Am cup 3

Wohoo! Greenbay. It was SO cold there. There were windchills of -30!!
I did really well. It was my first time skating in the A group and I ended up in 16th by ONE POINT, yaaaay! Go me. I also got PBs in all 3 events, in the 1500 by 3 seconds and the 1000 (1:39.161) by a second, finally breaking 1:40.
Our coach was giving us hand signals during the races which I didn't realize at first. I never look over to the coaches box during races. So I eventually found out and decided to pay attention in the next race, which had 2 others from my team in it which made it really hard to figure out who he was signaling to. That didn't work out too well so I just decided to make my own plans in the rest of the races, haha.
I guess I should take a Korean class so I can understand the coach, it must have taken 20 minutes for me to decipher what he was trying to say on the phone.

What I heard, rephrased, in a nutshell: "Come to my room with your skates so I can sharpen them. And Tell Andrea to come too."
What he REALLY said: " I want Star to come up to my room so I can fix her blades."

I guess I should have guessed he wanted to see Stars blades because when I picked up the phone he said something in Korean, Id say something in English then hed say something else in Korean. Star is the only one in our room who speaks Korean. Hmmm...

Anyway,
Brittany was so amazing!! Ive never seen her skate like she did. Shes only been skating for 4 months and shes kicking ass and taking over the B group already. She may not know it yet but shes moving to Salt Lake this summer and will be living with me and Ansis and Mikey (who will pick SLC over Pittsburgh, sorry Pittsburgh). Yay Rochester!

Sorry dont have any skating pics! Just an airport one...


Me, Andrea, and Matt chillin at the Minneapolis airport.


Salt Lake City Inversion Madness!! (Nothing to do with the meet)


There should be Ginormous 10,000 foot mountains around somewhere...


Im still coughing from it!!

The Photo of the day...

...Cannot be shown due to lack of visual appeal. Shall I describe it? It pretty much sums up the last week of training for me. Its my left butt cheek. And It is now 4 or 5 different colors, slightly resembling the northern lights. How did it get this way you might ask? Well its really quite simple. Try falling on it, in the exact same spot, 4 times over 3 days. Its a combination of ice burn and impact, really quite lovely. And very swollen. I can only sit on the right side of my butt. But you know what? thats ok! Because I don't need to sit when im skating.

Photo of the day

It's Leslie and Jim on New Years!!



Nice antlers.

Recipes anyone?

If anyone knows a good burrito recipe do share! I know they're easy to make but I want some ideas of what to put in them. Maybe besides chicken and beans. Im on a mission to NEVER eat school food again, and burritos are fun to make, freeze, and eat for the rest of the week.

Im not dead

But I might be soon. Ive been busy waking up at 430 to get to the rink at 6 for practice now that our new coach Jun is here. Now were doing dryland before ice and again after. 4 hours total. If we don't get low enough in the corners he whacks us on the head with a skate guard! Then at 3 we've got dryland again and to top it off, 2 or 3 days a week we will have 2 ice sessions a day. Including saturday. Ive never felt such intense physical pain in my LIFE. The workouts are so painful they make me want to cry. And I DONT cry. Were doing pretty much the same workouts as the national team, and it made me feel better when I heard some of the Natl team guys cry during the workouts. I was so sore the other day it took me like 5 minutes to sit down on the toilet. OW. It was funny looking at everyones facebook statuses, "I CANT STAND UP!" "MY LEGS ARE FALLING OFF" "THE COACH IS OUT TO KILL US!" stuff like that. I figure at Am Cup 3 and Nationals were either gonna kick ass or skate 14 second laps trying, haha.

So im not sure if he knows much about long track but I asked him if I could keep doing it and he said NO. Im like WHATT??? Don't worry. Ill find a way. Theres no way I can quit long track. There are other skaters who do both, plus I just ordered a nice new LT suit!

Xmas

It seems like every time I fly in or out of SLC there are AT LEAST 4 SCREAMING babies on my flight. Coming back to Salt Lake from ROC was horrible.

First ill say I had fun seeing my brother, Anne, and my parents again. Especially my kitteh Maya. And all my friends. And Wegmans. Got a BUNCH of nice presents like new Keens, 17 inch Maple Golds (skate Blades)!!, Tea, and a Greys Anatomy trivia board game. My brothers friend Greg whos got a bajillion pairs of skis is giving him some nice atomics. Im jealous. His other friend Carmine said if I learn to do the moonwalk he'll be super jealous. So I have begun my training...
There wasnt much ice to be had in Rochester so Ansis, Lily and me went to syracuse to skate. Theyre rink is even smaller and colder than ROC, I guess ive been spoiled with our nice, big, specially padded, warm rink in salt lake!
Then we went to Ansis's house for a new years party, which was also kinda his birthday party, he turned 18. What a cool birthday! (Jim gave me moonwalking lessons)(And I dont care what Ansis says, I beat him at doubles ping pong, best game ever.)

So back to the horrible flight back.

There were 4 or 5 babies on my flight as usual, but this was worse. It was a 6am flight so I decided to just stay up all night since I had to leave at 4. I was so tired, but the babies thought I didnt need sleep so they took turns SCREAMING for the whole 6 hour flight...the parents thought it would be a good idea to walk them up and down the isle, you know, just in case I couldnt hear them from where they were. So by the time I got back, I hadnt slept in 30 hours and had to drive myself back. Not fun.

BUT! good news, our new coach Jun will be at practice on mondaaayyy!