For New Years I insisted that my family attend the city celebrations in Ottawa, despite the temperature hovering somewhere between "March of the Penguins" winter and death by frostbite. I am pretty sure Finger Eleven was wishing they had taken the New Year's gig in Winnipeg or Whitehorse, or somewhere warmer.

Since not one, but two races ended up being canceled yesterday because of the snow, the jury made a decision to hold three single-heat races today: one to replace the race that was supposed to be held in Konigsee, Germany in January, a second to replace the race that was canceled yesterday, and a third for the final scheduled race in Igls. If nothing else, it made for interesting art on the back of our sleds ...

When we got to the track this afternoon, we wondered if someone had canceled the race and not told us. It was 20 minutes before parc fermee (when you have to have your sleds checked in before a race) and there wasn't a soul there. And why wasn't anyone there? Because it was snowing SO FREAKIN' MUCH that no ones cars/vans/buses could make it up the hill to the top of the track.

Look at THIS.

THIS is a start list for our official training in Igls, Austria. There are SEVENTY-SIX people on this start list. Do you know how long it takes 76 people to do three runs? The answer is A LONG FREAKIN' TIME. Like, longer than it took me to do my bangs in grade seven.

Let me tell you something about Igls.

I. HATE. THIS. TRACK. Send me to Altenberg any day of the week, thank you very much.