All week I have been totally sucking in training. Of course it's my first time at the big kids sliding sessions, with World Cup and Europa Cup athletes there. And what do I do? I push the slowest start of my life. I am in dead last on every single run. I fall off my sled in the outrun. I drop my Nalgene bottle and dump a liter of water all over a world cup athlete's gear. It's like I am the special ed kid in the integrated class.

So I instituted my new slogan: DON'T SUCK. Listen Bartleman: It's okay if you aren't great, you can make mistakes, you can have bad days. But all in all, could you keep it together long enough to, say, not suck?

Apparently not.

So tonight was the Provincial Championships, and on my first run I decided to pull out all the moves. I was not sucking so much that I was an eighty-pound upright Hoover battling a long-haired cat and shag carpet with a full bag and a clogged filter. I PB'd by four tenths and was ranked second after my first run.

And then I picked up all of the happy feelings I collected from my first run, along with any skeleton skills I may have cultivated over the past six months, packed them up into a nice little parcel and left it at the top of the hill while I slid my sorry self down to the bottom. I sucked so bad on my second run that Dyson is now calling me for technological advice. I went two and half seconds slower, ended my run in tenth place and dropped four spots in the overall standings.

There's a million and one reasons that can be given in an attempt to soothe the agony of defeat: I'm still really new to the sport, inconsistency is to be expected at this stage, I've got to learn to relax on my sled. But in the end the responsibility lies with only one person, and, I gotta say, messing up is always a crappy feeling.

Good news: I didn't fall off my sled and get disqualified, I didn't flip in the outrun and I managed to still qualify for Nationals next week.

On the way home from the track, I decided I would try and drown my sorrows in the suds of a Sunday Night Car Wash. For some reason, the idea of a nice clean car, after a few warm days of slush and mud, made me feel a little better. Don't ask, I don't know. A crappy race and most people would reach for a glass of wine, a hot bath, a pint of ice cream, a massage ... where does Michelle go? The car wash. Duh.

So, I'm all excited, I've got my code, the car's in neutral, the disco-coloured foam makes its appearance. And next thing I know, me, my back seat and I are drenched and smelling lemony-fresh courtesy of an accidentally-open window. Toss in some latent-PMS and I can assure you there isn't a soul in the world who would've wanted to be sitting next to me at that moment in history.

I went home and consumed 40 sour soothers. I can't feel my tongue.

I am taking the day off tomorrow and then, after getting back to Dyson with my technical expertise on all things that suck, I will go back to my daily effort of not sucking.