Vancouver Bound

I think the title says it all!!! I will have a longer post in the near future.
Our team will be formally announced on the Today Show Fridy at 8AM!!!

Moving Forward....Lillehammer

First and foremost I must thank everyone for all there e-mails over the past 6 weeks or so. I keep everyone's kind words very close to my heart, and I am sorry that I have not found the time to respond personally to you all. But please no that I appreciate them very much and I hope in the coming weeks to have a bit more time on my hands and will send out notes to all of you. Most of you read about my injury this past week. I was working out in the gym, and felt a pop in my neck while doing pull-ups on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning I got a MRI that showed I had two discs they were protruding and pushing on a nerve route in my spine. On Thursday I drove to Munich with our trainer to meet with DR. Christian Schneider and received a cortisone injection to help quickly relief the inflammation. I am very thankful that he was so willing to get me in so quickly and help me. The injection was very successful and I now have almost all the feeling and strength back in my hand. I still have quite a bit of pain in my upper back, neck and right triceps, but am very optimistic that as I get my muscles to relax and start functioning properly these symptoms will too significantly decrease if not (fingers crossed) disappear completely. regardless I am getting ready to slide tomorrow and get ready for this weekend, our final world cup competition before the Christmas break. We are in Lillehammer, Norway and look to get ourfirst real taste of winter this week. The drive up from the airport was snowy and the sun is only out for about 6 hours a day.

Igls abridged update

I am extremely exhausted right now, but I want to send out a quick update regarding the past week in Austria. I finished 12th in the world cup, and normally I would be disappointed with that result, but I am so happy with the way I am sliding. All I can really control is the way I feel on the sled, and use each run to improve and better myself as a slider. I will try and get a more personal update out later in the week but for now I am going to cheat and post the latest press release from our team site.


IGLS, Austria - Julia Clukey, along with sisters Megan and Emily Sweeney advanced to upcoming World Cup luge races Monday as they eliminated Kate Hansen in a race-off in Igls, Austria.

Clukey, 24, of Augusta, Maine, fifth in the 2009 World Championships, had the two fastest runs in wet conditions and 50 degree temperatures. Using her trademark fast starts, the 11-year veteran was never threatened. Her times of 40.645 and 40.636 seconds totaled 1 minute, 21.281 seconds. The racing format allowed each racer to score their best two of three attempts down the 1976 Olympic track.

Sixteen year old Emily Sweeney, of Suffield, Conn., 2009 Junior National Champion, placed second in 1:21.642. Her 22 year old sister Megan Sweeney, also of Suffield, Conn., a two-time Junior National Champion, took the final available spot by clocking 1:21.727.

Kate Hansen of La Canada, Calif., the 2008 Junior World Champion, had the fourth best times of each heat and finished with her two best runs totaling 1:21.942.

Calgary WC-----Arriving in Europe

I am overall mostly pleased with my first world cup of the season. The first race is always the most nerve wrecking for myself because it is the first true test to see if everything you have done in the summer is going to pay off on the sled and in the track. Although my placing wasn't as high as I had hoped, both of my runs and split times definitely showed that my speed is there, and that my training this summer is going to pay off. I had some small problems in the start curve, which is rare for me as generally the start is my strongest part of my sliding and finished the first run in 14th place. My second run although not perfect was significantly better and I moved up three spots and finished 11th. I was hoping for a top 9 finish, but I took a lot away from the competition and am now ready to attack the rest of the season. It is so easy to slide reserved and be complacent with just finishing the run. To be one of the top sliders you have to take risks and really let the sled run and try to work with it, rather than trying to always control it. Every day and every run I am learning more and more of this with my training. I realize this is a lot of luge lingo, so if anyone has any question please feel free to e-mail me. Clukeyluge@googlemail.com. Even if you don't have questions feel free to e-mail me anyways, I enjoy hearing from so many people, especially from back in Maine, it makes me feel close to home.

We have been in Europe since Monday evening. Our first stop in Europe also happens to be my favorite place to visit, slide, and just be in. Igls is a small town nestled right in the middle of the alps. The views are breath taking, and unlike Germany the sun seems to always be shining here. It is by far the most beautiful place in the winter time that we visit. I am a little bit disappointed though that there isn't any snow here. Somehow competing in our sport in the cold, is a little bit easier when there is snow on the ground. I also really like sliding on this track, although it is the slowest track on circuit, it is sometimes difficult to find the time and speed for a fast run. It is very important here to drive precise lines to maximize the push you get from every curve. This is the most attended world cup in the history of our sport, over 180 sleds entered to compete, generally on an average world cup there would be around 110 sleds, sometimes in Olympic years it would rise to 130 max. Because of so many sleds that have entered, our training was limited to just 5 training runs. despite this I have had a good week of training and am ready and excited for the race tomorrow morning.

We had a Thanksgiving dinner yesterday here in Austria. The hotel did a great job preparing all of the American traditional foods. The one thing I missed was Cranberry Sauce from a can WITHOUT real cranberries. It has been years since I have had that processed perfectly canned shape goodness.

Big day for my knee

I was doing my rehab this morning around 6:30 and thought I would try and step it up a notch and give my knee a new challenge. And it PASSED!!!! I was able to stand on a physio ball for 60 seconds without my knee feeling at all unstable. woohoo!!! Balance is a big part of my training, I normally do a lot of squats and other exercises while standing on the physio ball. I am excited that I am able to start pushing this aspect of my training. At first I mocked my friend who wanted to take my picture, but now I am glad he did. All of our training is complete, and I am very excited and ready for the world cup on Saturday.

Calgary World Cup

Our training is done and we are officially into the first race of the season. I have had a good week so far in training and am really excited to take to the hill tomorrow in the qualifying race, and then again Saturday in the World Cup. The weather has been quite warm here in Calgary, well by warm I mean around 40 degrees. They are still able to maintain the track here despite the warm weather because it is a very dry climate. Not a lot of humidity in the air. Thanks to everyone who has followed me and supported me all summer. I am ready to show everyone how prepared I am.

Whistler training week

We just wrapped up our week long training in Whistler. It is mandatory that every athlete be offered 18 runs of training within the Olympic season. I spent most of the week at the track. When we weren't sliding ourselves, I spent much of the time watching the other countries slide trying to get a better understanding for the flow of the track. You can learn as much from watching people slide as you can from being on the sled yourself, sometimes more because you are able to really see where the natural pressures in the track are, and can see when an athlete is steering. When you are on the sled sliding it is more important to relax with your run and kinda take things as they come, absorbing every curve. The unique thing about luge is that you will never have two runs that are exactly identical, even being 1 inch lefter into a curve will change the where and how much you have to steer. The best sliders are able to adapt quickly and fix a problem before it can become a real problem (crashing). Overall I am very happy with the way the week went for myself. I really feel that I have a great understanding of how the track works and how to negotiate it. It took me a few days to get comfortable on the track and begin to drive consistent lines, but by the end of the week I was really focusing on relaxing, and becoming more comfortable and confident with every run. The track is very fast in Whistler my top speed was just under 87 MPH's it is really such a rush to slide there. While the speeds are very high, the track is so smooth, when you drive it right it feels like a sort of dance in a way. Everything just flows together, ALMOST effortless.
We are heading to Calgary now for the first world cup. I really feel as though I am ready for the competition's to begin. Although it was a slow start to the season and I missed some early runs because of my knee surgery, I feel as though I really optimized the time/runs I did have on the track and feel as though all my summer preparation and training is falling into place.

Goodbye Park City sun.......hello Vancouver

***Teammate, Tony Benshoof took the photo above. He does amazing work with his camera. If it weren't for him I would have very few photos of myself sliding. So big Thanks to him!!!!***

We are now sitting in the airport in Salt Lake City, UT getting ready to head to Vancouver for the International training week in Whistler. This is the only training opportunity we will have on the Olympic track prior to the games. We have had really great training in Park City. We had long days with double sessions, and the coaches kept us very busy. I definitely think the team is ready for the training week, and also ready to transition over to world cup weeks and competing. We will have 18 runs in Whistler, I definitely feel like I had a good grip on the track last year, and I am looking to just completely focus on getting completely comfortable with every run I slide. The most important aspect of sliding is being comfortable on the sled and not tensing up. When you are tense on the sled, you will be more likely to make sharp movements which ultimately can cause trouble (crash, get off line) but if nothing else you will lose time going down the track, because with all of your movements you are causing extra friction between your sled and the ice. This was the biggest thing I worked on this summer both in wheel training, and in balance/agility work outs.
The men's team was finalized during the race-off in Park City. Congratulation to Chris Mazdzer and Trent Matheson for earning their spots on the World Cup team. They will join Tony and Bengt (who were pre-qualified). The woman's team will be finalized after the training week in Whistler. The first two team trials proved to be very close, competitive racing. Two more girls will join Erin and I in the world cups.

I will try and keep my blog up more, from here on out we will just be sliding once a day. Whistler area is known for having a lot of bears, so we are hoping they aren't all in hibernation yet, last year we missed them by about a week.
I was featured on Bill Green's Maine Saturday November, 7th. This is the link to the episode, I am not sure if it will be shown on the internet. But you can probably catch it on channel 6 some night this week.
http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=110717

Long week in Park City

I had a great first week of training here in Park City. The track is in great shape and we have been able to utilize our time here and get a lot of runs and also get speed training in preparation for the training week in Whistler November 8th. The track here is very different from Lake Placid, most noticeably it is a much faster track. We train from the bob start here and reach speeds just over 81 mph. The other major difference between the track here in Park City and Lake Placid is the curves are far more stretched out so it is a great place to work on position (aerodynamics) and also smoothness in driving. If you are stiff on the sled or creating more friction with the ice (driving more than needed) then it shows greatly in your finish time at the bottom. I have been able to take a lot of runs this past week as we have had double sliding sessions available everyday. It has kept me very busy between sliding, working out, sled work and rehabbing my knee my day starts at around 6:30 AM and most days I don't sit down to dinner until about 8 PM or so. Oddly I really enjoy being this busy, I am a very detail/schedule oriented person, I don't like to waste any minute of my day. And mostly I love the fact that I lay down in bed at night and am usually asleep in about 2 minutes.
I am five weeks out of Surgery now and I am really making big steps in my rehab (finally). It couldn't come soon enough for me. I am now able to do a lot of strength exercise for my quad and hamstring with out causing any extra swelling in my knee. While in Lake Placid I was working with the head trainer Peter Toohey, and he did great things for me to get me ready to go on the road. Most importantly he helped to remind myself that I Can't approach my rehab the way I do my normal training. In my normal training I want to lift as much as possible and work through all the pain/fatigue of my muscles. But with rehabbing my knee I have had to take a step back and realize that working through the pain in most cases is just prolonging the process. With the type of procedure I had normally you would go the first three weeks without any activity, I went 4 days mostly because of the timing or lack there of. So after 5 weeks, I now have done a lot of reading and have a much better understanding of good pain vs. bad pain and know when I just simply need to give my knee a rest.
We have the day off today from sliding, Mondays are the universal day off in the luge world, because generally it is a travel day in the world cup season. After 6 long days of training we were all very much ready for a day of rest and relaxation.
We have four more days of sliding here then we will pack up all of our gear and head to Whistler for the International training week for the Olympics. I am really looking forward to getting back on the track in Whistler, and also it will be nice to see the other competitors and shift into competition mode with the first world cup lurking only three weeks away. I am about to head to the gym for a work out and rehab. Happy Fall!!!

PS: The weather is amazing here, cold at night (which is important for track conditions) and bright, sunny and warm all day!!

Back on the Sled

The past 6 weeks went slightly different than I had planned heading into the season. Upon returning from Europe I crashed wheel training in Lake Placid. My right leg took the grunt of the crash, and at first I thought/hoped my injuries were minor enough to rehab with the help of the sports medicine staff here in Lake Placid. But after two weeks of not a whole lot of change we went ahead and got x-rays and an MRI to see the full extent of the damage. I partially tore my MCL, meniscus, and a small crack on my tibia where my PCL attaches. On September 28th I underwent arthroscopic surgery to repair my meniscus, which is the only damage that won't repair itself. It was a very difficult decision for my to make and I struggled with it for a few days, but I believe it was the best decision. I was able to start sliding just 2 weeks out of surgery with A LOT of help from my teammates (Thanks!) Although I had to limit the amount of runs I have taken so far, I have about 1/2 the amount of my teammates, I already feel back to where I was last year sliding wise. And feel very comfortable on the sled.
I am almost 4 weeks out of surgery and I just got cleared to be off my crutches. We are leaving tomorrow for Park City and I am hoping to be able to really bump up my run count each day as long as I can keep my knee happy, healthy, and with minimal swollen. The good thing about training in Park City is that we have double sessions so I will be able to rest and recover in between, and not have to take all my runs in one session.
Some positive things that have happened this fall. I was able to go home to Maine for a week, see family and friends, and mostly just relax and enjoy a good Maine fall. Bengt Walden, Ashley's husband is finally an American citizen, just this past week he took his oath and applied for his passport. It is a big relief off of their shoulders and I am very excited that he is now 100% a part of our team. We had a coming to America party and introduced him to all of America's finest gifts.

This week went by really fast. We had an amazing three days of hiking in the Alps. We hiked through three different countries (Lichtenstein, Switzerland, and Austria). It was the single most challenging thing I have done because of the height aspect. I have a huge fear of heights and it has been a while since I have challenged myself and put myself in a situation out of my normal element. There were parts of the hike that brought you up and over rock faces. It was a great team activity to bring everyone together before heading into the season. It was also an amazing way to see those countries, as we never have before. In the winter we go from hotel to track to the cars heading to the next track. I have never felt so connected to the natural world and disconnected from society at the same time. The highest point through out the hike was at the mannheimer hutte, where we stayed our second night. It sits at 2,679M.






On Friday we headed over to Meransen, Italy where the start competition was taking place. We had a training session Friday afternoon and the competition was Saturday. This competition comes at a good time of the year because it Is about one month out of the sliding season so it is nice to see the other countries, see where you compare physically to them and I always leave with a little extra motivation for the last month of summer training. This year was no different. The countries that participated were Italians, Austrian, Germans, Slovenians, Japanese, Slovakian, France, and our team. There were 139 competitors total including juniors and seniors. I was really happy with the way things went. I won the womens title and also set anew track record, I was able to shave .008 off of my previous start record, which doesn’t seem like a lot of time but in luge world it is enough for me to consider myself significantly stronger than last year. Especially since this off-season I have gained roughly ten pounds. I am very happy that I haven’t lost any speed.
I am sitting in the Munich airport right now getting ready to fly back to Albany. I am looking forward to returning to Lake Placid and falling back into my normal training routine. In the eleven days I was in Europe I spent at least one night in five different countries (Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein). It will nice to be grounded again in a place. This weekend gave me an extra boost of confidence as I head into the winter season. It reaffirmed everything I have felt the past month as far as my training falling into place. Roughly 36 days until we are on ice!!!!
Here is a link to the story on the start competition in Italy:
http://www.usaluge.org/dyncontent.php?articleid=857
Here is a link to me wheel sliding in Lake Placid, NY:
http://www.usaluge.org/videogallery/CIMG0857.MOV

Altenberg

I just finished up my wheel training in Altenberg, Germany. I was able to take 42 runs over the course of the four days I was there. My goal was to take 50 runs but there was a club race on my final day of training so I was only able to train once in the morning. But overall I am very happy with the things I was able to accomplish. The only thing I would have changed about the week was the weather. It was foggy and rainy everyday that I was there. It was a new challenge for me because I have never wheel trained in the rain, I was actually a little bit nervous about the track being slippery, but it just forced me to really work on my position and being fluid on the sled, as the rain caused the sled to easily feel sideways pressure, which is something than can greatly slow you down in the winter.
I am now on my way down to Lichtenstein where I will meet up with the rest of the team at our coach, Wolf’s house. It has been a few years since I have there and I am looking forward to going back. There we will be doing last minute sled preparation for the season and hiking. There is a network of huts through the mountains there. So you can hike from hut to hut and stay the night. It is something I have always wanted to, and will be a good activity for our team one month our from our preseason camp. On Thursday we will all head to Italy for the International Start Competition.

Summer Training

I finally have my blog up and running, and will keep my finger crossed that it won't get connected to the sites it did this winter. Unfortunately I had to delete all my prior posts. This is a big year for us and I look forward to keeping you all connected to myself and team through the journey.
I really can’t believe that it is already nearing the end of August. The thoughts of sliding this spring are still very fresh in my mind, which I suppose is not a terrible thing considering the start of the sliding season is 6 weeks away. I have had a great summer training in Lake Placid, we had a solid group of athletes in and out throughout the summer. We have all been training hard with each other and in our own ways preparing for the season. I am really pleased with the amount of wheel training we have been able to do this summer. Wheel training is really important for training sliding position and smoothness, both things that I consider to be my biggest weaknesses in the sport. It is great to be in a community that is so supportive and helpful in our training. The track allowed us to use the track 3 times a week, which is a lot in there busy schedule and work maintenance they are doing this summer to get the track ready for the winter. We have watched them re-sow a lot of the shades that cover the curves, and they have also extended the roof cover almost half way up the finish. The track is now probably about 95% covered which is important for keeping consistent track conditions.
There were a lot of different sports floating around the training center this summer. At times Lake Placid can get very repetitive in the day to day schedule, so seeing so many fresh faces and sports has help to keep things both interesting and motivating. Seeing athletes from different sports prepare for their own individual competitions can be very inspiring. A lot of the sports that come through the Lake Placid training center are smaller sports much like luge. One thing in particular that is special about the training center is the amount of development programs kids ages 10-14 that have training camps in the summer. They represent their sports in their truest form with pure joy. While I love what I do, and am so blessed to have found something to partake in that I am so passionate about, at the end of my day results matter a lot. And I think at the elite level it is easy for the true love of sport to slip your mind. The development camps here not only offer a reminder of my live for what I am doing but also offer such great energy, and lastly they give me an extra push within myself to be the type of person/athlete these kids are aspiring to be.

So I am on the train now heading to Newark airport and getting ready to fly overseas for an 11-day training camp. My first stop in Altenberg, Germany where I am going to be wheel training for 4 days by myself. I try to always take some training time for myself so I can focus solely on what I am thinking. I came here last year for the first time (at the time we didn’t have any wheel training available in Lake Placid) and really enjoyed the training I got here, and the better understanding of my sliding strength and weaknesses. Although I have had the opportunity to wheel train in Lake Placid this summer I decided to try and train in Altenberg again because the tracks are quite different. In Altenberg I can really focus on being smooth and making my movements on the sled softer and try and find the finesse I sometimes lack in the winter. From there I will meet up with the rest of the team in Lichtenstein are our head coaches house. We are going to do a 3 days hike between huts in the mountain. It is something I have wanted to do for sometime so I am glad that we were able to fit it in to the schedule. The last stop with be the start competition in Italy. I am really looking to returning this year and seeing where my start times compare with past seasons. I have been doing a lot of work on my paddle strength this summer and this will be my first real test. I hope everyone is ale to enjoy the last weeks of summer, and is able to find sometime to get outside and enjoy all the natural gifts of the world.