Santo Domingo!

Hi All!
Hola! Como estas?
 As most of you know, I've been planning to travel to Haiti for some time now. I've been hoping and praying for everything to work out. Timing, Organization, money, etc.  EVERYTHING has! 
I've been blessed to be able to come to Santo Domingo as well, which initially was not part of the plan but I'm beginning to think I'm God's resident stand-up comedian 'cause I STAY making God laugh with my planning! lol!
Anyway, I landed yesterday after about 7 hours of travel and Santo Domingo is beautiful!  it reminds me in a lot of ways of Jamaica.  There are tons of Haitians in Santo Domingo right now, especially since the earthquake as many have relocated looking for jobs and homes.
I'm in the midst of a dream come true right now as I am about to implement a Camp EDIFY right here in Santo Domingo!   It's going to take some time and these next few weeks will just be the initial stages, but I've already been invited to come back next year to oversee the continuation of it!  YAY!!
   I leave for Haiti on the 18th and I'm very excited about that as well and I hope to be able to keep you posted as much as possible.
I'm staying with a wonderful family, a Pastor and her husband and their little dog Shiloh (shylito, they call him in endearment!) and they have been extremely generous and hospitable to me already...and I've only been here for two days!
I can't wait to tell you all more about what's happening!
Stay tuned,
Shelley

Wow!

There is so much to say, I hardly know where to begin!
the last few months of my life have been more of a roller coaster ride than any I've ever been down before!
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for all of the love, encouragement support, prayers and loud cheers during the Olympic Games.
It was the experience of a lifetime that I feel I will never be able to comprehensively put into words.  It was everything that I imagined that it would be and more.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I leave you with these pictures to say some things that I possibly never could... ENJOY!!!

Mea Culpas, H1N1 and a New Season!

Ok, Ok, I know....it's been a long time. Understate things much, Shelley? Alriiiight, it's been a long LONG time since I've updated and I'm so SORRY!!! If you've physically been around me in the last few months you know that I've promised and promised again to update, and that I really do feel quite badly about not making the time to do it. So, it's very late, but it's an update and it comes with a new promise: I will be more regular in updating my blog from here on out. Forgive me? Great! Thanks!

So, much of the reason that I have been putting off updating you all is that there is SO much catching up to do! Rather than try to fill you in with all the details of the past few months, let's just start fresh with this season

I had a really great summer of training - and by great, I mean grueling, challenging, and the hardest summer of training I've ever had -EVER! This means a lot coming from someone who has been doing some type of athletics since I was 13! It was tough. But, I had some good gains in speed and strength and I was happy that I was able to work as hard as I did.

Our pre-season began in Whistler ( the Olympic track) where we spent 2 weeks having our team selection races, and one week of international training.

We had a huge costume party for my teammate Helen's birthday the day we arrived in Whistler for international training. It was fun and all the nations participated. I went as Cleopatra!

During the week of international training I suddenly began to feel ill one night. Helen, Jenny and I were sitting in the living room of our suite drinking tea when my throat started to feel tight, sore and scratchy. Thinking I probably just needed some sleep, I headed to bed and my throat proceeded to get more sore! When I woke up in the morning I felt even worse but went to the gym with the rest of my teammates to get our physical training in. I felt overly warm, and tired through the entire workout and eventually spent the last 45 minutes of training curled up in a ball on the floor in the corner of the gym, waiting for my teammates to finish but really not caring to move a muscle at all!

Jenny called our team therapist Murray(over my vehement protests!) who took me to the clinic. When I arrived I had to put on one of those mouth and nose masks - you know the ones- circa the SARS scare era? I was laughing embarrassedly behind that mask thinking,

'Wow! this is a LOT of precaution." Until they led me to the hallway where the nurse who was to look after me promptly put on a Haz-Mat suit and sterilized an entire examination room for me to sit in! 10 short minutes later, she deduced that I indeed had a virus and since there was no other virus out right now, it was probably SWINE FLU!

I spent the next 48 hours quarantined and barely leaving my bed, and the following two days slowly recovering. Then as suddenly as it arrived, it left. Let me tell you I was very happy to see it go! Good Riddance H1N1!

We travelled to Park City, Utah for the first World Cup. I raced with Helen Upperton and we finished up in fifth place with the Germans in 1st and 2nd and the Americans in 3rd and 4th. Kaillie finished right behind us in 6th place, while Amanda Stepenko and Amanda finished in 11th.

After Park City, we went to Lake Placid, NY, for the second stop on the World Cup tour. Lake Placid is about 5 hours from Toronto so my family was able to come up and watch me race! It was my parents' second time seeing a bobsleigh event, but my sister, my aunt and my little nephew were also able to make the trip this time. It was so good to see them after being away for so long. Helen and I finished in 6th place, and our teammates Kaillie and Heather made the podium and finished 3rd, thankfully breaking up a German sweep of the podium! Amanda Stepenko and Amanda Moreley finished in 12th.

I got to go home for 4 days of much needed R&R before getting on a plane to Europe. We flew to Munich and drove to Nuremburg, the site of the Adidas Factory out let where we get special discounts as sponsored athletes and received our bag of adidas gear for this year. This is also the place where I got my  nephew Andre's cute little winter jacket. Isn't he the cutest!!!

The next day we made the 7 hour ( 9 after getting lost!) to Cesana, Italy where I'll be racing tomorrow with Kaillie at 6pm.

For those of you on Eastern Standard Time, I race at about 12noon on Saturday. Mountain time, that's 10am!

Ok, that's it for now,

Wish me luck and don't forget to tune in to cbcsports.ca for the live online streaming of the event

British Holdiays and Back to Business!

Hello All!

I know, I know! It's been like, forever since I last updated and I'm SO sorry to all of you that came by (thanks!) hoping to see something and not finding anything new! My apologies.

So, first let me say 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  

I hope that you had an excellent Christmas and New Year and my wish is that 2009 brings you all continued growth and all the joy and peace your hearts can handle.

As many of you know, after the cancelled race in Cesana, I went to England to spend my Christmas break in London with some family that I have there.  If you've never been to London....GO THERE!!  It was wonderful and I loved it immensely!  I am kind of a big fan of old things and history that you can actually touch fascinates me. It was SO cool to walk around the streets of London and see buildings that have been standing for hundreds of years.  Plus, I am completely enamoured of the English accent!  :-)

 The best part of the trip through, was getting to spend time with my wonderful cousins and visit with some dear friends.   One of my friends is a guard in the British Army and so I was able to tour around with him and see some pretty special things, and get the "insider's" perpective. 

An old college friend of mine is from London and she just happened to be having her 30th birthday party while I was there and we were able to reconnect 

after 6 YEARS of not having seen each other! That was amazing.  Here some pics of me and my cousins

My break went by very quickly and soon enough it was time to get back to the business of bobsledding!

Our first race back after the break was in Konigsee, Germany.   I didn't race in Konigsee last year, so at the beginning of the week I was looking forward to being able to race there.   We were able to push very well and Kaillie drove well also and we had our second top 6 finish of the season finishing the race in 5th place in a very tight field. 

One very unfortunate thing that took place during the race to one of my teammates Helen Upperton was a freak injury to her ribs that she sustained 

while trying to load into the sled.  We found out afterwards that she has torn the cartilage off  one of her ribs....OUCH!!!   

Again, if you're a praying person...please keep her health and speedy 

recovery in your prayers.  Here's a picture of Kaillie and I on the podium!

I race again tomorrow in St.Moritz, Switzerland as a make up race for the one that was cancelled. I'm racing with Helen this weekend and because she's very injured she may have to sit in the sled while I push it by myself!  It should be fun, anyhow and I'll be sure to update you as to how that went!

Oh, one more thing:  Everyone wants to know how I was able to be away from my immediate family during the Christmas season. I can tell you, that it was very hard, but it was something that I had committed to before the season even began. I do miss my family terribly, but I brought a little piece of them to Europe with me and every week when we travel to a new destination and we drop our Adidas bags in our room and prepare to slide the next day, I set up something special on my bedside table.  When I'm feeling like the stress is getting to me,  or when I've had a particularly hectic or bad day or just whenever I feel like it is necessary, I have a VERY good reminder of what's most important: 

Snowed In!!

  Remember when you were a kid, and you wished for those huge snowfalls that would keep you out of school the next day? Sometimes it would snow a ton, and the following morning you'd look longingly at the snow while listening to the radio and eating your breakfast just hoping that your school would be among closures named.  Every now and then, (maybe once a year) you'd get lucky and school would actually be cancelled.  

Most of the time though, you were pulling on your snowpants and boots trudging through the snow to school, thinking, "at least recess will be super fun today!"

  Well, my childhood dreams of massive snowfalls were fulfilled  and THEN some as I woke up yesterday to find the biggest snowfall I have ever seen outside the window of my bedroom at the Olympic Training centre in Cesana, Italy.  Take a look at THIS!

I spent the day braiding my teammate Jenny's hair with extensions and shoveling snow. It was a day off anyhow and training wasn't supposed to start until the next day.  It snowed almost the entire day but by the time I went to bed it had stopped snowing. Or so i thought!  

Look at it today!

As I write this, the snow is about as tall as I am, which is 173m tall or 5'8, and we are preparing to have a massive nation against nation snowball fight which will probably go down in history as the BEST snowball fight to ever happen in the history of bobsleigh.  I'm talking forts, strategies,  ambushes - the whole nine yards!  Officially right now, it's  us( the Canadians) the Russians, The Latvians, The Brits, The Austrians and Japan (who will probably team up with the Brits 'cause they have  a pretty small team.  Yup,  it's a snowball WAR, not a snowball fight!

I know that I will most likely be sore and very tired tomorrow but I have to take this opportunity to have this snow fun...ten year old Shelley would never forgive me if I didn't :-)

Gotta run! I have snowpants to put on!

Vegetarian Frustrations and Sleep Restoration!

Wa-HOO!! 

I'm sleeping again!  It's not always the best sleep in the world but I'll take it when I get it. Thanks to all of you who emailed me with your concerns and with your well-wishes and suggestions. Being sleepless was really hard and I now can empathize effectively with all of the insomniacs out there in the world. 

I got some really great advice from a brother of mine from my college days and it helped a ton. Thanks again Govinda!  My teammate Helen is a chronic insom

niac, so I did take some medication that she had one night, but I actually didn't sleep 

the whole night through even with that. 

Unfortunately, the drought of sleep left my body's immune system a bit vulnerable and the first morning after I got any real sleep I started to come down with  a nasty bug that has been going around. Ugh!  So, I have been sneezing, coughing and walking around with a congested head for the last few days. On the up side, I have found that Ny-Quil is a GREAT sleep inducer! :-)

Even though Igls, is one of the most beautiful spots that we get to come to on tour, there is one significant downside: The food.

Now, being a vegetarian is a lifestyle that can be challenging at times. Being a vegetarian athlete usually means I find myself in an even more challenging sit

uation. Being a vegetarian athlete in Austria when your hotplate has broken so you can't fend for yourself is downright exasperating!

 This Austrian hotel manager is very proud of the food the hotel s

erves and is notoriously stubborn about the food the hotel serves...and Austrian cuisine is - well, let's just say it's interesting and leave it at that. YIKES!   

So, even though our team manager and coaches told her in advance of the vegetarians on the team she viewed it as though I were a bratty child who, faced with having to eat their vegetables defiantly stomps their feet and says "I HATE Brocc

oli!"

The first night I was able to have a cup of the  first course - soup. And I ate some bread. That's it.

The second day she breezed in to the room after our tomato and

 cheese salad with a plate balanced on her hand perched high above my head.  "De Vegetarianisch meal?"

My teammates pointed to me and I raised my hand, happily an

ticipating my meatless meal.

"Ok, for you," she said and plunked down in front of me - and I"m not kidding - a HUGE plate of french fries.  That's it. Just fries.  I was stunned.  

"You eat zee fries, no?" she asked,  "Um, yeah....I eat the fries, but

..."  I mumbled, still astonished at the sight I was beholding.

I wish I had taken a picture so I could show you exactly what I'm talking about.  It's a far cry from a meal of champions that's for sure!  All I could do was laugh!  

I laughed all the way to my room where I promptly mixed the biggest and most satisfying  hemp protein shake I have ever had in my life!

p.s.  I forgot that I promised to send a picture of the new red speedsuits ( which Jay tells me is really not that bad).  So, here are a few!

Igls, Post - Race.

Bittersweet.

 Whoever was behind the creation of this word must've been a genius. It's such a perfectly descriptive word for a nearly indescribable feeling.   I've never attempted to write directly after a race. Not even an email.  Usually, it's because I'm too busy but often it's because I'm afraid that I won't be able to find the right words for how I feel. 

Today, I do - Bittersweet.

First the sweet:  Canada topped the podium once again today and it was wonderful! Helen and Heather were able to solidly claim first prize (and yes- another 2 litre stein for beer!).  I got a chance to sing "O Canada" with my teammates as loudly(even though we were QUITE off-key!) as possible and burst with National pride.

  Kaillie and I didn't fare quite as well as as we missed the prize places ending up in 7th place. My other teammates Lisa and Amanda were 13th, so our '3 sleds in the top 10' streak has ended.  It's strange how perspective changes from one season to the next and one year what is wonderful is the cause of your tears the next year.  

I remember the first year I did track and field in college and I didn't make the big 12 conference team for the indoor season.  I was very sad, but determined to make the team for the outdoor season.  And I did.  The very next indoor season I narrowly missed winning Big 12 championships in the 60m sprint and I was favoured to be an All-American. It would've been laughable to me to not make the Big 12 team.  Not making All-American status (because it was what I was expecting) was disappointing.  What a difference a year makes, eh?

 I guess that was the bitter part.

But it shouldn't be.  7th in the world is nothing to sneeze at.  Ok, it's not the same thing as in a sport like say, track and field or swimming, but still. There aren't too many people in the world able to make that claim... about anything or any sport. I'm grateful for the opportunity to compete, I'm grateful for the things my body enables me to do and the joy that it gives me.  I'm grateful that I get to travel around the world and see things I would probably not ever see if I wasn't bobsledding. I'm grateful for the people that I get to meet and the chance to do something that people rarely get to do.  That supercedes any disappointment in my finish, and it is enough for me today. 

Tomorrow is another story....