Awake Chocolate

“The value in Awake Chocolate is in the taste, the convenience and the alternative it provides for caffeinated products.”

Sometimes, to push our performance to the limit also means pushing the physiology of our bodies to the extremes. As a seasoned athlete I’ve experienced my fair share of training sessions that resulted in hugging a garbage can, white as a ghost from a drop in blood sugar. I’ve been training for years and years and I’ve come to learn that it’s always a good idea to carry something high in sugar to counteract a sudden spell of dropping blood sugar levels. As my training matured in its sophistication, so to did my methods to fight off the training crash… I’ve seen and tested a whole bunch of methods. From natural sources of sugar like fresh oranges and honey, to more deliberate means like carbohydrate and electrolyte drinks. I always drink greens mixed in with some type of electrolyte drink during every workout, but sometimes its just not enough to combat the sickness of lactic acid, or a drop in blood sugar from a really demanding workout. This was put to the test just the other day when I woke up sick from a stupid cold I’ve been battling all week. I could have probably gotten through any other day just fine, but today was leg day, and this was the hardest workout scheduled in our 4-week cycle hypertrophy program. On the menu? A nice entre of 8×8 squats with 401-second tempo, weight 155kg. I knew after my first warm up set with only 100kg on the bar that this was going to be a tough workout, since my head was spinning after I racked the weight and almost blacked out. I surprised myself going through 6 of the 8 sets without much discomfort, but set 7 and 8 would get the better of me. By the end of the workout I was incoherent with discomfort, disoriented from the internal physiological dialogue that was taken place in my body. I’ve come to know this feeling, and it means, “Get to a garbage, and quick!” So I grabbed my water and the Awake Chocolate bar I had slipped into my bag earlier that morning and I went outside hoping the fresh spring breeze would calm me down. I laid down onto the grass and waited. Thankfully I managed to avoid throwing up, but I knew that my workout was pretty much over and done with. At least I got the work in right? So I crushed some water and scarfed down some Awake Chocolate and I immediately started feeling better. I was pleasantly surprised at the taste! It reminded me of those tin foil wrapped Easter eggs that my mom used to hide around the house for my brother and I! So good! I don’t think it was just the sugar from the chocolate that helped me get back to normal, but the added caffeine helped me get there faster.

No, this is not a regulation Awake Chocolate T-shirt. Yes, this is my own Trap Cup Awake Chocolate styling.

I believe Awake Chocolate is a great product intended to be a substitute for other caffeine products. Not to be consumed while enjoying a cup of espresso Haha! As an athlete I often look at food as a tool or equipment that will enhance my training, just as I would footwear or training gear and for me, Awake Chocolate combines great tasting chocolate with the functional addition of caffeine, perfect for people who are movers! It’s great for enjoying on a hike or during a workout, with the convenience of being easy to pack and consuming while on the go!

One 44g bar of Awake Chocolate is equivalent to a regular sized can of Redbull, or a small cup of coffee, containing roughly 100mg of caffeine. This product should thus be consumed with its intended use in mind, to help restore alertness and energy levels. As a new entrant into the caffeinated products market, Awake Chocolate delivers a great tasting chocolate bar while providing a new convenient alternative to a market that up until now has been relegated to energy drinks. The flexibility of having yet another option available that can enhance my training regiment is great as sometimes drinking an energy drink on top of my electrolyte drink can sometimes weigh on the stomach. The best part of Awake Chocolate is that I can break off a piece and keep the rest for later, unlike an energy drink where once it’s opened I almost feel compelled to drink the whole things before it goes flat.

The value in Awake Chocolate is in the taste, the convenience and the alternative it provides for caffeinated products. This is definitely a product I will bring with me on tour for the World Cup season this year in preparation for the Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Let’s be honest, you just can’t beat chocolate!

“Taking some personal time” and to me this means having an internal conversation with yourself, not watching tv.

Training is underway and things are already going really well. I’ve managed to gain back some of the weight I lost during tour last season, and I’m now standing at 240lbs. 5 more pounds of lean muscle to gain by September, so unlike last season, these gains are going to be done without the help of McDonald’s, well ok maybe just a bit of McDonald’s. I’m Lovin’ it! The big benefit to already being 240lbs and having done the big weight gain last year is that over the last year my body has grown accustomed to the weight and so I’m not feeling sleepy all the time. It’s not just my energy levels that have adapted to the new weight; it seems that my body has settled under the new weight, and our early spring workouts are already showing big improvements in my running technique.

A huge contributor to the reset in my weight this spring is the fact that I’m not currently working, nor do I plan on working during the summer months. Let’s get serious, it’s Olympic year and there’s no room for messing about with a job.  Everyday I see my teammates and competitors pushing themselves incredibly hard in the gym, and just thinking of trying to carry a job alongside training would leave me in the dust. Along with my sponsors, I have a huge amount of support from my family, friends and all of you, which makes a tight budget seem palatable at least for the time being. Honestly, financial stress is probably the biggest burden on any amateur athlete, and I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, and especially how to deal with that stress.

When I got back from tour I had to fill out a self-assessment along with my teammates, which would later be reviewed by my coaches and high-performance director. The biggest thing that came out of my self-assessment was that I needed to improve my flexibility. Imagine if I could cover a few more inches with every step, that’s like slicing off a couple of thousands of a second each step and by the time I load that could relate to chopping off a few hundredths of a second! That might seem insignificant, but I did the math. We average about 130km/h at the bottom of a track and with all things equal, at that speed 1 hundredth of a second is equivalent to a foot of distance!!!!!!! That’s crazy! So imagine what gaining a bit more mobility in my hips and glutes could do to improve my chances of making the Olympic team!

After this whole flexibility revelation was brought to light by my coach and Olympic medalist Chris LeBihan, I searched out for a way to hold myself accountable to this stretching endeavor, and to make sure I made good on my promise to rectify the major weakness that came up from my self-assessment. So I went to my sponsor lululemon, and asked them if they could help me out. They have been more than amazing, and have gone above and beyond their call of duty to help me out as one of their ambassadors! They have given me unlimited yoga at any yoga studio that they are affiliated with, and not only that, but they offered it to my entire team so they could all benefit as well! They’ve even given us all huge bobsleigh sized yoga mats so that we can practice our yoga comfortably! That’s what I’m talking about when I say support!!!!

It’s been about 6 weeks now of yoga and daily stretching and the results are incredible! My running technique has improved dramatically, and this nagging groin injury that I suffered back in March of 2012 is starting to heal up. The benefits of this whole flexibility improvement plan don’t stop there either. A very surprising side affect has surfaced in light of all the yoga I’ve been doing. My overall mood and ability to ward off stress has improved dramatically! The type of yoga that I do with the team is usually either restorative yoga or Yin yoga. They’re both super mellow types of yoga, focused on meditation, relaxation, and slow stretching. Breathing is a big part of these classes and I’ve even started practicing meditation and breathing at home for about ½ hour a day while I listen to this track called “Ulitmate Om” by -Jonathan Goldman. I find the focused breathing while I zone out to this track brings me back to neutral no matter what is going on in my life. I normally do this just as I’m about to go to bed, and I’ll tell you what, BEST SLEEP OF YO LIFE!

I’ve long thought about the phrase “Taking some personal time” and to me this means having an internal conversation with yourself, not watching tv. The yoga and meditation have really helped balance out my life, and I just feel like I’m now better prepared to deal with stress. You can imagine how useful a tool this can be during an Olympic year!  With all the pressure, financial strains, and emotions that go into performance, this tool is really invaluable. I’m so thankful to have been able to identify a weakness that I had, and a great support team to help me improve on it. At this level of training and sport, there is no tool that is ever too obscure to be overlooked because we’re now dealing with margins as small as a thousandth of a second. If yoga and meditation can win me 0.001 of a second then count me in!

“My buddy had already moved out of his house and so I was literally homeless”

It’s been a while since my last post and I know a lot of people have been wondering what I’ve been up to, or even just getting on my back about get back to posting stuff up on my blog. They’re right; I need to get back to this, just like I got back into training a month ago.

Depending on which way I look at it Sochi either looks like a really long time ago, or it seems like it was just yesterday our team finished 7^th at the Olympic test event back in February. Since then I’ve spent 3 glorious weeks in the sun with my mom and stepdad in the Bahamas for some much needed rest after a long bobsleigh season. And It’s already been a month that the team and I have been back at it training here in Calgary and other Canadian provinces, getting our bodies ready for the upcoming Olympic season!

I was really looking forward to getting back to Canada after Sochi, but while I was away in the Bahamas my roommate in Calgary sold his house. When I got back to town I arrived to my Honda Civic packed with all my belongings and parked in a detention center for youths. My buddy had already moved out of his house and so I was literally homeless. I thought to myself, “Great…. What an awesome way to start off the Olympic year.” But like anything in this life I guess you just roll with the punches and keep moving forward. Thankfully some friends took me in and let me stay at their place until I got back up on my feet. The next day I was scouring Kajiji for apartment listings, hoping that my pleas of becoming an Olympic hopeful would solicit some responses from potential leases. Luckily, within the first few hours I got a hit, and I am now renting a nice little room in a house near the Canadian Olympic Park.

Did you know that I’m 27 now and I didn’t even own a single piece of furniture? It was a strange realization when I was accepted as the new roommate in a house of 2 other guys. Great! I had a room to live in! Ugh…… wait…. I don’t have a bed. Haha It was a pretty startling realization. I had been sleeping on a lonely futon during the last year or so which belonged to one of my former roommates at my old place. So literally my entire life was packed away in my car and that was it, just bags of clothes, a stereo, some shoes, and some gym chalk that had been delivered to my old place while I was away on tour. Kajiji to the rescue again! I found some great deals and I am now a proud owner of a bed, small desk, a $5 Ikea desk chair, which I am sat upon at the moment,  a dresser, a $9 night table, and two salvaged lamps haha. I had to go out and buy things I never even thought of before like pillows and bed sheets. I think there’s some sort of Oligopolistic control over the price of bed sheets because let me tell you, DEM SHEETS ARE EXPENSIVE! But, one area I wasn’t ready to be stingy on was the linen. I managed to get a free double bed  and frame from a friend, and I figured it was probably already a step up from a futon. But pillows and sheets were really important because as you know training require 3 fundamental things. Sleep, Food and hard work. Those are the areas I never cheap out on if I’m spending money, mainly because my body is my livelihood.

So if you’ve been wondering where I’ve been for the last two months, I’ve been busy just keeping my life together haha. That seems a little dramatic, but there’s some truth to it. It’s funny. It only too me maybe a month to fully recover physically from this past year’s season, but it’s taken me a little longer to recover mentally and I think my hiatus from blogging and social networking was a reflection of that. I just needed to get away from it all and just be a little selfish. But I’m here now, ready to make a push for the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games and I’ll be blogging on the regular from now on every week.

I’ve been busy up until now putting together a sponsorship package similar to what you see on the website, but it’s a formal version so that I can send off to potential sponsors. If you know anyone who would be interested in sponsoring me, let me know and I’ll make sure to send them a package. Also, I’ve been busy coming up with t-shirts to sell on the website to raise some funds, so watch out for those popping up on the site maybe a month from now. You might also notice that the site will be changing slightly in the upcoming weeks, with a big revamp to the website coming later on this year. Anyway, It’s a new year and lots of big and exciting things are ahead. I hope you keep tuning in. I can’t keep telling all of you how much it means to me to have you all supporting me in this adventure, but I hope at the end of this year I can pay all of you back with a gold medal performance

“If someone were to ask me what it takes to be good at bobsleigh, I would say it takes grit.”

It’s hard to believe that we have already competed in 8 World Cup races this year, and already World Championships are here. The days fly by when your day is filled up with sliding, training and of course daily naps. Only a few months ago I was a full-fledged rookie and today heading into the two weeks of World Championships in St.Moritz I feel like a seasoned veteran of the sport. In my short time in this sport I’ve learned that bobsleigh isn’t just about being fast or strong behind a sled. It’s more than that, it’s about being a good teammate and putting the team before the individual. It’s about doing the extra work when you’re completely exhausted. If someone were to ask me what it takes to be good at bobsleigh, I would say it takes grit. The sport is mentally and physically exhausting, and personally I think what makes good bobsleigh athletes, is the ability to get through the grind of it all, day-in and day-out.

The season started off a little slow this year for CAN3. We had a great pilot, a great sled and equipment, but there was something missing. We were missing a pure brakeman on the sled and so for the first few races of the season we were three side athletes just barely competing. It wasn’t until Sam Giguere came out to join the World Cup team in Europe before Christmas that things turned around for us. Maybe it was the fact that Sam, James and I were all football players but it seemed like we just clicked from the get-go. Our first race together we managed to out-start CAN1 and CAN2. Our weak start to the season had gotten us into a bit of trouble with points needed to qualify our sled to the World Championships. The pressure was on, but so far our European tour had been very successful. Finally, last week we managed to solidify our spot for the World Championships. Maybe it’s because it’s my first year on tour, but I felt like our crew had accomplished a lot together and a pretty good bond had been forged between us. So coming into St.Moritz in preparation for World Champs we were all excited to have reached the biggest stage of the season to prove that CAN3 wasn’t just a fluke. But unfortunately our crew got dismantled earlier this week with Sam and I moving up to CAN2. Receiving the news from Kripps that the coaches had decided to split up our sled was tough. We worked hard together all season to get ourselves to World Champs, all so that our team could get broken up before the moment of truth. It was amazing sliding with Kripps all season. For a guy on his first world cup tour he impressed the hell out of me. And I can’t say enough about James. He is one of the hardest working guys on the team and I was lucky to work along side him all season and learn how to be a good teammate and crewman from him, not to mention how good of friends we have grown to be.

The news that Sam and I were to be moved to CAN2 was bitter sweet. I felt guilty changing sleds because it felt like I was leaving my teammates behind, especially after all we had been through. Our crew ran smoothly all season and we were used to working with each other. Now James and Kripps would have to welcome in two new teammates, which can sometimes make or break a team since team chemistry is so important. Luckily, they couldn’t have been given better guys to replace Sam and I. CAN3 welcomed in Tim Randall, probably the strongest guy on the entire Canadian team (Next to Lacelles Brown of course) and Graeme Rinholm who has a better work ethic than the entire Canadian team combined. So I’m not worried at all that CAN3 will put up great results in the first day of competition of World Champs tomorrow. On the sweet side of things, I got moved up to CAN2 to push for Chris Spring in the World Championships! Even better, our crew is awesome. We have Spring who is a real cool customer at the helm, Sam beasting pushes on the breaks with his unmatched athleticism, and next to me, Cody Sorenson who is a real technician pushing on the right. We’ve rehearsed dry-loads every day for the last week, and tuned the sled up perfectly to fit our crew.

Going into training this week we were all very confident with Spring having placed 6^th in the two man event last weekend. Our first push felt good and the load was clean, but on our first trip down the track together something wasn’t right, we were hitting everywhere down the track here in St.Moritz and the run wasn’t very reflective of Spring’s 6^th finish performance last weekend. At the bottom of the track I could see the frustration in Spring, trying to figure out what was going on. We went back up to the top of the hill, and our 2^nd run was even scarier than the first. We all tried to assure Spring that everything was good, but this time his confidence was a little shook. We got back to the garage after training where a brief meeting between Spring and Marc (our mechanic) revealed a massive problem that would return Spring’s confidence. A locking pin in the steering mechanism had broken due to wear-and-tear and so when Spring was trying to navigate the sled down the track earlier that day, the runners weren’t responding to his commands. After 2 hours of repairs and alignments we fixed the problem. Not only that, Spring got his mojo back! Our next training session was sweet and we started to believe that this crew could accomplish something big this week. I believe this team has what it takes to be in the top 6 this weekend, and once there, the sky is the limit! As a matter of fact I think with the entire revamping of the Canadian teams, that our nation as a whole will have a great showing this weekend at World Champs! I want to wish good luck to my teammates and the entire Canadian team as well as the support staff for a great weekend of racing! It’s been a very eventful year and this is the culmination of all our hard work. Let’s go get em’ boys.

If you are interested in watching the 4man race this weekend, it starts at 9am St.Moritz, Switzerland time tomorrow (Saturday the 2nd of February) The race will be conducted over two days and will feature 4runs in total, 2 on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. You can watch the competition on your smartphone by downloading the FIBT App “DigotelLive+” or you can watch on Youtube here BOBSKELTV Lastly, and I’m not sure of this but I think the races should be televised on SportsNet back in Canada so watch for that. Thanks to everyone for supporting our National Bobsleigh Team this year!

“And suddenly things went dark, and there was this overwhelming closterphobic sound, like the white noise from a snowy television screen deep inside my helmet reverberating in my brain.”

The first half of the season saw team CAN3 move up the ranks steadily until the last two races before the holidays, where things really took off with a new crew member and a new found team spirit.

Winterberg, Germany was our first European race of the season, and also our first race with teammate Sam Giguere. We had no idea how we were going to perform, especially since it was Sam’s first race of his bobsleigh career, and Kripps had only a limited amount of experience on the Winterberg track. Getting into the sled after our first push I could feel we were going fast, and on the way down I could tell Kripps was tearing it up with some masterful piloting. It’s funny, if you talk to any brakeman and ask him what he thinks of, or what he does during the hellish 60-second descent they will all have very different answers for you. Personally, all I think about is staying low and keeping my head directly in-line with Kripps’. Come race day however, I find myself thinking of the corners and urging on my pilot under the veil of my fog and mucus lined helmet, with things like “yes, Yes, YES!” or “C’mon Push it, Let’s go! Let it run!” At the bottom of the track in corner 14, I knew we were flying! I knew Kripps laid down a heater and midway through these thoughts I remember thinking to myself “Damn, this corner seems longer than normal…” And suddenly things went dark, and there was this overwhelming closterphobic sound, like the white noise from a snowy television screen deep inside my helmet reverberating in my brain. It took me a moment to realize what had just happened, but after a quick second I tuned in to the fact that we had just rolled and crashed out of corner 14.

Its incredible the presence of mind one has when going through such an intense event. So many things are happening in a short amount of time. I think we slid for what must have been 10 seconds, but in that time this is what flashed through my head.

1. You just crashed pal, tuck your head in.
2. Oh, you just crashed out of corner 14, you’re near the finish line. This won’t be so bad, you’ll end up by the finish dock.
3. I hope my mom isn’t watching. She’s gonna be pissed!
4. Looking at the back of Kripps helmet. I was looking to see if he was ok, and hoping that James sitting behind me had enough room to duck underneath the cowling of the sled.
5. I’m officially a bobsledder!
6. We all made it through the finish with the sled… That means we have another run after this!

Trapped inside the sled with our heads pinned against the icy short-wall, there wasn’t much to do but wait for track workers and other athletes or coaches to meet up with us and help us out from underneath the sled. As crashes go, it would probably be considered a 1 on a scale of 1-10, 1 being a baby crash and 10 would be the crash that ended Can2 season last year in Altenberg, hospitalizing 3 athletes. One by one we were helped up to our feet, and together we pushed the sled the rest of the way up the braking stretch to the finish dock. Walking up the braking stretch, we were all busy asking each other if everyone was ok, and the disappointment of knowing our day could well be over after the first run was interrupted by the announcement that we had the 3^rd fastest start of the day, and managed to finish our first run in 10^th position!

It was an awkward moment as we celebrated and tried to come to grips with the realization of being ranked so high after the 1^st run while we dusted the snow off each other, and getting over the adrenaline rush from what had transpired just moments ago. James and Kripps were both good to go, and both had been in crashes before, but Sam and I had both tweaked our backs and I think it took us a little more time to get over the novelty of our first crash. But as any good teams do, we came together and kept each other positive, focusing on a top-10 seat leading into the second heat, trying to put the crash behind us and out of our minds.

We rode the adrenaline rush through the intermission, and got ready to push even faster than our first run. We had nothing to lose. Walking up to the line, we already felt like winners and we were going to show everyone what we were made of. The start clock sounded (When the start clock sounds, a team has 60 seconds to cross the starting laser-eye or the team will be disqualified) and Kripps, myself, James and Sam got ready to unleash all the power and energy of a nuclear bomb into the back of that sled….. but the fuse fizzled out within a matter of seconds when we realized that Kripps couldn’t get the pilot push bar opened up. A piece of rubber that normally prevents the pilot’s push bar from sticking to the sled’s cowling had been lost in the crash and some ice had built up, freezing the push bar shut. Time was ticking down, and with every second, snow was layering thicker and thicker onto the start, decreasing our chances of another great start time. Our mechanic Marc and our coach Graham worked feverishly to pry the push bar open. The intense cheer and clanging of the cowbells that are synonymously found with bobsleigh races had all but disappeared and transformed into gut wrenching quiet mutterings.

My heart started to sink with the realization that we might get disqualified, and as soon as Kripps turned around to tell us we would push without it, Graham and Marc managed to get the push bar out.  We had already gone through so much on that day and I wasn’t going let the crowd whisper as we pushed off, not after what we had gone through to get there, not on this day. And with 16 seconds left on the clock I urged on some acknowledgement from the crowd and they immediately responded with a deafening wall of cheer. Without hesitation, as if nothing had happened Kripps, James, Sam and I all came together and managed to push another blazing start. Now it was up to Kripps to get us quickly down the track. Sitting in the sled on the way down I made sure to tuck my head and tighten my abs as much as possible. The possibility of crashing was evident in my mind as we rushed down the straights and corners of the track, but the confidence I had in Kripps’ abilities overshadowed that train of thought. It seemed like we just kept gaining speed the whole way down. The run was smooth, and I could tell Kripps was letting it run. We came through corner 14 and heard Kripps shout out “breaks”, which meant our day was over. All of it, the crash, the push bar malfunction at the top, my aching neck, we were finally done. As we slowed down and neared the finish dock we saw our teammates waiting at the end of the track holding up their arms signaling 1^st position! We managed to hold onto our 10^th place position, our best finish of the year. We all jumped out of the sled cheering, fist pumping and high-fiving, it felt like we had won the race. I think we were so happy because after everything that happened we persevered through it all and still managed to place 10^th in the world.

On the quiet retrospective ride back to the top of the track, I couldn’t help but feel admiration for each one of my teammates. It felt like we had overcome so much in the last few hours, and given that it was our first time pushing together it felt like the whole ordeal had brought us together. I think it takes a lot of character to bounce back from a crash, to go back up to the top of a track and push lights out one more time, and not only that but to keep your head in the game. I have a lot of respect for the guys on my crew and I couldn’t be more proud to be part of the CAN3 team.

Travelling to Utah was not an easy feat. After the races in Lake Placid, NY I was completely crushed. My body ached and I all I could think about was sleeping. We departed left Lake Placid by van and drove back into Montreal, only to be hassled by unfriendly custom agents greeting us back into the Land of the Proud and Free. From Montreal, we flew into Dulles, Washington and from there connected onto our flight to our final destination, Salt Lake City, Utah. All in all I think the entire trip took around 12 hours and by the end of it I was pretty grumpy, especially after Delta Airlines lost one of my bags… All I remember from my first night in Park City was the delicious Wendy’s I mowed down on my way to the High Peaks Hotel, and then crashing down onto my bed immediately upon stepping foot into my room.

Waking from a great night’s sleep I expected to be somewhat re-energized, but instead I woke up still feeling heavy and sluggish, happy only to find out that training had been pushed until the next day! It was a rare day off, but we still needed to unload the 2man sleds from the containers, and go to the gym for a lift. I really don’t understand what was happening to me, I had never been so tired and sore, and this feeling kept on until the day before the races! I was really worried throughout the week because our first 2man session in official training saw me push two 5.09′s just under the new track push record set by the women in this weeks competition at 5.10! With everyone dropping like flies due to a cold that was spreading throughout the team, all I could do was get as much rest as possible every day, making sure to expend the least amount of energy possible throughout the day and hope that I would be good to race come friday. This meant that the only sites visited by myself during my stay in Park City was my room, the garage, track, and the local restaurants. It’s a shame really, I would have loved to explore the surrounding areas a little, especially the outlet stores! But, I figure I’m on this tour not to go about sight-seeing but to make sure I give my pilot the best pushes possible every single race!

Can1 and Can2 switched out their 2man brakemen from Lake Placid for fresher bodies for our 2nd World Cup race in Park City, leaving me to be the only brakeman to do back-to-back 2man races. It was a little defeating watching them push full tenths of a second off my time in practice throughout the week, but come race day my body willed itself to game-mode and managed an improvement from Lake Placid! I pushed the 12th and 8th fastest times for my 1st and 2nd runs respectively, earning us a bump up in the overalls World Cup rankings from 15th to 14th! Kripps and I are moving up! However, that being said, I have managed to mess up my 1st pushes in both Lake Placid and Park City, and so I need to work on hitting the sled with more consistency because these lapses in my performances are costing us .03 to .05 per race which translates into almost a tenth of a second at the bottom of the track. With the times being so tight in the last two races, a tenth of a second could mean a jump of 2 or 3 positions…

This week’s races were significantly easier than those in Lake Placid. Unlike LP, Park City is a much shorter, smoother, and less physically demanding track; almost to the point of being boring… I know, it’s hard to imagine that a track could be boring when you’re flying down at 133km/h. But honestly, I remember sitting behind Kripps in the 2man in training and just wondering when the pressures and thrashing changes in directions that I had grown accustomed to in Lake Placid would start showing up, but as soon as the track started to get fun I would hear Kripps yell out “BRAKES!!!!!” surprised to find out that we had already arrived at the breaking stretch after only a short 48 or so seconds.

In the 4man this week, we changed up the crew’s roster, which saw Luke Demetre move from the brakes position to the right side of the sled and sitting 3rd in the sled directly behind me, and Graeme Rinholm make his debut on this year’s world cup on the back of the sled. We had pushed as a crew together before in Calgary, and we seemed not to miss a beat being reunited in Park City to have some pretty good pushes in official training. However, come race day, something changed. It seemed like no matter how hard we pushed our sled just wasn’t firing off the line, resulting in some slow push times of 4.89s and 4.90 placing us in 14th and 15th position from the start of our runs… That combined with warm wet conditions lead us to drop 4 positions in our second heat from 15th to 19th overall which is a step backwards from last weekend. We all believe as a crew that we can push faster, and i’m glad that none of us were happy with our performance this weekend because it shows that we are all hungry, and that we all expect more from ourselves as a crew. We all believe that we are capable of top 10 finishes and I am confident that you will see all the Canadian sleds, men and women, in the top 10 this week when competition resumes in this, the 3rd stop of the World Cup Circuit in Whistler, BC.

I was confronted with tons of athletes and coaches wearing identical jackets to mine, but all colored uniquely to match their respective country’s colors.

Week 1: Lake Placid, NY

Our trip to Lake Placid first started with the whole Canadian team traveling to Montreal, Quebec to officially announce the 2012-2013 World Cup Team at the Montreal Children’s Hospital.

It was the first official event that we had attended as the Canadian Bobsleigh Team and it was such an amazing experience. Even simply traveling to Montreal was a great new experience. We were a gang of red and white, monopolizing the check-in counters and baggage terminals; incessantly being gawked at by fellow passengers trying to figure out what team we just might be on. I have to admit to feeling a mild celebrity status one feels when sporting a CANADA team jacket. As we arrived in Montreal, it was business from the get-go, but this did not feel anything like work. The team helped kick-off a promotional campaign for the new Canadian Olympic mittens made popular by the 2012 Vancouver Olympics. The event started off with a media release and tons of interviews with local and national news outlets, but the highlight of the day was when myself and the team were let loose in the hospital to hand out the new Canadian mittens to the kids who were unfortunate enough to be stuck in hospital beds.  It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. We were giving out very small gifts to these kids, but it was amazing to see their attitudes change from the moment we stepped foot into their rooms! A particular kid comes to mind. His name was Tristan, and he was absolutely floored to have us keep him company by his bedside. Meeting  him struck a very resounding chord inside of me which made me feel that I was part of something very positive, that this business of sliding is not simply a sport, but a conduit of inspiration to others. I left the hospital energized with my perspective altered, but in the most positive way! This feeling of positivity, combined with excitement surged on as we departed by convoy to Lake Placid, NY.

This was perhaps one in a handful of times that I had made the trip across the border to our southern neighbors, and what better destination than to be traveling to the Adirondack Mountains? Lake Placid, NY reminds me of a smaller and somewhat older Whistler, BC. It’s main strip is lined with wood logged buildings, reminiscent of alpine villages found in Europe, boasting every which way signs of two previous Olympics that had been held there back in 1932, and 1980. Making it to the LP sliding centre was again a great new first for me. For a while now I have grown accustomed to training and sliding with only my teammates, but as we drove up to the top of the track, I was introduced to what it meant to be on the World Cup circuit of bobsleigh. I was confronted with tons of athletes and coaches wearing identical jackets to mine, but all colored uniquely to match their respective country’s colors. There was a lot of sizing up going on between athletes, or at least, I was doing a lot of sizing up between myself, and my fellow competitors. I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb. Most bobsleigh athletes have been sliding for a number of years and have competed against one another in a few WC circuits so I knew my face looked strange to them, so I just kept my head down and did my sled work, trying to stay away from any mind games I would subject myself to. My first practice push was insanely nerve-racking. Up until that point, any pushing I had done was in front of my coaches and teammates, but now even in practice, the push start was surrounded by my competition, judging my every step as I ran passed them.

1st Heat of the 4man race.

Earlier on in international training week, I managed to prove myself and earn the 2man brakeman position for Canada 3, which meant that for the first world cup race of the season I was going to be racing twice! I was really happy to earn the position, especially because I had a huge cheering section filled with family and friends that came out to watch me race! In the 2man my pilot Justin Kripps and I managed top ten pushes off the start for our first and second heats and overall we finished the day in 15^th, just short of a top ten finish which I believe we are very well capable of achieving. Going into the 4man race the next day was a whole different story. I had done back to back races in October in Canadian Championships but for some reason this time around my body was aching something awful. In order to get a good push start at the beginning of the race a whole bunch of things need to come together to get me mentally ready to explode out of the blocks. This requires a combination of good tunes, a lengthy warm up, and a potent cocktail of caffeine drinks and pills. By the time I’m behind the sled ready to push, I can barely contain the adrenaline running through my veins and I have severe tunnel vision, focusing only on unleashing an atomic bomb of power and brute force for 5 seconds. Needless to say, this heavy diet of caffeine and adrenaline is not very conducive in getting a good night’s sleep, haha. The night before the 4man race my body was aching and my mind was absolutely exhausted, but it seemed like I was kept awake in a limbo state as my body was still buzzing from the heavy dosage of caffeine earlier that day.  For the 4man day, I knew I needed to show up, because my teammates expect it out of me. Being tired or sore from the 2man race the day before isn’t an excuse my teammates would accept for a crummy performance, so back onto the Redbull drinks, caffeine pills, and heat cream I went. Again, our team did pretty well, pushing 12th and 13th times off the start and finishing in 16^th place in our first ever World Cup race! Sure there is stuff that we can clean up, there always is, but what I saw that day is that I’m a member of a team filled with potential, and definitely a threat to be reckoned with on the World Cup tour.

Now we’re off to Park City, Utah for the second race of the World Cup tour. It’ll be interesting to say the least with one less training day than usual, and only six official training runs for the pilots before the actual races! But everyone is feeling good, and ready to crush some push times so look for us to move up the ranks again this week!

A special thanks goes out to my family and friends that came out to watch my races. I know it was a big effort for all of you to make it out to watch me race in Lake Placid, NY but you all made my first ever World Cup races something that I will never ever forget! Thank you all, and I love you all so very much!

To watch upcoming races, go to BobSkelTV on YouTube to watch the action live on race day or to stream if you’ve missed the evemt, but I know you wont miss the live broadcast, will you now….. haha

I received this picture from my father today in my email. Your mom had told him that you had drawn your inspiration for your halloween costume from myself along with the Canadian Bobsleigh Team. All I can say is WOW! You did a great job on your costume! I don’t even think our sleds look as nice as yours! Our mechanic Marc would definitely take you on as his apprentice! Also, congratulations on winning your school’s ‘recycled materials halloween costume’ contest, that’s fantastic! Way to go! I think you might just be ready to take a trip down the track in one of our sleds!

Luke sporting the great looking Canadian Bobsleigh speedsuit and amazing Eurotech sled for his Halloween costume!

Thanks so much Luke for supporting myself, along with the entire Canadian team. I’ve shown your picture to the whole team and everyone thinks its awesome! I know the team and I really appreciate having you as one of our biggest fans. It really means a lot to me to know that you are such a big fan, so much so, that I’m going to dedicate my first ever race in the World Cup here in Lake Placid, NY this weekend to you and your entire school! Also, I’ll make sure you get a MyRideToSlide t-shirt so you can sport it anytime you like!

Keep working hard in all that you do Luke, it will bring you all the success in the world! I’ll just share one piece of advice with you that my parents instilled in me at a young age. ‘School first! then Sports!’ Keep up the grades and doors will open!

Thanks again Luke!

GO CANADA GO!

On any given day athletes’ duties include, sled maintenance, moving sleds, video, and of course sliding. Here’s a look at some video work.

“having been named to the National team has re-affirmed and also deeply strengthened my national pride for my country”

It’s been two weeks since my last post and since then I’ve gone down a new track in Whistler, BC, won two silver place finishes at the Canadian Championships, had my first doping testing, and named to the Canadian National Bobsleigh Team! Suffice it to say it’s been a busy two weeks! But what a great couple of weeks it was!

En route to Whistler on the Trans Canadian Highway

Let’s start off with the Whistler sliding centre, home of the 2012 Winter Olympics. Driving from Calgary to Vancouver on the Trans Canadian Highway, and then on the Sea to Sky road from Vancouver to Whistler, sold me on the notion that Canada might be one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and I will give a Billion dollars to anyone who can convince me otherwise! We stayed in the Olympic dorms where previous Olympians had called their home during the 2010 Winter Games. When I walked into my room, I couldn’t help but wonder which two Olympic athletes had previously shared these quarters. It was the first instance where I felt like my dream was coming true. It seemed as though I could feel their presence, a great legacy that they had left behind in that room, their Olympic spirit, which I hoped I would be able to embody.

View from my room at the Athlete’s Lodge in Whistler, BC

Driving up to the Whistler sliding centre was again another first, one of many. It seems lately that everyday has begun to seem like Christmas morning, with new experiences bewildering me every single time. Immediately I was amazed at the sheer size of the track. Whistler is nothing like anything I’ve ever seen before, boasting a waterfall at the warm up section for the athletes, corners that drop at dizzying angles, and walls taller than those found in hollywood mansions. Oh, and did I forget to mention the speed? 145km/h in practice….. yeah… no problem. One thing that left me relieved, was the noticeable smoothness when sliding down the track, it was something reminiscent of one of those twisting and turning water park slides. It was smooth and winding releasing pressure upon your body in a controlled manner, unlike the Calgary track that slams you with tight corners and erratic G forces.

View from corner 3 at the Whistler sliding centre. The view from my office ain’t that bad.

Practicing our “dry-loads” in the shop at the Whistler sliding centre

Meet Canada 3. Left to Right. Luke Demetre, James McNaughton, Justin Kripps, Graeme Rinholm, Justin Wilkinson

The week in Whistler left me wanting more, and I can’t wait until we slide there again for our 3rd World Cup race scheduled for the 3rd week of November. Driving back to Calgary I left Whistler feeling like a bobsledder even though I hadn’t crashed yet. (Some rookies got their crash wings that week) Arriving in Calgary the pace of training seemed to only get more intense. The team was welcomed with the newest prototype 4man sled built by our sponsor Eurotech, and the unveiling saw more whistling than a cabaret number. The week was spent training for the upcoming Canadian Championships to be held at the end of the week. I was told that I would push the Canada 3 sled in the Saturday 2man event. This was it, my first official race! I love the mental zone I get into prior to competition, grooving and bouncing around during my warm up, probably to the annoyance of my fellow competitors… Oops. Of course my hand slipped off of the handle during my first push of the day, leaving a big blue streak of colored leather on the side of the sled’s cowling, proof to my coaches of my rookie mishap, although video evidence clearly displayed what I will call “My Aggressive Slip Up”. However, not all was lost, even with the slip up I managed a push start of 5.31 that tied that of Canada 2. A little embarrassed and frustrated I made sure I would redeem myself in the second push of the competition, and I did just that. I released the beast within and managed to push a 5.19, the fastest push of the day!!! My pilot Justin Kripps and I finished in a very respectable 2nd place behind Canada 2 teammates Chris Spring (Pilot) and Adam Rosenke. The next day seemed to repeat itself with Canada 2 taking 1st place again with my team finishing only .22 hundreths behind! What a race it was! To top off the weekend the team was officially announced, and I would be named to the CANADA 3 sled!

Justin and I after receiving our silver medals at the Canadian Championships

Canada 3 push at the Canadian Championships

This has been quite a year for me! I went from making the decision to try bobsledding just under a year ago, to moving to Calgary to train with the national team 6 months ago, and now here I am, I made it! Sporting some very fashionable red and white jackets adorned with CANADA all over them. I can’t even begin to describe to you what it feels like to throw on the team gear. I could easily go to The Hudson Bay Co. and purchase some team CANADA apparel, but I’ll tell you this, it is a real honor when you feel like you’ve earned them.

Some of our CANADA team kit we received upon making the team!

Our media relations person for Bobsleigh Canada asked me to write a response to the following question.What does it mean to you to be named to the 2012-2013 National team? This was my response.

“It’s an incredible feeling to be named to the National Team! I still have to get used to the idea that I will be competing for, and representing my country on a International level.  It’s definitely one of the biggest goals I’ve ever accomplished in my life so far. I think the biggest thing that has struck me is the sense of national pride I feel when throwing on my Canada team gear. I’ve always been very proud to be Canadian and I’m probably one of it’s biggest international advocates! Really, I should be working for Canada’s Cultural Promotion department! I feel tremendously lucky to live in such a beautiful country and share in its rich, diverse and tolerant society. But, having been named to the National team has re-affirmed and also deeply strengthened my national pride for my country, and also has solidified my commitment to ensure that I do my part to add to Canada’s great legacy.”

The Olympics rings at the Whistler village. Foreshadowing perhaps?

Now, my eyes are set on top 10 finishes on the World Cup Circuit with my fellow team mates Justin Kripps (Pilot) James McNaughton (Push Athlete) Luke Demetre (Push Athlete/Breakman) Graeme Rinholm (Breakman/Spare). I want to express my sincere thanks to you all for supporting me thus far and I also want to give specific mention to my family for all their love and support! I want to thank my sponsors Oakley, lululemon, Qenergy and those who have given much appreciated and helpful donations to fund my dream. Lastly, I want to thank two very important individuals. My brother Marc who has been my manager, IT guy, graphic designer, coding expert, and probably my biggest and most supportive fan. Last but not least, a big thank you goes out to Kevin Jagger, a good friend who was the catalyst and the inspiration behind My Ride to Slide. If this guys doesn’t inspire you to to do something big with your life, nothing will, read his story at longtracklongshot.ca! And please visit his other website PodiumPlatform.com that helps athletes like myself find their voice with sponsorship and social media advice.

The success of amateur athletes is highly dependent on your support, even if it’s a small cheering section at a local event, every little bit helps and I’d like to think I speak on behalf of amateur athletes everywhere when I say “It means a lot, and it is very much appreciated. Thank you.”