First of all, I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas. It’s hard to believe how fast the winter and the bobsled season have gone so far. We are halfway through our World Cup Tour schedule already. There are four races done with, and four races left, culminating with the World Championships to be held in Germany at the end of February.The schedule gives a three-week break from last weekend’s race until our next race in Igls, Austria (American pronunciation is Eagles). A mid-season break is a great time to analyze what has worked and what needs to be improved upon. I’m sure most corn farmers would agree that it’s wise to analyze yields and measure the results with the land used, type of fertilization, amount of irrigation, and so on.
In our bobsled season thus far, we have won two out of the first four races in the 4-man. The first race of the year in Whistler, Canada (the host site of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics) and the fourth race in Lake Placid, New York (considered our home track and the site of next year’s World Championships) proved to be victories. The other two races revealed some areas that my team needs to improve upon. We were definitely spoiled a little by our recent successes going back to last year at the Olympics. It had been quite a while since the team did not finish with a gold medal in a race. Tiny details like loading errors can negatively affect the sled’s velocity at the start. Details like this can be taken for granted, but now we know what we need to do to continue to be successful in the second half of the season.
As part of our analysis, it is good to not just look back at the season so far, but also to plan for the rest of the season. The second half of the bobsled World Cup Tour takes place entirely in Europe. Yes, it’s always exciting and fun to compete overseas, but that means that we will be living in small hotels, eating foreign food, and sleeping in small beds for at least eight weeks. We know that the biggest race of the year is the World Championships - the last race. So we need to not only endure the minor discomforts of European racing, but we must also get stronger in order to climax at the right time of the season.
Preparation is a great key to success, both on the ice of a bobsled track and in the corn field. Part of good preparation is analyzing both the successful and not-so-successful methods in order to improve. This Christmas break has given my team the opportunity to prepare and make our own Happy New Year!
Curt, we would like to see you on twitter like your teammate pcbobsledder and stevemesler. Don't need to tweet a lot, but it is a good way for many to keep up with you.
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