Saturday, January 29, 2011

We're (almost) Back Baby!

Okay so maybe it was not the epic come back tale we had hoped for. You know the one where we come back in full force and win the race after a two week hiatus filled with surgery and nasty Austrian roommates? I think as athletes we always shoot for a victory and are often disappointed with anything less. Bree and I always go into any race thinking we are going to win. I have learned that if you don’t have confidence in yourself and in your teammate then you have no chance of being successful. We had thought that we could just pick up where we left off over a month ago and work ourselves back up the standings. Some may say our expectations were too high and not realistic (both our mothers would agree with this statement after we freaked them out with the chaos over the last few weeks), but we are competitors and we want more than to be average. We want to win.


It didn’t really hit us until after our first run that we are extremely lucky to be sliding this race together and it is an incredible feat for Bree to be pushing a bobsled and navigating our sled 80mph plus down an icy hill just weeks after being rushed the hospital for a less than routine procedure. As she said today to the media “we are lucky to be here.” I honestly can not imagine how scary it was for her to be heading into surgery in a foreign country with no family or friends in sight. It really showed me how strong and brave Bree is. I admire that she can still maintain a positive attitude after everything she has gone through the past few weeks and is such a competitor that she couldn’t wait to get back in the sled and do what we do best; race. I am excited to see what the future has in store for us as we work our way back and prepare for World Championships in three weeks. I am sure there were plenty of people who doubted Bree and I would be back to race Worlds, but we will be there, minus one appendix proving them wrong and ready to make Team USA proud.

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