RESILIENCE… is the token word for this season and it definitely defines my performance this week in Park City, Utah after last weeks’ disappointment in Whistler. I won my 3rd World cup of my career on Wednesday, but there wasn’t a moment of time to be wasted celebrating because I had less than 24 hrs to prepare for the 8th and final World cup race of the year. And I managed to win the Bronze medal, moving me up to 7th in the Overall World cup standings. Not bad considering I missed a race and had some bad races, so this will be my start number in Lake Placid, NY in 2 weeks time at the World Championships.

Racing in Park City is very exciting! It is a really short track, so the times are always close together. The snow dumped on us all week, so of course it would be the same for both race days. Day 1 I slid down the track and was ranked 1st. By the time the rest of the field had made it down the track the margin was slim between competitors. I was in the lead by 2/100ths over Amy Williams of Great Brittan. 5/100ths in front of the German Marion Trott, and the gaps between sliders continued to stay small. I was standing at the bottom of the track thinking this will be the 3rd race in a row that I’m leading after run 1, can I keep it together? I was laughing when I got to the top in disbelief of the situation. I though of calling Cal, my sport psych, right there on the spot so he could remind what I needed to do. But he did a great job by coming to my rescue in Whistler and I was able to take care of myself. His words, “Resilience” and “Instincts” kept coming to my mind. After 14 years of sliding, you’d think I’d have enough experience to rely on my “Instincts”…so that is exactly what I did.

When I was standing at the top of the track alone with mere hundredths to spare, I felt the same as I did in St. Moritz and Whistler, CALM… but the difference this time was my focus. In the 2 previous races, I was trying to better my 1st run and focusing on my weak areas and ending up overdoing it and making the problem areas even worse, Obviously, 1st to 17th in Whistler…This time I visualized the track as usual in my warm up, but I decided to back off of everything. “Let it Go” as one of my coaches would say, which means so much more than what you’d think. Seeing the #1 when I crossed the finish line was a huge relief!

As I said earlier, no time for celebrating, I had race prep to do all over again for a race that was going to start 20 hrs later. But it was a sweet reward to hear “O Canada” play as I stood on top of the podium.

Day 2, Race 2, Great practice for World Championships and the Olympics which is a 4-heat race over 2 days. That was my mentality for the Park City series. We tried a difference strategy for my warm up, obviously Whistler in 2010 is the big picture and we do have to take some risks in World cup events to find out what works best. But this didn’t work so well…we wanted to try moving my warm up closer to the start of the race to benefit my start. I was too fired up and my push was better, but I didn’t slide as well as needed to and was in 6th after the 1st heat. Again, what a great opportunity to practice holding it all together. Not getting discouraged and keeping focus, but most importantly relying on my instincts.

I had a much better 2nd run so I made my way over the winners circle and I actually got to stay there quite a while. Again the race was so close with sliders only separated by 100ths, anything could happen. I had moved into 5th position and I was watching Amy Williams come down the track. She had gone through the last split in the track only a couple of hundredths ahead of me and as she crossed the finish line the timing clocks on the TV monitor stopped working. I was standing there in disbelief and anxious to find out where I stood. Finally I heard the announcer say her time and I realized I moved up another position. Of course I wasn’t cheering against Amy, but the suspense was really built up! My run ended up being the fastest run of the 2nd heat and I was able to stand on the podium again for Canada, this time for the Bronze.

What a great way to end the World Cup season and it definitely sets the stage for a very interesting World Championships in Lake Placid in 2 weeks.