Lake Placid Luge

An interesting article from the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/sports/olympics-learning-to-luge/

That article was amazing!!!  Such a good read.  

That's how I feel about skiing.  I just want to go again and again.  Up until a month ago I skied five times a week.  The first time I ski raced in my beer league I kept going around and around until the coaches told me to get lost.  Its been years since that day and I am still like that.  Sometimes in life you lose the ability to do something you love only to realize how blessed you really are.  I hope I remember this the next I start complaining about money, bills, work etc...  Now I have to wipe the tears away so my co-workers don't see.  

Claude

several years ago that club offered a "try it night" kind of thing. My wife and I made some reservations and did it.

First off, the club is a really cool, low key, unpretentious affair. They were more than happy to have a couple of (at the time) almost 40-somethings share the track time with actual aspiring lugers with far younger years on them.

That gopro footage brings back memories--I found it just as frightening as it looks. And the instructions she got at takeoff? Yep--that's about all you get. Kind of like the old Better Off Dead quote---"go that way really fast and if something gets in your way, turn".

Needless to say, you go way faster than I was comfortable with. Each one of my 3 runs got progressively slower as I just wanted to drag something to slow down. My wife, on the other hand, loved it. But she doesn't like skiing because she doesn't "have control". Go figure. And to think we only (and the Post writer) only start at the lowest starting spot. There are another 4 further up the track. Crazy fast those guys go.

Good article, though.

Great story that holds up to repeated reads.

My father is a member of USA Luge.  He worked for many years volunteering for events up in Lake Placid and worked the 2002 Winter Olympics.  He used to cadge a training sled to get some runs in, never starting from the top.  He slid on the old track in LP and the Salt lake track.  Didn't tell me till a year afterwards that he wiped out the first time he went down.

Great story that holds up to repeated reads.

My father is a member of USA Luge.  He worked for many years volunteering for events up in Lake Placid and worked the 2002 Winter Olympics.  He used to cadge a training sled to get some runs in, never starting from the top.  He slid on the old track in LP and the Salt lake track.  Didn't tell me till a year afterwards that he wiped out the first time he went down.