OK ... as promised, the unabbreviated version of my race season to date ...

Canadian Nationals
After Christmas I headed straight back to Calgary for Nationals. We had one week of training before two days of racing. Throughout the week, which was pretty cold, I was having a lot of trouble with skidding, but I didn't think much of it, because I often have trouble in training, but seem to have a knack for pulling it all together on race day. But come race day this day, I ... ummmm ... shall we say ... sucked it up, and pretty hard.

OK, I know that I am lagging behind in online reports, and I will eventually get around to bringing everyone up to speed (if you want the abbreviated version imagine the wrong runners, plus miserable weather, plus the wrong runners again, plus bronchitis, plus can't-find-any-runners-the-night-before-I-race, plus ummm ... let's call it GI distress ... plus thank-you-for-letting-me-borrow- your-$1000-runners-an-hour-before-race-time, equals my first podium finish on the America's Cup circuit).

I had some work done on my new sled yesterday, and in order to do all the welding and grinding you have to take the whole thing apart. Which means that you have to take all the padding off. Since I had it all in pieces, I decided to re-pad my sled.

I am part of a program called Tobacco Free Sports, and act as an athlete ambassador, going to elementary schools and youth organizations to help encourage kids to choose to be tobacco free.

So Friday was my very first speech, at Squamish Elementary School, in front of 75 grades five, six and seven students.

And how did it go?