoot was a great experience, and it was fun to literally be the last person through the finish line for the season. After the shoot, they closed the track down until next winter.

POV video from late February training

Without further ado, I give you POV footage from the GoProCamera Helmet Hero camera. Two of them at the same time actually. These cameras are brilliant, and so is the company! The cameras are durable and produce fantastic quality video. Of course, YouTube compresses it pretty severely, but you can check stills from the original video below (minor jpeg compression).



(Click for the full sized images)
The ice was relatively slow this day, and you can see there is a good bit of snow on the track.


Even with slower ice, I am still moving just shy of 80 mph here and you can clearly see my coach with a video camera.

When using the cameras in the cold, it is critical to use lithium batteries. NiMH batteries lose their mojo rapidly in the cold, and alkaline are even worse. Even with the lithium batteries, I made a point of keeping them as warm as possible right up to the moment I used them because I didn't have the luxury of further ice time for retakes.

Here is a frontal shot of my jury rigged mountings.

I used the bike helmet adapter to mount the rear camera to my saddle, and you can see why the video is crooked. The front camera is actually attached to the flat plastic from the display case, which I covered with my sled covering and bound with a piece of wire for good measure. The track crew does not like to find debris in the track and they are wary of POV cams because they often become expensive debris. I was pleased with how secure the hardware remained after several runs and happily left zero debris in my wake. My deepest sympathies in advance if you are able to knock a Hero camera off of your helmet while biking, because doing so will likely cause great trauma to your head.

Yes, I cover my sled in a yoga mat. One of the great things about these cameras is how easy they are to activate. Even wearing gloves, it took only a few seconds at the line to press the power button and then hit record.



I received these cameras from GoPro back in early December just before leaving for Italy. I was totally excited to put them to use, but I couldn't use them while forerunning for the World Cup. Then I had zero chance in Italy because every run I took was either official training or competition. When I came home, literally every training session took place at night right up to America's Cup. Again, no electronic gear is allowed during cup training or competitions. I left less than two hours after the AC races to fly to Munich and again, we had zero runs outside of those for official training and competition. St Moritz would have been such a cool track to film, so I will have to go back when I am not racing. I found myself already into February without any opportunities to film, and of course our training sessions were once again all at night right up until a few days before our final ice time here in Park City for Western Regionals. I was able to get five runs shot - two on the first day and three on the second. During both attempts on my first day I managed to shove the front camera with my shoulder so that by turn four it was looking down at the ice. I adjusted the frontal camera position for day two and things worked much better.

Even though my noggin gets in the way here and there, I think it turned out pretty good. Maybe it's just in my head, but I was surprised at how the aft camera seemed to convey the speed more than the front. I tried a few different video hosts, but YouTube has recently upped their compression quality level and it seems to be better than either Google Video or Blogger.

Corporate marketing...

I received this envelope from Accenture a couple days ago. Just before I left for Italy, someone in the corporate marketing department inquired with me about using my image on the mailing label for a package to several thousand c level execs. It finally shipped, and so they sent a copy my way. Look carefully and you can maybe tell that it's a picture of me going through curve 6 in Park City. I guess curve six doesn't go the right direction for their purposes, so they flipped the image. The photo was taken by my friend Bruce Boyes.

Ending up on a mailing label was precipitated by my former manager, Sebastien, submitting me as the subject of an interview about my sliding. I provided the image for use with the interview and it ended up on the front page of the corporate intranet. This same article was then repurposed for a recruitment site. Meanwhile, another photo from that article is now in an Accenture image gallery online. I just sent a revised draft from yet another article based on a different interview for an outsourcing site. Pretty crazy how all of these marketing departments cross pollinate stories and images.

Farewell appendix

This past Saturday was friends and family day up at the park. I was up bright and early at around 5am because of abdominal pain. I was at the park around noon, and by this time I was verging on excruciating pain. I really wanted to see my friends go down the hill and take some pics, and in all reality I had planned on volunteering catching sleds or sending them down or something, but all I could manage was laying on the floor in the finish house and listening for their names on the PA. The moment my last friend got down the hill, we beelined it home.

First, a little history so you can understand my demented rationale for not going straight to the hospital. I have had several appendicitis episodes over the past year or so. The first one happened while I had a flu or something, so I figured it was just a really, really bad flu. It subsided after a day or so. This happened a few more times. Most recently was the flight to Italy in December. So, these episodes always passed within a couple of days. I figured this one would as well, so I waited through a sleepless Saturday night. By Sunday morning I decided that I wanted to know what was going on. I still wasn't sure it was my appendix because I wasn't showing some of the "classic" symptoms like nausea and vomiting. The fact that it had come and gone before didn't jibe with what I understood about appendicitis either. I thought it set in and didn't stop until you removed the appendix or it ruptured.

I drove myself over to St Marks just before eleven and was reeling in pain waiting to get checked in. A nurse took pity on me after about a half hour and brought me to an examination room to get things rolling. I've never had morphine before, and I can't say I am a fan. Makes me feel constricted in my head. My blood work showed an elevated white cell count. The cat scan confirmed appendicitis. They moved me to a normal hospital room to wait for surgery. Finally, they trucked me down to the holding room for surgery. I have a friend who is a colorectal surgeon, who had said he would stop by for the surgery. I was pleasantly surprised when he walked in the holding room ready for surgery. Nice to have a friend there for your inaugural surgical procedure. The procedure was a laproscopic removal, and my friend ran the scope while the other surgeon did the operation. I turned blue and thrashed for air while coming out of anesthesia, I think because the lubricant they use to insert the air supply tube into my windpipe clogged me up momentarily when they removed the air supply line. This caused one of the three entry point to bleed a bit, but apparently it is okay.

I am healing up well enough, and I have only good things to say about the process at St Marks. Luckily, my season ended naturally two weekends ago with Western Regional Qualifiers. I placed second every day, and consequently second overall. I am happy with this. At the very least, I am qualified for team trials again next season, which was my main objective. I used the same sled that had been squashed on the way to Europe, but set it up as straight as I could with shims and put a new saddle axle in place. I feel that it was still running slow, but I can't complain.

There is no more sliding available in Park City for skeleton athletes. Although there will be ice for at least another month, it will be allocated to revenue-rich passenger rides. Ice will be available through April in Lake Placid. Everyone that I will be competing against in team trials either already lives at the Olympic Training Center in LP or will be training for at least some, if not all of April in Lake Placid. This puts me at a disadvantage on several fronts for skeleton. I could really use some more ice time to square away equipment for next season, and I am not as strong a slider in Lake Placid as I am in Park City which stands to hurt my trials ranking. The reason I am not going is that more unpaid time away from work would jeopardize me in just about every other category of my life.

Back from Europa Cup

I got back to Salt Lake late Sunday night. Took Monday off from work, which worked well considering the blizzard. My sleep schedule is still really off and I am fighting a mild cold that set in after getting back home. I have been remiss in posting, just as with Italy, so I will try to recap as best I can. First things first - I have had it with United, Lufthansa, and the TSA.

I travelled with Kelly Magnuson from Frankfurt to Salt Lake via LAX on the way home. Both of our sleds got stuck in LAX. United tried to deliver her sled to my house Monday afternoon. Then they tried to deliver my sled to the house she is staying at 6am on Tuesday. My sled didn't arrive until Friday at 2:30 AM! At which time they knocked on my front door to deliver it. Seriously! I called them Thursday afternoon to see where my sled was, and why I hadn't been contacted for a few days. They told me it was slated for delivery between 9pm and 3am. He said I could sign a note and leave it for the delviery guy, but I would waive my rights to reporting damged items. I told him that I would sign for it, but had him contact the delivery agency to let them know not to bother after 11pm. He came back and said it may be as late as midnight, and we left it there. I was fairly certain that they would botch this as well, and they did. I really want to put my airline experience behind me as it was abyssmal from start to finish.

Even before I set foot in the airport to head to Europe, I had hassles trying to use a United voucher that I had received in October when my sled didn't arrive at the airport with me for team trials. During that situation, the way the agents took care of things from check-in to reclaiming my sled redeemed the situation and I was looking forward to using United again. I was also hoping to use the voucher to defray my expenses. I was going to book on United.com, but there was no way to redeem the voucher there, so I called an agent. I booked the flight and was told I had over a week to mail the voucher to them. I went online and chose seats. Two days later the system couldn't find my reservation. I called and it had been cancelled - apparently the original agent set a 72 hour window for the voucher. I rebooked the flight at a slightly higher faire and had the agent choose from whatever seats were available. Kelly booked the same itinerary, and she discovered that the fare had dropped a few hundred dollars. United gave her a voucher to cover the difference. By the time I called the fare was higher than what I paid. I received a call from United a few days after re-booking to let me know that I couldn't use the voucher because one of the legs was on Lufthansa. Great! Why didn't either of the agents I talked to tell me this?

Since it was a mad dash to the airport after the final America's Cup race, I didn't have time to remove my runners as usual. Instead, I packed the sled with the runners still installed as is actually standard procedure. The special sled bag is designed to protect them from even an abusive trip through the airport. The downside is that the whole package weighs quite a bit. Allen Blackwell offered to drop me at the airport, which is good because the roads were not great and he drives an Audi wagon. I-80 was severely congested - essentially closed, so we weaved through the city to get to the airport. I made a decision at the airport that I would lash my other two pair of runners to my sled instead of taking a seperate runner case. This left me with my sled, another checked bag, and then a carry on. I would come to regret this decision in about five minutes.

I raced into the airport with my gear to check in, and saw that Kelly and Audrey were midway through the process. In order to expedite things, I went to another available agent. He informed me that my sled would cost $381 in overweight fees. Kelly and Audrey were already gone at this point, so I asked the lady that had helped them. She echoed that that was the correct fee. I petitioned the guy at the counter. Then a baggage guy chimed in and said that the agent had no choice otherwise he would be risking his job. Odd statement, but all would become clear.

I had about twenty minutes until my plane left, so I slapped down some plastic and made my way to security. Ironically, I ran into John Ball (Chair of the Board of Directors for the USBSF) in security and told him about the charge. The board, which had expressed their mission as being focused on raising funds and finding sponsors, was new in August of 07. I don't know much about these matters or how long it takes to get things in the pipeline, but at that moment I was compelled to ask why we still had no sponsors or even agreements with airlines. I really like John, but I was pretty upset about my freshly charged fees. The coincidence of seeing him moments after being skewered seems too perfect - like I was some real-world object lesson.

To add to my ire, Kelly informed me that she had only been charged $100 for a sled of the same weight. Audrey just $50, although her sled weighted less than mine or Kelly's. Apparently the deal their agent gave them had somehow made a baggage guy upset. He was of course standing over the shoulder of my agent as I checked in. The nice agent is now being reprimanded and possibly fired.

Flying to SFO, I was reminded of the lameness of United by the aroma of the adjacent lav. Then another twelve hours with a metal box where my feet would have liked to gone. Seats I had carefully tried to avoid the first time I booked. But of course, I was still glad to be going and focused on the excitement of competing in St Moritz.

We arrived in Munich on Sunday at 6pm and drove to St Moritz, arriving around midnight. Our first day of official training in St Moritz was set for the next day around noon. Luckily my sled was still assembled from Park City, so I had no real sled prep to do. Monday morning we did a partial track walk and then went to get our sleds prepped for the day. For me this meant simply putting rock in the runners. Only at this point did I realize that my runners were very bent. I got some help to bend the runners as best we could in the minutes before training began.

Later on, I took the sled apart and found that whatever force crunched my runners also gouged the rod that holds my saddle. That is some serious force, and it left my sled misaligned and slow for the duration of my competitions. Thanks United/Lufthansa!

America's Cup

I made a promise to myself to get rest and take care of my body before my upcoming races and travels, but it hasn't panned out. I have been running on very little sleep while trying to juggle things as well as I can. Setbacks are always lurking. My car started to overheat last week and has been in the shop, sitting since they told me that it would be almost $1000 to fix. My plan is to defer tackling that until I return, inconvenient as it is. I have spent late nights getting my gear squared away, still working out runners.

Yesterday during the first day of America’s Cup training, I was one of a few US sliders who forgot their FIBT license and will be fined $20. Should have known better, but I have been so scattered lately I am not surprised that I forgot.

I had the fastest training run for the US by just a bit, although I am still off from where I want to be. I also know that many sliders hold back during training, and this portends to be a very competitive race. My first run felt great – the best run I have had in a long time. Not the fastest, but track conditions went from mediocre to poor due to a bit of snow.

It was good to see people I have met throughout the season again, as well as seeing the US sliders here for the overlapping Intercontinental Cup race. There were even a few faces from way back. Yesterday was the best coaching we have had for a race in some time due to the help of the IC sliders and a visiting Chris Hedquist. It’s nice to have a home court.

After the race we watched some video of our runs and I received a long rumored team speed suit. I was pleasantly surprised that it was accompanied by some other Speedo goods. It will be great to look like I actually race for a nation for the five remaining race days of my season.
Training started early and went late because of the size of the field. I am concerned that those of us going to Munich after the race will be severely pressed for time getting to the airport.

Italy - part 1

Here is the first post from my trip to compete at the Europa Cup in Cesana, Italy. I leave on the 12th to compete in Europe again. America's Cup in Park City is next week, and we have no ice time scheduled for the first week of the new year. I have a number of issues to sort out with my runners and equipment, but they can only be worked out on the ice. I want to perform my best here in Park City, and I don't want to go back to Europe unprepared. It is pretty frustrating, and I don't understand why our athletes gets short-changed. I hope an email I sent will result in some answers. If I weren't so completely broke from the first half of the season, I would try to purchase ice time directly through the park.

Crash

One of our sliders here in Park City had a really bad run last night and crashed out of turn 12. She was taken to the hospital via ambulance to get some broken parts fixed. This was quite a surprise as she has a fair number of runs under her belt. I think she was slated to go to Calgary in a couple of weeks to compete in the America's Cup. We are fortunate to have dedicated medical techs on site at the Utah Olympic Park, but this reminds me that every run holds potential for exhilaration as well as pain. I can't recall a season with more major accidents and injuries, and we are only half way through.

I haven't mentioned, but Don Croce, the executive director of the Utah Skeleton and Bobsled Association, resigned a few weeks ago. This is a major blow to both our local sliding organization, but also to the sport at large. Over the past year he contributed a tremendous amount of time and energy, and we have lost a huge asset. He was instrumental in a number of excellent initiatives and programs, many of which occured behind the scenes where he never received any recognition.

Back in one piece

Okay, so they do have the internet in Italy, but it was pretty scarce in the small village of Sauze di Cesana where I was stayed at the Hotel Sauze di Cesana. The hotel computer is on the net, but the service is not really conveyed to the patrons. The best solution I found was a few towns away in Cesana Torinese where they have a library and a tourist info station. Both offer inexpensive net access. The day before I left I found a cafe with slow free wifi. Ultimately, I didn't get on the net to do much aside from filing my USADA forms for Q1 2008. Since I didn't do any updates from the field, I will post entries that will show up with earlier post dates to fill in the blanks.

Last night I made my first runs down the Park City track since getting home. The cold I picked up in Italy is lingering, and I probably should have just gone home and rested. The desire to get back on ice was too great, and I had a couple of nice runs. It was good to see everybody up at the track, and I also got to try out a new piece of gear. I will elaborate on that later.

Getting there is half the fun

The week prior to my departure went too quickly. I had fun forerunning the World Cup training and race in spite of a lot of waiting around for runs. I took Thurdsday the 6th as my "floating holiday" at work so I could forerun the actual race. It was also to serve as a day of preparation, and I did get some things done; however, I had forgotten that my work party was that evening.

I departed for Torino On Saturday morning, and my flight was delayed for an hour while the plane was deiced. We stopped in Atlanta and Milan along the way, and arrived at just after three in the afternoon on Sunday. Unlike the Atlanta leg where my gut was in serious pain for some reason (I really thought my appendix was ready to blow), I slept the entire leg from Atlanta to Milan and was fortunate to not get charged for oversize, overweight, and additional baggage. While in the Milan airpoirt, I ate my first slice of pizza for the trip and purchased a Vodafine sim card for the refurbed Blackberry 7290 I bought for my travels. This setup proved to be a handy investment.

I picked up my rental, a ford Focus wagon, at the airport Budget and made my way to Cesana Pariol. I made a couple of wrong turns, but managed to arrive at the track just in time for the six thirty team captains meeting.

I was expecting to see French coach Pillipe Cavoret because an arrangement had been made by the USBSF to have him provide me with coaching. I was informed he would arrive the next day. The jury for the race was sitting at the front of the room, and so I submitted my FIBT license for the competition. They drew nations for training order, and the US came up tenth of thirteen.

After the draw, I drove up to the start of the track to have a look. It was lit up in the dark like a glowing worm crawling up the hillside. This track is amazingly well protected from the elements as it is almost completely covered with shades. Good for track conditions, but not very conducive to spectating.

Upon reaching the start, I decided to continute down the road on the other side of the track. I passed four other athletes walking the road as I approached turn three. The road going down the back side of the track was reasonably plowed, but I discovered that it was also incredibly slick. By the time I reached turn three of the track, the only thing up for decision was whether I would miss the big wooden pole at the bottom of the hill, or sink the car into a snow bank. The ABS system was going nuts as I picked up speed towards the turn in the road adjacent to turn four of the track. Luckily, I was able to redirect the car enough to miss the pole and run it into a forgiving snow field. I got out of the car, and soon the four winesses arrived on the scene.

Stevie Brügger, Pierre-Henri Vulliens, Erik Geerts, and Michaela Glasser got a good show, and they tried to help free the car. The snow was too much, and so we continued down the track. They gave me a ride to the track ops building where I went to find some help. Here I met Evo, who runs the track. He was a bobsledder in the Calgary Olympics, and is easily recognizable by the trademark cowboy hat he wears. I got Erik's number just in case, and then Evo and I took his Quattro back to my car. He thought our best bet was to try towing it out the next day, so we trasnfered all of my gear into his car and proceeded to my hotel. The girl at the desk, Gaia, didn't realize that I had made a reservation, but it all worked out. Luckily the German team was staying there, and so I asked their coach, Frank, for a ride in the morning. He was very gracious and said it wouldn't be a problem. Dinner had alrady finished by the time I arrived, but they set me up with a very welcome dinner anyway. What a night. I was so ready to sleep, but still had to assemble my sled and review track notes/video for the 9am sliding session. On top of staying up late, I just couldn't sleep well from jetlag and some anxiety about not waking up in time for my ride in the morning. I still felt unprepared for my first day of ice.

World Cup and other news

The World Cup for both skeleton and bobsled is in Park City as of today. I was up there after work forerunning for the bobsleds with Brad Stewart. Forerunning is just as it sounds. It is the practice of sending a few sleds down the hill in advance of the competitors to discover issues with the track. It constitutes precious ice time for me. I haven't been sliding since sometime last week, and I am feeling a anxious about getting runners selected for Cesana. I will be lucky to get another four runs before leaving because of the busy track schedule. It is worth mentioning that the track was prepped in a way that I have never experienced. Almost like a different track. It seemed much swoopier (great word) than usual, and yet forgiving. I really had fun. I would have had ice on Friday, but there was a freak accident on the track just before our training session.

In other news, I feel like there is not enough time in the day to accomplish all that I set out to do. This is not an uncommon sentiment, but it is especially true in the winter. I feel scattered and often wonder what I have overlooked. I have been trying to get information such as track notes, ice schedule, legality of equipment, etc from USBSF staff. No luck. The best help for Cesana has come from Peter van Wees of the Netherlands and Emma Lincoln Smith of Australia. Thanks!

After sliding this evening, I went to get some work done on a tissue buildup around my hip bones. I traumatized the areas in October by sliding on a too-tight saddle. Bumping into walls didn't help any either. Randy Parker fixed the saddle on my sled when I came back to Salt Lake City, but the damage had already been done. I am hoping to minimize it before Cesana as I expect to induce some more trauma there. Speaking of "Trauma in Cesana," apparently only one person busted his collar out there. That's reassuring!

Alone again

I called Luke this morning to finalize travel plans only to hear that he is no longer going. Our coach determined that with the way things are going over at Cesana, no coach for the EC, and Luke's relative inexperience that it may be too much. Luke was bummed, but also relieved. I am not sure if the door is closed for all other sliders, but that is my expectation at this stage. The caution level is up a notch for me, but I am still going.

Broken bones

Bumps and bruises are a regular part of skeleton, but worse things do happen on the track. I got word tonight that two of our sliders in Cesana broke their collars today during training runs for the Intercontinental Cup race. I don't have any details, but I was really disheartened to hear this news about my friends and I hope for their speedy recovery. Both of them are excellent sliders, and they have a lot of competitions that they need to mend up for this season!

Of course, this news also makes me wonder how my own experience will pan out in a little over a week. There is no US coaching for this race, I have received very little support from the USBSF in spite of specific requests for very basic assistance, I am in short supply of training time in Park City to train and test runners, and Cesana is making it clear that it is a track to be reckoned with.

Some good news - I will not be the lone US slider going to Cesana for the EC. Luke Schulz has committed to joining me. I hope he doesn't regret it after hearing about the carnage. He's a good guy, and I am relieved to have a teammate join me for this competition.

In other news, my request for time off from work has been approved. I asked for about four weeks - one each for Cesana, Park City, St Moritz, and Winterberg. The downside is that this will be unpaid time off during a period of huge expenditures. I would be looking for well heeled sponsors if I had a spare moment, but for now I will leave that to serendipity and keep my nose to the grindstone.

Have I mentioned that I work with some really cool people? Accenture has a regular e-newsletter they send out that spotlights people doing cool stuff. My manager took it upon himself to submit my story, and I was selected for inclusion. Apparently I will be the first story to come out of Navitaire. Pretty cool!

Chasing 49's

During a normal training session at the Park City track, most sliders will do somewhere between two and four runs. Any more than that, and your body usually starts to complain. Lately, I just can't seem to get enough. I have been taking five runs most sessions this week and only stopping because everyone else has left. Tonight I took eight, and it was probably one too many. My neck is a little sore as I sit typing this out, but the ice was so beautiful I couldn't resist.

Our training session started at 6pm with eight sliders. I was trying another set of borrowed runners. Out of four runs, I had one okay run, one mediocre run, and two downright scary runs. I just couldn't dial them in. Meanwhile, teammate Matt Griff had established that this was fast ice by throwing down a personal best of 50.06 seconds. The US session ended, and the international session was set to begin at 7:30. As I suspected, Yuuji Takahashi from Japan was the only slider for the two hour session. I had promised him I would slide in his session, and I had another set of runners I wanted to try out. Besides, Griff had just put down a great time and I wanted one as well. What I really wanted was to get into the 49's - uncharted territory for me.

Yuuji went first while I fussed with getting my runners changed. I made my way to the start hoping that I wouldn't be bouncing off walls as I had in the first session. As I got underway, I could tell that these runners were really responsive. Much better than being our of control, right? Well, there is such a thing as too much control. I managed to keep things more or less together, but did get into trouble a couple of times due to to the excellent steerability. As I flew up the outrun, I could see the clock showing a personal record! A 50.17. Still shy of a 49, but close enough that I had to go again. Ice like this doesn't happen every day. Next run was a 50.14. Even better, and a good enough reason to go again. I took two more swings at it and started doing worse. I was beat by my last run, and called it a night. I will resume my pursuit on Tuesday only because the track is closed on Monday.

International training

Over the past week or so, I have had the opportunity to train with world-class athletes from other nations including places that defy geographic limitations with respect to winter sports such as New Zealand, Australia, and Jamaica. These latest recruits to the Jamaican bob team were brand new to the ice this week - it will be interesting to see their progress. Japan, the Netherlands and Great Britain were also represented. Most of them have now made their way up to Calgary for the World Cup race taking place over the coming week, but the Japanese team stayed for one last day of training before leaving this evening. The picture is of team veteran Kazuhiro Koshi giving the trademark point which he does before every run. In addition to sliding with some great people, I finally admitted that my equipment was giving me problems. I usually wait too long in arriving at this place, and I held true to form this time around. After almost two weeks of progressively worse sliding, I realized that I had a bent runner. I borrowed a different set and things were great.

Some other videos

Utah Winter Games - Park City - Jan 20 2007
Start
Curve 6

I am not exactly sure who took these, but they did a great job! I will post the info if I find out.

Think fast

On the way up to the track tonight, I was on the phone with another skeleton athlete and we got talking about how team trials went. Then we went down a somewhat abstract path. Surprised at how far we have come, but then wondering how we will get faster. Fast enough to compete at the highest levels of competition. I am still using the same gear that I used last season, but I am somehow going faster. I know that I am driving a little better, but does that explain it all? What is it that makes the best sliders consistently so much faster? Is it all in their head? Is it the shoes? I have a hard time quantifying my own marginal improvements.

Nick Vienneau - US Skeleton Team Trials - Training Runs - Lake Placid, NY - 2007

This is a copy of a video I put on Google Video comprised of clips from training runs in Lake Placid. Of special intereset is the purple Spyder suit I use for training...

Auspicious Beginning

Last weekend marked the end of national team trials for skeleton. I ended up ranked tenth in the nation, which was better than I expected at the outset of the season. I will be competing on the Europa Cup (EC) circuit in Cesana, Italy, St Moritz, Switzerland, & Winterberg, Germany. I will also do an America's Cup (AC) race in Park City. I am beyond excited about the trajectory for the season, and am especially excited to slide in St. Moritz. It is the the cradle of the sport, and home to the only natural track in the world. The EC team is comprised of two men, the other being John Daly. He has slid a number of tracks in Europe already. The biggest hurdles I face at this stage are pulling funds together and getting time off from work. My employer, Navitaire (an Accenture company), has been amazing thus far, and has really backed my pursuit. On the money side, it has been flowing out of my account ever since team trials began this October in Lake Placid. It required two trips and three weeks of the month because of a flawed trials criteria. That is another story. The cash outflow has just begun. I am flying into Italy next month and then into Switzerland in January. I will spend a hair over three weeks in Europe to do all of the races. Unlike the World Cup and Intercontinental Cup teams, Europa Cup receives no funding at all from the USBSF. Regardless, things are shaping up great so far this season!
(Photo Credit: Steve Peters)