Thursday, February 5, 2009

Whistler Update

Helloooooooooooooo Eh! That's Canadian for Hello! LoL.........Come on that's funny!

It is only by the Grace of God that I am privileged to represent my country, family, and friends around the world, and for that Father I am thankful.

We are currently up in Whistler, Canada, last week was strictly dedicated for training and this week is World Cup race week. Being that this is a new track as a safety precaution the FIBT rules require that a week of Training is provided to all competing nations prior to the race week. This gives all the drivers a chance to get acclimated to the track as much as possible before the actual race. During the training week the Ice is not what we refer to as race ready. When the ice is race ready the track crew will spritz down the entire track with warm water which causes the ice to glaze over even more making it faster. Oh, and by the way this track is FAST I mean VERY VERY FAST even-though the ice is not ready we are already going 89.5 mph in a 2-man sled! Now as a point of reference on most tracks 4-man sleds do not hit this speed, so the 4-man sleds here are going to easily break 100mph!!! ALL ENGINES PREPARE FOR LUDACRIS SPEED!!

The scenery out here is beautiful, it is a great ski resort type of town. The mountains are covered with snow and from the top of the Bob run you get a gorgeous view of the mountains piercing through the clouds, and the town below. The village area where we are staying is completely walkable. Within in a mile radius their are numerous clothing stores, jewelery stores, grocery stores, movie, pub, night-clubs, hotels and condos on every corner and etc it has everything. Also if you happen to be in Whistler and you have a craving for some good Mexican food you should stop by Dups Burrito on Main Street www.dupsburritos.com we got a chance to meet the owners and some of the employees, they are a great group of people and the food is excellent!!!! And for my City Planners out there, there is not a Wal-Mart, Target or any other big box store in sight! As you make your way through town it seems like everyone is walking around in ski shoes and either have a snowboard or some form of ski in their hands.

The hotel we are staying at is called the Tantalus. The rooms are set up like suites, having their own kitchen area, living room equipped with pull out bed,one room with two twin beds, and one room with a queen size bed, and 2 bathrooms. I love it when the hotels that we stay at have their own cooking area, because I enjoy cooking for myself instead of having to eat out at restaurants for a week or more. Outside the hotel there is a three lane wide swimming pool, two hot tubs and a sauna. The hot tubs are a great way to loosen up my legs after a day of sliding!!!!! I could probably live in those things and be fine with it....well I mean if I did not prune up and things! lol If not for that you would walk down the street and be like hey why does this lot have just a gate and a hot tub surrounded by TV's, appliances, and a mail box? Then someone would turn to you and say of that's Jesse's house! Then you would say Oh! and keep on walking. HA!HA! And......I digress!

Like the other hotels we stay at when we are not in the USA this one has a separate garage from its main garage where we store our bobsleds at. And like most of these garages this one is not heated either, so you can imagine it gets a little chilly at times when we are down there doing sled work. Due to the fact that the other countries do not always have training centers or training centers they let other countries use we bring weights with us and these garages double as our weight room and track for doing sprints. It is definitely not ideal but hey we make the best out of what we have to work with. It can also get a little hairy at times trying to sprint in a cold garage that has ice spots on the ground, I know this because I took a nice little fall the other day on a patch of ice as I was trying to slow down. Not Fun!

The bobsled track is five minutes away from the the Hotel we are staying at, which works out pretty nice. When we head to practice each USA team loads up the sled they will be training with on that day (Men have a choice between using the 2-Man or 4-Man sled, women only have 2-Man sled) into the back of their pick-up truck, then head over to the Bobsled Track parking lot. Once at the parking lot every team unloads their sleds onto a flat bed trailer, where we wait for the sled trucks to come down and take our sleds to the top of the hill for training. The sled trucks are just your basic enclosed U-Haul type of truck that have some form of chain, hook tie-down that we secure to our sled so they do not fall out the back on the way up the hill. I have posted some pictures of the sled truck on my web site. It is not always the smoothest ride up the hill but it gets us there.

At the top of the hill it is organized confusion! The start area at the top is sectioned off by movable gates. Each gate has reserved sled spots for each country depending on the sliding order that day. The sliding order is determined at the beginning of the week through a random draw. Last week of training had both the men and the women sliding together, but this week gender will have their own sliding session. The separate sliding session splits up the 50 sleds and 130 or more people being on the top of the hill at one time, thus making each session smaller and more manageable.

I have posted a TON of pictures of Whistler and the Bobsled Track here on my web-site www.jessebeckom3.com on the Media Page so have a look see! At you can watch our races online if you follow this link http://www.universalsports.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000&KEY=&SPID=11674&SPSID=95677

Well that is all I have for now everyone, I wish you all the best and please say prayer for me and my team that we do our best and kick som butt up here!

God Bless

Jesse Beckom III
www.jessebeckom3.com
www.jessebeckom.blogspot.com