Day 2 - Triple Bogeys and Eagles

So the today's title indicates the type of day it was for professional golfer Graeme McDonald at the Masters in Augusta.  It was amazing how everything was going along swimmingly in his round, until he triple bogied Hole 12, a par 3, the middle hole of Amen Corner.  On the next hole, a par 5, he eagles.  What a swing in (mis)fortunes...

My adventure continued this morning under bright blue skies with temperatures in mid thirties.  Oh, to be sliding in this heat.  Twenty two sliders took training runs today on the refrigerated track.  The ice was "Momma Bear" -- just right.   I started in the middle of the pack.  Out the handles without incident and made the gentle left hand turn at the end of start ramp, gained speed in Shady 2, exited the turn completely lined up for Turn 11.  Turns 12, 13 and Bendham's bend (Turn 14) were quite unremarkable.  The long straight away with a pair of small incidental turns, and into the Turn 17 right of center.  Remember how Graeme's day was going????

The sled started the up and down weaving action, which is abnormal, and is not exactly the shortest distance between two points (Yes Dad, I was paying attention in all of my Math classes).

I was late out the turn, forcing a late entry into Turn 18.  At the time I am thinking (really actually thinking during this) "I've been here before, it didn't finish well last time... just relax".  I exited 18 with my left steel (runner) on the vertical wall with about a half of second before the start of the hard left turn (Turn 19).  Sufficed to say - I did not finish my first training run as I flipped in Turn 19, slid to a complete stop with my sled on top of me.  As I was laying in the trough of the curve, the emergency medical tech personnel yelled up  "Are you OK?"  I replied "I'm OK... <bleep> <bleep> it.  Son of <bleep>"  I was really discouraged and upset with myself.  I walked back down the track to the lowest part of the track, hopped up into the medical van, which drove me to the finish house.  How friggen embarrassing!!!  My triple bogey of the day.

So I received sage advice from Jim Murphy as I recounted my issue.  As is normal in the sport of luge, the cause of an 81 (a crash) can always be traced back to two or three turns prior to the point of the incident.  We determined that my issue was that I was driving the sled in Turn 17 too long, starting the porpoising action.  Jim also instructed to have a Plan B.  Here, I thought that only lawyers had a Plan B.  I hopped onto back of the truck to be taken back to the Junior Start House, to prepare for my next training run.

My second run started out normal, left in Turn 9, the big sweeping right turn in Shady 2, the quick left, right,  left of the labyrinth, the big right hand turn in Bendham's, straight down the middle of the chicane and the left into Turn 17.  I eased off the steering in the beginning of turn and the sled remained at a constant height in the banked curve.  I can out in the middle of track, lined up for the quick right hand turn of Turn 18.  Turn 19, the finishing left hand turn found me driving through (as if all was right with the world) and I tripped the finishing beam just before Turn 20.  In the two years, that I have been trying to master the art of sliding, I have always finished where I need to walk to the finish area, with my sled on my arm.  This was not the case on Run 2, I slid all the way up to the finish house (a true milestone).   While I touched a wall between Turns 19 and 20, I set a personal best sliding time of 47.607 sec.  What an eagle!!!

So back to Augusta,  Tiger comes back showing just how good/great he could be...  back in the hunt.

IMHO, Duncan is luge's version of Tiger.  He slid well after me, on that international orange duct taped pod that he has worked on...  He slid the same course in 44.4 seconds -- a full eight tenths of a second faster than any other slider today.  He is just way too fast...  WOW, just WOW!!!

The afternoon, all the sliders had to weighted-in at the Olympic Luge Center.  I tipped the scales at 101.9 kilos (about 224 lbs).

I went to dinner with the majority of the sliders at Lisa G's, a local pub and eatery.  Jim brought his computer to review the pictures taken by his wife, Laura, during the training session.  Of course, multiple pictures drew comments.  The picture attached below is of Scott Hanlon, a three time "Luge Fantasy Camp" attendee, when he was in Bendham' Bend on his third run of the day. 

When this picture was shown to Duncan Kennedy, he simply stated, "Who is that?  How is he still alive?"

Note: His head is supposed to be turned towards the camera, unless Gordy has been teaching him the secret German luge recipe!!! {LOL}
Until tomorrow.