Less than eight hours ago it was 20 degrees Celsius and the Australian skeleton team was lying out on the starting dock sunning themselves.

This is the view from the top of the Calgary track at 7:30 a.m. I had the pleasure of taking it in every morning for the last two weeks that I had to be at the track ready to slide at 9 am, which meant a 6:30 am departure in order to battle the Calgary commuter traffic.

The beautiful morning sunrise that was waiting for me at the top of the track almost made it all worth it.

And by almost I mean not even close.

Alas, I have stumbled upon a redeeming feature in the ceaseless traffic nightmare that is Calgary.

While I was avoiding traffic this morning by taking a less traveled road (and by less traveled I mean that I only gouged out one of my eyes while sitting idlely amongst a sea of commuters, instead of gouging out both eyes) I drove by a storefront that would have caused an immediate pileup, had it not been for the snail-paced 10 kph that I clocked in passing.

Today my sled underwent some minor surgery to bring it up to FIBT standards.

Now my sled meets FIBT standards.

In case you were wondering.

As I am sure you were.

So ... yeah ...

That's all.

Well, the track opened this week and I went down (right side up, thank you very much. DAD.) for the first time since Nationals in March (ummm ... which was not as right side up ... )