My final round of the Master's started with my alarm clock not going off at quarter of six in the morning, as I forgot to set the alarm to Weekends instead of Weekdays--- Thank goodness for the Annoying Pool Players... just like clock work started yupping it up at five o'clock. I rolled over and looked at the clock and it was five fifty-eight. Talk about jump starting the day...
I packed up my garb, and threw it in the car and headed over the track. Even after my late start, I opened the sled house. I picked up my sled and placed it on the ice and snow to cool the steels so that I would not be disqualified. While my MP3 player repeated Steely Dan's "Bodhisattva", I sat on the sled, gently rocking back and forth, watching the other competitors arrive and go through their pre-race rituals. I get up to gather my backpack full of my stuff out of the sled shed and see Amy and Hannah Miller. I first met Amy and Hannah while volunteering at a USLA Slider Search in Utica two years ago. I told Hannah that I slid a personal best of 47.4 yesterday. I asked her what her best was, "45.7" was her reply. WOW. I grabbed my sled, and boarded the second truck up to the start house with four other competitors.
At the start house, the pre-race jitters set in. Shoes, no shoes, shoes, no shoes.... No shoes, it'll lighten up my feet so they would be less likely to hit the ice, as Tony noted last evening. Oh, BTW, have I told you I hate high blood pressure medicine -- it makes you have to go in the most inopportune times.... {ok, ok TMI}
The race started on time and was executed as scheduled until Scott Hanlon, pictured in Day 2, crashed in Turn 19. He walked away from the incident without injury. The leader in the men's division (below fifty years old) was Duncan Kennedy with a time of 44.3, and ADK Club vice president Brett West in second with a sub 45 second run (his first time below 45 sec).
In the Men's Senior division, the one that I was competing in, the first three runs were uneventful. Bill Dearborn, who had a benign tumor removed from his brain in January, flipped off his sled just before Turn 19. At the beginning of the season, I thought that Bill was the guy to beat. If I could catch Bill, I held a reasonably decent chance to do really well. With that idea completely out the window, I was left on my own...
"Bruce, its time" calls the official (Amy Miller). It sounded more like a warden's command to condemned prisoner at the beginning of a death march, than "go get your sled and step onto the scale". I stood on the scale, sled in hand and weighed in at 122.3 kilos, well below the 128 kg that I had been allotted at Friday's weigh-in. Stepping off of the scale, I leaned the sled up against the pole, so that another official could measure the temperature of each of the sled's steels with a contraption that looks alot like a single medical probe used during an execution. Great, just friggen great... "Sled in the track. Sled in the track." Now, it's my turn....
"Track is clear to Start 4 for Bruce" is announced to everyone this side of the mountain.
I've got thirty seconds to enter the track. Breathe, breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Rock forward - Inhale. Compress backwards - exhale completely ---- I explode forward, pulling with all of my arm, back and leg strength that I could possibly muster. Paddle as hard as possible, digging those "medieval torture implements of death" spikes into the ice, and pulling myself faster and faster. Get prone onto the sled, keep to the right make a sweeping turn to the left. Reposition myself after the turn, and grab a hold of the handles inside my pod with my thumbs and little fingers. I can't wrap my other three fingers around the handle because of the implements of death on my fingertips. No death grip there... keep constant pressure of the left kufin all the way through Shady 10, and wait for the drop to the beginning of the Labyrinth - left, right, left. I find myself (quite remarkable actually) in the middle of the track, staring at the entry into Bendham's Bend (Turn 14). "Don't do anything in 14, just stay neutral", the coaches' advice fickers through... At this point I exit Turn 14 in the Chicane doing 91.04 kph or about 57 mph. I lay back just like my last practice run yesterday. Holy Moly --- the same result - no wall brushes, hey was that Turn 16 that I just felt under my left steel. I lift my head ever so slightly to sneak a peak where I am entering Turn 17, right of center -- most excellent. The expansion joint past, 1. 2. press on the right kufin, drive the sled out of the turn. CRAP. I hit the wall with my left tricep. I'm a little early into Turn 18... Got that.. Hang a hard left, I drive the sled through 19 with constant pressure on the right kufin until I see the exit. Let go, stretch my legs as far forward as I possibly can, every inch is a hundredth of a second. Finshed.... Breathe, right turn. As I slide past the bobsled's finish sign, I find myself listening to applause from the crowd. I musta done ok. I have to grab the kufins and pull up to slow down so I don't go to far up the ramp. Never had to that before... I climb out of the track.... I am NOT dead. Definitely not dead, quite alive.
I have to stick my hand into the bucket to grab a golf wiffle ball, if the ball you pull is white - you are ok, if it colored -oh man -- I don't want that to happen again - you are the designated control. Your sled gets measured six ways from Sunday, you get weighted with the sled, have to strip down and get weighted again to see if you are the same wieght as when you weighted in - on Friday!!! That's a lifetime ago..
"Colored Ball", I said aloud as I pulled a white ball from the bucket.
As I regain concensciense from the focused stupor that I find myself in, I hear Jim Murphy tell me "46.4". What? That can't possibly be. I shake my head. "46.4", Jim repeats to me. Utter disbelief. Complete and utter disbelief. After the last slider of the group arrives at the finish area, we pile into the truck to head back up the hill to the start house.
I'm in fourth -- Holy Shitake Mushrooms.. Frigg'n A.
In a luge race, on the second run, they change the order of the slider - the slowest slider from run one goes first and the fastest slider goes last. I am sliding fourth from last. I am six tenths behind Jay Edmunds, and nine tenths behind Bob Young and Paul Suplinskas the leader of the Senior Men's division. The wait is absolutely excuriating, the three women still have to slid, the two fore runners, the open men division, then us. I am becoming more and more antcy as the time passes. I tell myself that your in the best position, not on the medals, just outside. You have to lay it out there, to put pressure on the top three and hope that they crack under the pressure.
A half hour doesn't seem like an eternity to most, but it is when the anxiety level is this intense. I wonder what my blood pressure was.. felt like eight billon over two. I am a complete and absolute mess mentally.
"Bruce", the call comes again. Repeat the process, on the scale, measure the steels. I step onto the start ramp, lay my sled in the track on the diagonal and sit down on the sled. Tony Shimkonis is performing a task that is common in the sport, he is wiping any debris from the booties of all the sliders. As I mentioned before Tony had a collision with a wall at the base of Turn 19 on Thursday, and he decided this morning, not to slide. "There's always next year." he said earlier at the sled house. I feel bad as Tony is really great guy.
"Track is clear to start four for Bruce", Kim announces over the PA system.
OMG. OMG. I feel everything - heart beating - blood flowing in every vein and artery - lungs expanding and contracting. OMG OMG
Calm down... Breathe. Breathe.
I rock forward and fill my lungs to capacity. I pull back exhaling until my lungs are seemingly empty, compressing my body. Controlled rock forward inhaling, back exhaling, Pull for the moon!!! Dig. Dig. Dig, Get to the right, sweep left. Then, remarkably... I've seen this movie before... Shady 2, Labyrinth, Bendham's Bend, Chicane, The Heart, Turn 19, stretch the body through the finish, slide to a stop to hooting, hollering and a ton of applause. I hand my sled to Jim, and he says "46.1".
Utter disbelief.
I've have done everything that I could, two personal best times back to back. I am currently in first. This lasts all of about 55 seconds, as Jay Edmonds slides slower than I do, but his six tenths provides a sufficient buffer. I am now in second place. I still can not believe this -- surreal -- absolutely surreal. It might all slip away. Even if it does, I have laid it all out on the track. I've made my peace.
Bob Young is now on the track sliding cleanly all the way in to Turn 19, when all of the sudden the track Kim announces to the crowd, "He's having problems in nineteen". "Bob finishes with a time of 47.576, with a total time of 1.33.174. Bob is in third place."
The reality of the situation now sits in, I am going to medal. In my first Master's I am going to medal!!! Paul is on the track and lays down another sub 46 second run. The medal is bronze.
Breathe, Breathe.
I see the "Luge Fantasy Camp" sliders that I watched yesterday morning and talk with them. Nice folks... The gent from NYC asked me if I even remember the runs. He asks me if it seemed like a movie. I can't reply to his question. This recount is the only recollection of that exists in written form from my own experience today and will remain embedded in the permanent memory somehow stored in my brain.
I grab my stuff and head back to the sled shed. I clean up the sled, spraying WD-40 on the steels and wipe them down with a rag so to ward off the rust. I store the sled for the last time this year. I change from my sliding outfit into my regular street clothes. and head down to the lodge at the base of complex for the award cermonies. While waiting for the presentation, I spoke with Duncan Kennedy, and he told me that what I did today was "amazing". I say "Thanks". Clearly, I must not really be here... a three time Olympic luger is telling me that my performance was "amazing", I am somewhere in the stratosphere - truely surreal.
I call Karen on my cell phone, and wake her up, and tell her "A bronze. I got a bronze." This stinks. I want to share all of this with her. I know she hears the excitement in my voice, and I am absolutely 100% sure is happy for me.
The award ceremony begins. First, the men's senior open division, Matt Gannon get the bronze, Brett West takes the silver, and Duncan Kennedy gets his sixth gold medal in this division - even with his back problems. My name is announced, I accept my medal, pose for pictures with Jay and Paul. The women, Jen, Kirsten and Erin recieve their medals as well.
On a day, on which the temperature was nearly the same when I first jumped on a luge training sled a little over two years ago, I feel like the same kid sliding down the rolling hills in southern Wisconsin on a "Snow Day" thinking about how cool would it be to slid in the Olympic on a luge... I think I just did...
Surreal. Absolutely Frigg'n Surreal.
Oh yeah, with a vintage 1976 conehead helmet from West Germany {ROF LMAO} Not.
As for the other Master's event that happened today -- I don't really care who won any more. I just have to endure another nine months and head out to Park City. I coming for you Jay! I am not sure that I can wait that long.
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