Co-ed bobsled

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about last night is how cold it was! Cold enough that your skin stuck to metal. Cold enough that your lungs would feel the chill when you took a deep breath. And cold enough that the crack in my windshield worried me when I turned on the defrost. Oh sure, it wasn't Calgary or Placid bad, but it was still chilly for us considering we've been sliding in some rather warm weather.

We took some four-man trips down the track last night, the first of which was rather interesting. You see, trying to get four athletes up to train can be a challenge sometimes when everyone is A. working, B. dating someone/married, C. out of town, or D. all the above. So last night, a friend of ours (you rock Abby) who happens to be a skeleton athlete was kind enough to volunteer to go down with us so we could at least get some trips down the mountain. All of my spares and back up athletes were busy or out of town, so we were grateful.

After scratching our first run down the track (meaning we skipped it) we practiced loading into the sled while it was sitting still so Abby could get used to loading in. Our coach just raised his eyebrow as he watched and said, "This I gotta see."

Well, we put the sled up on the line and once the green light turned on and the buzzer went off, we were "Back set, set, set, front set, ready!" and off we went! Now, mind you, we weren't completely cruel, we mentally told ourselves that we were taking it easy for Abby's sake. I even loaded in prematurely so Abby could hop right on. The next thing I knew there was commotion behind me, someone yelled at someone else, I felt a hard hit on the back of my helmet, and all this by the time we reached the first turn.

Now I had no idea what was going on, so I put it out of my mind and drove down the track like nothing was wrong. But once we crossed the finish line and I got out of the sled, I started counting athletes at the bottom. I may not be the smartest guy out there, but I knew that 1+2 did not =4. Don and Brad both looked at my face, read the confusion, and explained that Abby did not end up joining us on the trip. She had taken one step towards loading into the sled, decided she couldn't do it, and simply let go of the sled and we kept going without her. Our coach later told me that he thought I had a killer run down the track, but he was also a bit distracted as he tried to count helmets as we roared past him.

To her credit, Abby got back out there and took another run with us and she loaded in beautifully. She had a huge smile on her face at the bottom as it was her first time down the track in a bobsled. But I guess if Don got the nickname "Blackout" for going unconscious on the way down the track, should we start calling Abby "Fallout"? Hmmm...