Avoiding Civil Unrest During Extended Power Outages

I spent the last week or so in Russia where the 2014 Winter Olympics will be held.  The key word here is “Winter.”  

Around this time last year we were also in the Sochi area and it was also around 60-70 degrees every day.  Then later in the year we were back at the end of February and it was also 60-70 degrees and little or no snow.  So it seems like there are some looming questions of whether or not there will be snow for the Olympics.  Sources say that Russia is guaranteeing snow for the Olympics… Fortunately for Luge, Bobsled, and Skeleton the track is refrigerated and the ice, although slower, is still intact and slidable.  That is unless there happens to be a major power outage!  

During one of the sessions there was a major power outage when apparently in the next town over a crew of workers moved a bit too much earth and severed a major underground power line.  This sent the entire town of Krasnaya Polyana into darkness and left the track running on a few generators that wouldn’t last to long if backups were not brought.  

Initially we were told there would be a short hold and the power would be back on but this was certainly not the case.  Then began the waiting game.  Just imagine being in a foreign country, let alone the far outreaches of rural Russia, with no power and realistically no clean water.  Without electricity things might get a little stir crazy, especially in an age of technological wonders.  

So how was civil unrest avoided???  Well the hotels are pretty slick.  They had generators to keep essentials working.  But what should we consider essential?  Well that list would not include lights in any rooms, the ability to circulate water to all hotel room bathrooms, shutting down one or both elevators occasionally, and diverting power to the kitchen during cooking hours only.  What was considered essential?  Hallway emergency lights, lobby bathrooms, and the wifi.  Wait, thats right for some reason the wifi was still working.  SMART.  What else would keep people most occupied right?  With a potential of no dinner and no power until possibly the AM the internet was a proper distraction.  As long as people could access their technological lives they would not riot.  Not saying that we would have rioted but for sure we would have gone a little stir crazy.  

After the first day without power the following three days saw a roller coaster ride of generator power surges, short term power outages, elevator failures, and false security alarms.  We adapted.  There were times when I was performing my Athletic Training duties out in the dark while using a headlamp and we still held yoga sessions under the emergency lighting because the show must go on.

My only hope is that the construction gets buttoned up and the electricity situation gets “wired” before we return in February.  A large scale failure to be done with construction and the potential power issues could cripple the Olympic Spirit.

SOCHI-DA! Things Are A Changing

SOCHI-DA, is the familiar sign around the track that hasn’t changed here in Russia since we last visited.

We arrived from Munich on Thursday to a balmy Sochi; it’s located on the Black Sea and is Sub Tropical as far as climate goes.  We wheeled our coffin sized equipment boxes out of the airport and loaded them in cargo trucks and began the hour and a half bus ride to Krasnya Polyana where the track is.

Boxes and Luggage the story of our lives.

This season we have for sure up graded and are staying in a very, very nice hotel (Radisson Blu) located in a town, Rosa Khutor, just minutes away from the track.  We arrived in the dark but just judging by the look of some of the buildings we saw, I’d say that quite a lot has changed since last year when I was thinking this place would never be close to done.  The Radisson was not even open yet when we were last here in late February/early March.  The train station looks like it’s on it way to be completed and numerous other building are finished, newly started, or half done.

One very interesting change, and a welcome one for the athletes, has been the more American style food.  A good selection of fish, meat, chicken, rice, and vegetables, along with a salad bar, A WALL OF SEEMING FRESH BREAD (my favorite), and a desert selection.  This is a far cry from last year when liver filled crepes, bland beef chunks, greasy rice and veggie mixes, and borsch ruled the dinner hour.

The last two days have seen the USA Luge team, as well as 100+ other athletes, getting acclimated to the surroundings and the track.  There isn’t any snow near any of the venues, be it skiing, snowboard, biathlon, or the track, and it isn’t even remotely cold here; think a warmish spring or fall day when it hits 60ish with no wind.  Despite the lack of cold weather the track is smooth and intact.  A crew of about 40 works tirelessly all day scraping, spraying, sweeping, and repeating this so all the athletes can have “good ice” as they call it.  So cheers to them and their hard work.

One of the other challenges faced here in Russia is a lack of any remotely proper workout facilities.  Upon asking many locals and peoples of the governing body of Luge there are no lifting facilities available within about 60-80km.  This is a bit challenging when we have explosive lifting to do in the form of olympic style lifting.  So ingenuity rules the day.  My professors always said keep an open mind and be inventive with what you have…and thats what we are doing these days.  Check out a post on my facebook page that the athletes took while lifting today.

Last, but certainly not least, is some TEAM USA YOGA.  As I had mentioned in my last post Shiva Keshavan from Team India (he is the team by the way) is training with us all season.  He also happens to have studied some serious Yoga and has offered, with the help of his wife Namita, to help us all get a little more flexible, in tune with our bodies and mind, and become centered so we can perform our best.  This to me has been the best change we have had so far.  Why… well right before I sent the email to the team saying we would have voluntary yoga I was thinking I bet only Erin and I might go and thats not what we need.  Much to my debbie downer tone we had a full room as almost the entire team showed up!!!  No one made any dumb remarks or was inappropriate.  IT WAS GREAT.  Everyone stayed focused and was open to learning from Shiva and Namita.  I hope this continues.  (Follow Shiva Keshavan at 100thofaSec.com)

I hope the change continues.  What change… well we could change a lot… I’ll let you think of what changes might be best made in this year of the Olympics.

Cheers till next time.

Oakcy

On the Road to SOCHI for the 2014 Olympics

About this time last year I had taken a chance and left Alfred University to pursue a job with the USA Luge Team.  It was a great season of learning and traveling.  I was fortunate enough to get hired on through the summer and my contract renewed for this Olympic year.

During this past summer I was offered a contract through USA Luge and the United States Olympic Committee based out of Colorado Springs, CO.  This allowed me to assist, recently promoted, Ambrose Serrano (Head Strength and Conditioning Coach) in the weight room, and carry out my duties as an Athletic Trainer specifically for the Luge athletes that reside at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, NY.  My duties did not end here as I was responsible for cross training activities like agility training (agility courses, slack lining, stand up paddle boarding, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, etc.) and coordinating training for youth Luge camps for the junior national teams.

It was also a great time to learn.  I learned so much from working with Amborse and the other strength and conditioning interns and more importantly I increased by skill set working along side the folks in Sports Medicine at the Olympic Training Center (Peter Toohey, Celeste Gabi, Karen Ocwieja, and all the volunteers who pass through).  It also gave me a opportunity to shadow and learn from two great Chiropractors in the Burlington, VT area (David Pierson and Miles Colaprete).  Since working this summer in Lake Placid I have learned a great deal about joint mobilizations, soft tissue techniques like Graston and GuaSha and Accupressure, Red Cord Therapy, and synergy of muscles.  This has certainly made me a better professional.

So where can you find myself and the team now???  Well, we have already started our busy travel season that will find us competing in five World Cup events with our first respite not due until December 16th.  So far we have spent a week in Norway training, a week in Lake Placid training and participating in World Cup qualifying, another week in Park City training and racing for the final spots on the USA World Cup team.  Now we find ourselves in Innsbruck, Austria training before we head to Sochi, Russia for ten days or so of international training and then the World Cup season begins.

The team this year is a bit bigger than last year, at least for now.  In total we have four men (Chris Mazdzer, Joey Mortensen, Taylor Morris, and Tucker West) with one more joining us for training in Sochi (Aidan Kelly).  On the women’s side we have five competitive sliders (Erin Hamlin, Julia Clukey, Kate Hansen, Emily Sweeny, and Summer Britcher).  The doubles team consists of three teams (Matt Mortensen & Preston Griffall, Jake Hyrns & Andrew Sherk, and Christian Niccum & Jayson Terdiman).  One new addition this year is Shiva Keshavan, a veteran slider from India, who will be traveling and training with our team this year.

The team has a great deal of potential and is more driven than last year to compete at their highest level.  The ultimate goal is to qualify for the Olympics and ultimately win as many medals as possible.  For those of you who do not know how the races go here is a brief overview: During the World Cup Races there is a race on Friday called the Nations Cup and this is a qualifier for all athletes who are not in the top 10-20 athletes in their discipline.  Based on the race up to 15 or 20 people will race for a spot in the actual World Cup Event that weekend.  On Saturday and Sunday of every weekend there will be a men’s race, a women’s race, a doubles race, and finally a team relay event.  Now for the Olympics things get a little tougher.  Each country is allowed three men, three women, and two doubles teams.  Once at the Olympics the fastest sliders from each discipline will team up in the relay.  The relay works just like it sounds, but everyone races from the Women’s and Doubles Start Ramp.  The first slider is a male and once he crosses the finish line he must hit a pad that is suspended above the track, this triggers the gate at the top of the track to open and the fastest woman races down the track and hits the same pad opening the gate for the doubles team who will be the last ones to hit the pad and stop the clock.  It makes for some exciting racing.

Stay posted for more updates.

Cheers.

Season Wrap up

The 2012-13 season has wrapped up for USA Luge.  It has been challenging and rewarding for me in many ways.  It has also opened some potential doors for me to continue my or further my career in several directions.  I can say that I’m glad I took the huge RISK and left a well paying job to get more experience, meet new people, and learn new things.

The 2012-13 season was pretty successful as far as I’m concerned.  I felt like I contributed to the success of the team.  By providing them good consistent care I imagine that they felt less stress if they became injured or were in need of treatment.  Knowing that you can go to someone and 9 times out of ten they can make you feel better is less mentally taxing.  It seems that the athletes were very happy overall with my performance, some of them even asking for help with certain areas of strength and fitness after the season.

I figure I can briefly, as not to bore everyone, get on with my thankfuls and hopefuls.

I am thankful for the opportunity I received.  It was a great learning experience about travel, sports medicine in Europe, Olympic athletes, different cultures, and team work.

I am thankful to have met some many generous and friendly people, first and foremost the athletes and coaches of USA Luge.  I also have developed what I hope will be life long friendships with Kurt Brugger (1994 Doubles Gold Medalist and super climber) and his family (Gabi, Max, and Romy), Lorenz Clara (super sportsman), and Emanuel Ciullo (super climber) all from Italia; Martin Birner (former professional snowboarder) and Phillip Trattner (strength coach) from Austria; the Sics brothers from Latvia; all of the physiotherapists and so many more.

I am thankful for all of my friends in Lake Placid who offered me places to stay, let me drive their vehicles, eat their food, snowboard and ice climb with them.  I don’t know what I would do without good friends like that.

I am more than thankful for my family who always supports me in whatever decisions I make.  I know it’s been hard for them because I have been away for so long.

I am thankful that the former students I had have been successful and that maybe I had a hand in helping them get there.

I am hopeful that the future decisions I make with my career will be successful, although I am not afraid of failure because it just helps us learn and become better.  Soon I’ll have to make a choice between a special program with the military and the olympic teams, going back to the education sector, working whatever I can get, or just plain joining the military.

I know everyone is probably saying the military??? Thats not for you.  Well, unfortunately in the USA we have a very difficult educational system that has a structure is not very favorable.  So when student loan debt has the potential to run my life for the next 30 years I have to take a stand and the military can help quite significantly.  I honestly have nothing against the armed forces and serving my country, so having them pay my debt in exchange for my service is okay by me.  However I would not mind the safety of the luge track compared to the thought of having bullets fly past me.

Thats all for now.  I’ll try to post about my two week trip through Europe very soon.  Cheers from Holland.

Eight Week Time Warp: Reflecting on the first half of the USA Luge travel season

So it has been some time since I have posted a blog…for that I apologize.  The internet is no the greatest where we travel too and many people on the team are using the internet a lot to talk to family and friends at home. 

The first half of the season has concluded and we found ourselves back in the United States after about 30 hours of travel time.  The time for me was filled with in-flight movies, sleeping, and recapping things that happened over the trip that maybe I could do better with and things I enjoyed. 

The trip for me has been amazing up to this point.  Up to this point I have traveled to: Krasnaya Polyana, Russia; Sochi, Russia; Berchtesgaden and Konigssee, Germany twice; Innsbruck and Igls, Austria; Altenberg, Germany; Berlin, Germany for a night; and Riga for one night and Sigulda, Latvia. 

Thinking back to all of these places I will say that each one has unique qualities.  My favorites have been Konigssee and Innsbruck by far.  These two were the most mountainous and I have had a good number of chances to run, hike, and scramble around the mountains.  They provide well maintained walking, hiking, and trail running paths that connect towns or disappear deep into the mountains.  The running trails here are the type that when it’s getting dark out and you know you should turn around, you in fact actually keep going for a several more miles and brave the darkness so you could explore a bit more. 

Even though I am pretty partial to the mountains I will say that the few hours, maybe five, which I spent roaming around Berlin were captivating.  The area is steeped in history and is quite easy to get around once you get a bearing of where you are.   I could only describe it as a combination of Boston and NYC as far as the traffic and cities that never sleep.  There were so many old museums, monuments, churches and parks to visit that it will certainly be placed on a list of areas to return to. 

While I was in Berlin, the fact that I was able to walk up to a random person and strike up a conversation was awesome.  This conversation led to a connection willing to let me couch surf and show me around if I ever were to return.  I also stumbled upon an area where there was a humans rights protest also helped me to appreciate the area. The people at the protest were demonstrating and occupying a park area in downtown Berlin to raise awareness about European Refuge rights.  I gladly spoke with the protestors and donated what Euros I had to help their cause.  These experiences coupled with a visit to Brandenberg Gate has generated a wish to return and visit the local areas to learn more about past and present culture here. 

Since this was the first time I had globe trotted abroad for more than 10 days at a time, it has certainly been a learning experience.  Travel days are not always the best, which I already knew from a three month long trip I had taken across the US, and having time to yourself away from the travel group are key.  I also find it really important to get out of the hotel since it is a  “stir crazy” trap that can really affect your morale.  So being flexible and adventurous, even if you have next to no money, is important.  Following along with the need to get out, is the need to realize that technology is part of the trap.  It is necessary to go have some human interaction and learn something about someone else besides your group or yourself.  We really don’t practice this enough anymore and it has deeply affected our ability to communicate… enough of that little tangent. 

The last and most important two things I reconnected with were humility and self-reliance.  Seeing and having a sense of knowing that the world never revolves around one persons’ “needs or wants” is very important.  We cannot always get our way and everyday does not bring us the positives that we might EXPECT or hope for.  This should make us reflect and work harder to help ourselves and the others that surround and support us.  Be humble and help someone else, as karma will return itself to you. 

Self-reliance.  This one is a big one for me and always has been.  For myself, self-reliance means doing things without being asked even if they are things that I do not prefer to do.  It means understanding that self-motivation is a key to achievement and no one is going to sit and babysit me.  After observing so many people on the all of the Olympic Teams and meeting people in the climbing gyms it just reaffirms my belief that if I really want something it will require the utmost of my attention, time, and drive.  It also made me remember that being boastful does not bring you good attention; actions speak louder than words and not everyone cares what you are doing or if you have a bag full of excuses. 

Getting back to the heart of self-reliance, self-motivation to achieve goals, think of the cliché “Rome was not built in a day.”  I think of my life as “Rome” and it is going to take a lot of focus and dedication to build and shape the rest of my life.  The foundation has been built with heartache and experience from my past and the future will continue to create who I am and what defines me.  Up to this point in my life I feel like I have been proactive about it based upon my circumstances (the student loan crunch of the middle class citizen).  But, I find also that most of my life has been dedicated to being “Good” at everything but not great at anyone thing; always the jack-of-all-trades but never the master of any of them.  This is not a bad thing because it make me well rounded but, now it would be nice to focus all of my energy on one or two things that I love.

I have been paying my dues going to school and doing well, exploring options to expand my skills in all areas of life not just work, making strong relationships that have mutual benefits with some being more give than take and others vice versa, I have not sat back and wondered what if all of my life, and lastly I try to help those less fortunate and more fortunate than me.  I took a chance to better myself and quit a good, rewarding, and well paying job to become a better Athletic Trainer (Physiotherapist in Europe).  I have had my share of failures and misfortunes but the important thing is that I realize that those things are done and I can learn from them…they have shaped me.  Also those things or occurrences that I cannot control… well I don’t worry about them.  I just work around what I have and what I can control and that’s ME. 

Okay, enough about all that here’s a life full of lemons, go make some lemonade. 

The season has been fairly successful.  Not many injuries have occurred that have required a great deal of attention.  Any major injuries have been dealt with to the very best of my abilities given the circumstances.  I simply have had to adapt and be creative.  I really have tried to not use the constant traveling as an excuse because it not a good excuse. 

I find myself very fortunate that the athletes that surround me have been very gracious, direct, and understanding.  Being an Athletic Trainer is difficult because I must wear many hats: Athletic Trainer, Masseuse, Psychologist, Dietitian, Strength and Conditioning Coach, and others.  Since the athletes are gracious, direct and understanding it takes any surprises out of my work and helps me adapt quickly to the needs.  I have found that the evolution of my organization helps to ease my stress and regulate my free time.  And in all honesty the men and women of USA Luge are pretty low maintenance.  Most of the work I do is massage and psychological based. 

I fancy myself pretty lucky and I will continue to take advantage of this opportunity as long as I can.  By taking advantage I mean continued learning from the Sports Medicine staff at the Olympic Training Center, the Physiotherapists from other teams, the coaches and athletes, and anyone else I can meet along the way. 

Cheers.