Well that's NOT how I planned it!!

SPOILER ALERT!! I'M 100% ALIVE , WELL , AND HEALTHY!

Now let me explain to you why that was a spoiler alert!

First let me start off by saying, training in Lake Placid was so much fun. I really felt like I was controlling where the sled went and I got the vibe of driving back a lot faster than the years before.
BUT in this sport things can change in an instant..Before I get to that.. Check out some of the beautiful views from the top of the Lake Placid track

You probably have heard me say.. This sport looks much more dangerous than it really is. I still stand by that point, BUT a small mistake can lead to a bad outcome.

Last week in training you might say I had a particularly bad crash. Some have actually labeled it the worst crash they have seen in the sport. this is my cue to take a  BOW!! THANK YOU THANK YOU. Let me replay what happened for you so you can really get the picture!!

FIRST YOU CAN WATCH THE VIDEO

How the Crash Happened-
I actually had a very good run going and before a big turn I tapped the right wall. When I did so it turned my sled upwards and I skid going in. I remember that and I remember being pissed.. then I remember....NOTHING

ha next thing I knew I was in strapped to a board and in an ambulance. ( I didn't tell my mom this part.. I just told her I bumped my head so I couldn't slide... sorry mom)

What Happened After the crash-
When I skid going into the curve the pressure sent my sled weirdly into the wall and I basically T-Boned the wall head on . When I hit the wall I lost consiouness and flew up in the air and flipped over my sled and landed on my right side. the sled came from behind me and hit me and I continued to slide face down on the ice knocked out "ice cold" ha . I slid for about 100m and I guess the track camera was on me until they realized I was not moving. I was "out" for about 1 minute and when the medic got to me she said I came to and was talking to her, and my coaches told me I was cracking jokes ( I do not remember any of this) They proceeded to backboard me and strap my head and stabilize my neck.
All the athletes in the start house told me it has never been so quiet in the start house. I think everyone thought I had died or broke my neck. They said once my coach came up and said I was talking and wiggling my toes everyone clapped and felt a million times better.

When I finally realized what was going on, I was in some medical room and put into an ambulance. Thinking back though, I do not think I got any sirens in the ambulance. Kinda sad about that... When I got to the ER I was still on the backboard and they would not let me get unstrapped until I had X-rays on my neck and a CT scan on my brain.  BUT I HAD TO PEE! so they put a bed pan under me and i freaked out under pressure. I just couldn't pee. It wasn't happening..just too weird!

THE AFTERMATH-
The places on my body that hurt the most were my shoulder and neck. They found just a slight separation in my AC joint and my neck was clear. I got pretty good ice burn on my hands and shoulders , but thats about it.
My shoulder HURT SOOOO bad the first day, but I think it was because it took a lot of the impact. Each day it is better and better. Obviously they diagnosed me with a concussion , BUT i told them I really don't think I have one. My trainers at the OTC said I was the first person they have seen get knocked smooth out and have no signs of a concussion, but even so they would not let me slide in the races last week and I had to take a bunch of tests to get cleared from a concussion to slide. To make a long story even longer they said I was cleared on the 25th to slide in Park City and will be racing on the 28 and 29. I obviously lost the possibility of points from the first 2 races, so I will not be able to make an upper level circuit. It is a bummer, but thats life!

After I got back from the ER! I got some sweet scrubs!

Pretty sure I got knocked out because I hit my face here!

My sweet ice burn! with my swollen hands

Little ice burn but my hands swelled up a lot!

Its hard to tell but my left shoulder was pretty swollen 

the bruises started coming out later!

The only time I really got upset about this whole ordeal is when I went to look at my sled. I ended up bending my sled so bad I couldn't fix it, I also bent the runners on my sled, my shoes broke, and a part of my helmet fell off. That is about $6,000 worth of equipment. NOT GOOD! Since I bent my sled I didn't have a sled to use, but the coaches just so happened to have shipped a random 2003 sled to Park City and they said I could use that.(sleds are different from each other, the drive different, different models, and prices, it is kind of like a car)  I also had a 2006 pair of runners (that's really old). So I am just throwing together what I have and hoping for the best. I am blessed to even compete in trials, Life throws curve balls and this is definitley one but all I can do is MY best!

The front corner of my sled bent up with my runner 

My saddle bent up. 

the runner on the right is supposed to look like the one on the left.

Just the frame of my sled . That is supposed to be flat on the ground.

My "new" Old sled that I borrowed. I was able to use my own saddle (this is with no padding on it)

1st week in Lake Placid

I got here after a LONG day of travel on October 6th. It started with a 2:30 am drive to the Memphis airport . Then 3 flights to get to Albany at 1:30 followed by at 5 hour wait for a shuttle to pick me up from the Olympic Training Center and lastly a 2.5 hour drive from Albany to Lake Placid to arrive promptly at 9pm. THAT WAS A LONG DAY OF TRAVELING!! But I arrived alive and well nonetheless.

I arrived on the 6th because we were supposed to start sliding on the 9th, but due to warm weather conditions (around 70 degrees) the 9th turned into the 13th. So our first time to slide was Sunday October 13th.

What have I been doing you ask... I have tried to prepare as much as I can for sliding. I took out the padding and re taped my sled. We also walked down the track to see how the ice is. (a little weird when you can walk down a mile long shoot of ice in short sleeves) We also have been enjoying the extra time we have to prepare aka sunbathing!!! I decided I am just going to fill this blog with a lot of pictures to show you what I've been doing!

APPARENTLY IT WAS BLUEISH PURPLE SHIRT DAY IN THE WEIGHT ROOM!

The inside of my sled!! no motor here.. Just some medal welded together!

View of the track from the start house! 

This curve is named "Shady" for a reason

this is the Not SO Straight  straight away. 

You can see how tall some of these curves are. 

of course we needed to get away and buy us some Pumpkin Spice Lattes

Feeling out this ice!! Changes everyday

Now we don't get much for free so when we do we get REALLY excited. TESA TAPE! This is the tape we use on our sleds because it sticks in all temperatures!

One of the "specials" that our cook Allen made. Salmon on top of veggie risotto. LEGIT

The LINE for the Salmon!!! Don't mind the guy in the foreground ha!

The first day of sliding! Sleds all ready to go!!

We also got to watch the USA Team trials for the bobsled team this weekend so here are some of the videos of their beast mode pushes.

This is Jaz driving and Lolo Jones Pushing. They took 3rd

This is Jamie Driving and Katie Pushing. They took 2nd

Elana and Aja (they are top 2 athletes) They took 1st

Steve Holcomb (gold medalist 2010) and Steve Langton Push (they took 1st) 

Oh the Adventures Keep Coming

Well Well Well.. where do I start?? I have not updated my blog since the end of last season, and I wanted to make sure everyone knows I am still alive!

A lot has happened since last March. First and foremost I am now engaged to my 4 year long boyfriend PAULIE JACKSON!!!  I can honestly say it came as a surprise. Paul actually proposed to me in New York where we were eating dinner with his parents and my dad. It was really sweet. I was so shocked that I didn’t really pay attention to what he said. I just pretty much freaked out! It is a great feeling and we are going to get married May 17^th 2014 here in Oxford MS.

This is right after he asked me... I was a little excited to say the least! 

After I had time to clean up a bit, I made him take a pic with me!

Describes us perfectly!!

The second thing that is going on is Paul and I bought a house!!! We are so excited about this. We are actually building it so we get to pick out everything and make it a dream home. We are hoping to stay here as long as we can!  Building a home is much more involved than we may have thought but it is great. The funniest part so far is when the builder (who is great by the way) walked me through the home as asked where I wanted outlets…ha I was like ummm where they normally go?!  The things you never think of!  But building is such a blessing that just kind of fell into our laps so we are so thankful to have this opportunity

 

Week 1 of our house

Week 2!

                                     

Week 3 (Current picture) With our Free 1/2  bath in the front

The third thing is TRAINING FOR SKELETON. This summers training went really well. I participated in our yearly combine and I had a personal best score as well as set new personal bests in my lifts! I have been balancing work and training pretty well the whole summer. I have been blessed to have great consistent clientele this summer, so I was able to save more this summer than last for the season.  

CLEAN MAX- This is my First "PR" the guy filming did not get the whole Clean but thats ok. 

This is 91kilos (200lbs)

CLEAN MAX - Since I didn't get the whole clean on film I figured I would go for another PR.. I GOT IT!!

95kilos (209 lbs) 

This is our 3 rep max on Squats. 

This is 122. 5 Kilos (270 lbs)

The Forth thing is WAITING…I waited and waited this summer for the official invite to USA Team Trials…and after much anticipation I got the GREAT news that I am officially invited to participate in the 2013/14 US Team Trials that will determine the top contenders for the Olympic Team. I cannot tell you how excited I was to receive the invite since it is what I worked the last 3 years for! So thank you to all your support and thank God for making this a possibility.

Here is how the selection process for the Olympics works. We have team trials and the World Cup team is named (top 2 athletes) . There are 8 races before the Olympics in February. It is the job of the top 2 athletes to keep their spots the whole year, because the athletes under them are racing in circuits as well.  The coaches will then make the decision in January who will be named to the 2014 Olympic Team. Basically if you are the top 2 female athletes you will be named to the team.

I leave October 6 to go back up to Lake Placid. We have 4 races (2 in Lake Placid and 2 in Park City) and by the end of the month the teams will be named. I will make sure to keep everyone updated! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Here is a little feature one of my Clients did on me for her class about me doing skeleton. Check out the skeleton video on this link!

Park City Adventures

This month I have been staying in Park City.  It has been a pretty good stay. I originally came out here early to practice for our Western Regional race, If you finish 1^st at regional’s you get an automatic bid to Olympic Trials in October.  During the weeks before Regional’s I was training really well and I went into the race very confident and ready to win. The ice was great during training BUT THEN race day comes and what else comes with it??? A SNOW STORM!  For those who do not know SNOW MAKES THE ICE SLOOOWWW! The other thing that it makes slow is the start. In Park City your start time is pretty critical to getting a fast down time. Being that it was snowing pretty hard every minute that goes by the track gets slower and slower. I unfortunately was the last person to go which means for the first run I had the slowest ice. I had a pretty good run and thought I was in 1^st and when I looked at the time I was shocked it wasn’t what I thought it would be. I asked what my start time was and it was literally .6 seconds slower than what I push in practice due to the significant amount of snow on the ramp.  .6 seconds in EONS in my sport. My second run felt like the best run I have had yet and the time still did not reflect what I thought it would be. I ended up in 4^th place, which I was totally bummed about. I was not prepared for it, but that’s life.  Since I did not win I now have to depend on a coaches discretions spot to get into Olympic Trials.

As for my next adventure I am headed back up to Lake Placid to finish out the season with US Nationals. We get 4 runs on the track before we have a 4 heat race. So I have to adapt to the track FAST to compete with everyone who has been there training for weeks. I am excited for the race and ready to focus. There is an added bonus to that race though, my boyfriend and his family are going to come watch. It is always nice to see familiar faces and since I haven’t seen Paul for about 10 weeks I am ready to see him.

I will be returning home to Oxford Mississippi on March 15^th to start my summer training and get ready for next season. I will be going back to Snap to personal train so if you wanted to train with me this summer let me know and we will set it up so we can get you closer to your own goals. I look forward to seeing all my friends in Oxford!

3 COOL THINGS I HAVE DONE THIS LAST MONTH!

1. Seeing Shaun White on the half pipe. Needless to say he is a beast!

2.  I got to push a bobsled for the first time. It was not as bad as I thought it would be, but I definitely picked the right sport. It is fun to push the sled, It is not fun to sit in the back.

3.I Skeleton Surfed, We had a snowstorm come in and the track was extremely slow so I decided to surf down the start ramp

Whistler and On

WELL I LIVED!!!!

I slid on what is considered to be one of the WORLDS toughest tracks!!  WHISTLER!!! 

Sliding Whistler is the definition of an adrenaline RUSH!

Check out my teammate Laurie Bausch's Run in Whistler. It's a "helmet camera" so is puts into perspective how fast the track is. AND don't be fooled by the camera angle. We definitely do not see that far in front of us. We see about 6 feet at a time!
Laurie's Run on Whistler Track (click on link to see her run)

The track is definitely the hardest and fastest track I have slid yet.  I hit 82 MPH there. I have only slid on 4 tracks but after this week my coach said, THERE IS NO FEARING ANY TRACK NOW THAT YOU HAVE SLID WHISTLER.

Whistler was home of the 2010 Olympics, This is the track many of the sliders I am competing with  were watching on TV last Olympics and saying, man I think I can do that. Now we are literally sliding the track where our dreams first started.  Gives me chills.  A lesson to take there is you NEVER know what you will be doing in 3 years. Or at least if you are me and are running all over the place before “real life” sets in.

What did I take from Whistler?

Besides bruised ribs and an extra 3 inches of swelling on my hip ?

I learned that you have to ALWAYS be focused. There is no room for error on this track. If you miss a steer there YOU PAY FOR IT!  If you come off a curve wrong there, YOU FLY OFF! I wish I had all the video of us, it is probably pretty entertaining, Although I have been unable to sleep on my left side due to "bumping into walls."

This was one of the best experiences of my life! I also believe I am a better slider because of it as well. I cannot wait to get back on tracks I drive well and create as much speed as possible! 

The good video I have of the track would not transfer onto my computer consequently I only have video from the FIRST RUN when we were not even going from the top. We still hit 79 mph starting from curve 3. WHICH IS NUTS! But here is a quick clip from the day. I am probably only going 45-50mph here (curve 6) 

Here are some of the pictures of Whistler and the Olympic Village there!

Olympic Rings in the Whistler Village

Rings at night! Super COOL!

WE ALL LIVED!! This was after our first runs from the top! All in one piece!

View from the track. You can see the track to the left

Another view at night in the village! You can see some of the ski slopes

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

The team trying to stay warm with some Starbucks

I have been training in Lake Placid this month. It is always great to get back to familiarity. It’s been a good month of sliding and it has been COLD! We actually had 2 days cancelled this week because it was too cold which is ironic since we practice on ice. 

Check out the video below to see how cold it got! A little Science experiment for you!

I am going out to Park City tomorrow. I have a regional race (USA Athletes only) on Feb 9th there! A win guarantees a spot in next years Olympic/ Team trials. Needless to say I am preparing for that race in order to perform my best. Thank you for your thoughts, prayers, and encouragement! 

Team Trials and On!

So Let’s try and catch you up to my sliding life!

We had team trials last month. I had some ups and some downs, but the good thing is I was chosen to race on the Americas Cup circuit. This year is definitely a different year in terms of our racing tactics across all the circuits. Let me try and explain this as simply as I can. In theory there are 6 spots for TEAM USA  (3 for World Cup and 3 for Intercontinental Cup) The top 3 sleds go to the Olympics. But there are only 4 Nations in the World that are allotted 3 spots on each circuit, and how you perform on the circuits deciphers if you get 1, 2, or 3 sleds. Well the US women’s team lost 2 sleds last season. Now we have to gain those sleds back before the Olympics so we are able to show up with full quota, Because of this they have shifted people all around in order to give us our best shot to get our sleds back. This means we have to split A LOT of races this year and move athletes all around. Many of the athletes will not get every race. Though this may not be fun at this moment it is crucial in earning our sleds back.

Park City Training- Curves 10-11

Park City Training - Curves 4 to 5

I was awarded a race in Calgary a couple weeks ago. Now for those who do not know, this is where I BUSTED my nose last year and that was pretty bloody to say the least. BUT this year I would have to say I BEAT the track instead of it beating me!!

My Helmet LAST YEAR after busting my face in Calgary

My Old Helmet and my NEW SHINY AWESOME HELMET

Old Helmet..BOOOOO

NEW HELMET! YEAAHHHHHH!!
THANKS SOOOO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED ME TO BUY THIS HELMET!!!!!!!!
It really DOES make a difference!!!

The race had sliders from Russia, Spain, Japan, Korea, Canada, Australia, and some other countries. In regards to the race I place 14^th. Usually I wouldn’t be happy with that, BUT this race was extremely competitive.  There were World Cup sliders in the race as well as ICC sliders. And since it was Canada’s home track, those girls had some INCREDIBLE times. So I can’t really complain. I had 2 BIG PR’s on race day with a start PR as well.  One of my coaches say “Everything is practice until an Olympic Year anyway.”

Calgary - Curves 4-5

Calgary- Curves 8-9-10

As of my next adventure, I AM GOING UP TO WHISTLER FOR TRAINING!  Why am I so excited you ask? Well Whistler was home to the last Olympics. It’s considered one of the most difficult tracks in the world!! It combines extremely HIGH speeds (80-90 miles an hour) with technically difficult driving. Normally you don’t combine both these elements on a track, BUT WHISTLER DOES!  What does this mean for me?? Well I will probably have some pretty awesome pictures of bruises to post (hopefully that’s it). I can’t wait to slide the track, I feel if I conquer that track, then there isn’t much to fear on other tracks.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving  with their friends and family!!

I have been meaning to update my blog for the last month, We just had team trials and I have been running around like a crazy person. I am going to send a blog about the results in the next couple days but I wanted to send out this one first. It is a quick overview on some of the cool things that were happening over at the training center over the last month.

We have some new Bobsled pushers in this year . We have 3 track and field athletes here. 1.Hyleas Fountain (Silver medalist from Beijing Olympics in the Heptatholon)  2. Tiana Madison ( 4th in London 100m, and a part of the GOLD MEDAL world record 4x100m relay in London) 3. Lolo Jones (everyone knows who she is)
It's pretty amazing to be literally training with the best in the WORLD. I watch them run (like a creeper) and I am AMAZED on their efficiency. It's beautiful to watch.  They are so fast!!
  There is another new bobsled recruit in, Aja,  she is a 5 time All American Shot Putter. She is a MONSTER. She won push champs, she cleaned 100 kilos like it was a toy, and squatted 130 kilos 3x's like she was just warming up. She's not the only one to do that either.  PRETTY IMPRESSIVE! These girls are monsters. USA Bobsled is going to KILL people at the start this year. 

I know that this post has mainly been about bobsled but thats ok, because now I am going to post a bunch of bobsled videos that are fun to watch! I have more but they all wouldn't upload!

                                          

Aja Broad Jumping 3.10 meters

Elana Squatting 130kilos (286lbs) 3x

Steve #1 Mens Bobsled Pusher (World Push Champion) @ Push Champs

Hyleas Sprinting 45 meters

                                       

                                         
                                                          Aja Pushing @ Push Champs