Adventures of a Skeleton Slider - Year 3

Only 11 people racing today -- 8 guys and 3 women.  That's because all of the folks who didn't qualify for races 3 & 4 in National Team Trials are still in Lake Placid, waiting for the secondary qualifying races to see if they'll make the America's Cup squad.  You don't want to hear all about the controversy, and heated e-mail traffic that went back and forth all summer as the athletes and federation battled over how the various national teams would be determined, suffice it to say I put my $0.02 in despite none of it affecting me.

Aaaaannnyway, back to the task at hand, a race just for those club people who didn't have a shot at a national team, without all the new kids that will get added to the mix as the UOP completes other classes.  Steve Mayer, following a disastrous final race in Placid last year, is back in the club, as is Walt Harrison, though he apparently hadn't checked his e-mail and didn't realize that there was a race today.  Justin Stoddard missed making the top 12, but he's racing here before heading back to New York.

After a bit of a delay as the National Team Trials were finishing up, we got our turn on the track.  Amazingly, I turned in a solid 3rd place in my first run, with a 5.15 push (I guess all that soccer I've been playing this fall was good for something), and a final time of 54.03 -- 0.83 behind young Matt Revelli who set a PR with a 4.93 push, and 0.65 behind Mayer.  I say amazingly because I was a quarter-second faster than Justin... a place I've almost never been.

The second run was even better, with a 5.21 push (4th fastest), but a nice clean run that got faster as I moved down the track.  Again, consistency was my buzzword as I clocked a 54.02, the second fastest time in the second run, but still 0.41 behind Mayer, good enough for yet another Bronze medal.

As I look over to the sculpture where my medals all hang, I see lots of bronzes, set off only by the one gold medal from last season's club-only (no development teams) race.  I suppose I should be happy with any medal (just ask Justin about that, right?), but it's a little frustrating to see so little improvement.  I feel sort of like the Atlanta Braves -- winners of 150 straight NL East Division titles and one World Series to show for it.

Thankfully, this is all just for fun now, there's no pressure on me to qualify for anything, it's all about the rush of zipping down that track. 

I'll miss our next training session because it's election night, and I expect to be at the station until the wee hours waiting for some sort of result.  Thankfully, the local races should be decided early, now that the GOP candidate for county commission has totally collapsed in the last week of the race amid mounting allegations of lies, half-truths, and general cluelessness.  Of course, he's LDS, so that'll probably be enough to get him a ton of votes outside of Park City proper, but whether it's enough, we'll just have to see.

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