Game Time!!

After a few exciting days of training we are ready to go. The sled is washed and waxed, the runners are polished and it is game time! I am as calm as one can be preparing for an Olympic event. A lot of reporters and friends have asked me if I am nervous and the honest answer is yes, but not anymore nervous than I have been for every race leading up to this point. The hard part is done. As Coach D (my college track coach) would say ‘the money is in the bank.’ I have put in the work. I have made the team and now it is our turn to cash in and do what we do best.. GO FAST! I will be representing all of the northstate and my country proudly tomorrow.

Thank you to everyone from my hometown of Chico, California and college UCDavis for all of your amazing support throughout my Olympic journey. I have received an overwhelming amount of encouragement from emails, phone calls and of course all the comments left by the 1,000 plus people who have joined a facebook group created in support of me! Lastly, thank you to my family for the love and support they have given me. I can honestly say without them I would not have been inspired to go for my goals and believe in my dreams. They are my biggest fans. I can not even anticipate the emotions I will feel seeing them here at the Olympic games waving our flag proudly in support of me.

Put me in Coach!

Waiting, watching…. waiting, celebrating…. waiting, feeling defeat…. waiting…

We start training in two days and it can not come fast enough for us. We have watched our fellow sliders, luge, go through a very difficult race having the starting position moved down after the tragic accident by Georgian luger. We have watched Shaun White put on an amazing gold medal performance in the half pipe and Lindsay Vonn winning gold in downhill and being disappointed with her finish in super combined. We have watched it all and we will continue to watch until the 20th when we finally start our first day of training. I can not wait to get back on the ice and especially this track. This track is the fastest in the world and one of the most fun (when done right). It is funny we are counting down the days until we get on the ice, but I am sure once it finally gets here time will fly by. Until then…. Good Luck to the skeleton sliders tonight and men’s bobsled on Saturday and Sunday. We will continue to watch and cheer on our teammates anxiously waiting for our turn to show the world what we can do.

Olympic Pin Craze

I decided since I am a rookie Olympian it is best for me to soak up the experience because who knows if I will ever get this once in a lifetime chance again. So, I am doing everything I can from pin collecting to playing Dance Dance Revolution with athletes from different countries. Pins are the currency here in the athlete village and around. The volunteers and spectators want all the best pins from all the different countries, but the athletes really have the advantage of getting these collectable pins. If you have an awesome pin people will do close to anything to get it. Who would have thought I would have gotten into pin trading and collecting? I think Grandma Betty would be proud and would probably tell me that someday these will go for a ton. I think she may have been wrong thinking that with the Cabbage Patch Dolls, but with these rare Olympic pins she might be right. I have traded countless pins with many countries and I am having a small competition with some of my teammates for who can get the best pins. The pins that are the most sought after are the pins from the smaller nations as they only have a limited number to give away. So far I have gotten of 30 pins from different nations including the ones I really wanted, Spain and Portugal. I was even lucky enough to get an exclusive ITA athlete Torin Koos pin! Ghana and Jamaica are next on the list of pins to get, so tomorrow I am going to search for some new friends (and pins).

Just another day at the office...

Wow! The last few days have been exhausting, but some of the best of my life. After landing in Vancouver with my team we were scooped up and have gone non stop ever since. I have been given three bags of Ralph Lauren and Nike Team USA gear. I have signed countless autographs. I had my first ever press conference.  I have met Sandra Oh (from Greys Anatomy), Bonnie Blair, Picabo Street, Vice President Biden, Queen Latifah (who thinks I look like her girl Alicia…Keys that is) and the governator Arnold Schwarznegger. This is, of course, is not including the countless amazing athletes I have met and that I was honored to walk side by side in the Opening Ceremony.

 Rocking the new gear

                         

I wish I could explain to every one of you what it is like to follow our flag into a stadium filled with over 60,000 people, but there are no words to describe the pride and honor I felt. I now know why many athletes have a hard time retiring and why we put in countless number of hours training and go through every up and down we do. That was all worth it. I would do everything again to be able to experience that minute over and over.

Vancouver Bound 2/10/2010

Bree and I woke up this morning like giddy little girls on Christmas day. We left from Park City, Utah at 4:30a.m. and started our trek to Vancouver. We did not even care about our lack of sleep or having to have a 3 hour lay over or even wearing our huge oversized Under Armour ‘Capitan American’ jackets. All that went through our minds was that we were on our way to realizing and living our dream. It was incredible. Everywhere we went in the airport people were asking our sport and wishing us luck and telling us thank you and how proud they were of us. I have never seen so many people bursting with pride and excitement. It really hit Bree and I when we boarded our second flight from San Francisco to Vancouver and the flight attendants announced us saying this is ‘our team.’ I think this is when I realized that we are not just here for ourselves we are here for our nation. We are now America’s team.

                           The Team getting off the plane in Vancouver!