Dear Sponsors:

The first week of training in Lake Placid was great, I got myself right back into form and was consistently training in the top six. However, the race week did not go quite as planned. You see, during a race the competitors are required to certain sled runners made out of a standardized material. Unfortunately, my set of race runners did not perform well and I finished the races in 8th, 10th and 11th place respectively. These were still respectable results due to Lake Placid not being my home track. In fact, they were my best trial results ever. As for the runners, there was little I could do. Some runners are just made fast and others not. Sled-building is a cottage industry and consistency in product quality is sometimes lacking.

After what seemed like an eternity in Lake Placid, I finally got back to my home track in Park City, UT. Ah, what a good feeling that was! I found a new pair of race runners which were a lot faster, trained well and came in prepared for the races. The first (of three) competitions went good. I finished in sixth place which was great considering who was ahead of me. Eric Bernotas, Zach Lund, Chris Hedquist and Caleb Smith are some of the best sliders in the world. In fact Eric placed sixth in the Torino Olympics and Zach Lund was #1 in the world last year.

The second race was another story. Before the first run, I forgot to make an adjustment to my sled, resulting in an ultra-slow finish time which left me in last place for the day. The second run was much faster after making the adjustment, but it was not enough to move me up the standings. Fortunately, we were allowed to drop our worst result from the six races so I got to drop this race and learn a lesson at the same time!

I ended up finishing eighth overall, which means I am now ranked eighth in the nation, up two spots from last year. I am slowly getting up there! This ranking qualified me to compete on the Europa Cup circuit, which consists of 4 races on tracks in Italy, Austria and Germany. However, I will be unable to compete on the circuit this year due to academic commitments and tight financial resources. So the plan is to compete on the America's Cup circuit in Lake Placid, Park City and Calgary, CA as well as go to Germany for Junior World Championships at the end of the year. Check out the schedule of training and races on the www.slidingforward.com web site.

As for what is going on outside of skeleton, I am wrapping up my first semester at Westminster College and looking at a 4.0 GPA. I am also still working at the school rock climbing wall. The holidays can't come soon enough for me and I'm looking forward to spending some time with friends and family.

Sincerely,