Thursday, November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving


Happy Thanksgiving Everyone from the Powerful Men of USA Bobsled!

Back Row: Steve Langton, Justin Olsen, Adam Clark, Chris Fogt

Front Row: Jesse Beckom III and Curt Tomasevicz

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Calgary Training and 2011 National Team Trials Update

Hellooo Peoples and Gouls I hope you all had a Happy Halloween!! Remembering to Eat the Split Pea Soup before the Split Pea Soup Eats you!!! (Harry Potter)

Yeah I know, I know, I've been a bad updater but Its been kind of busy with going op to CalgaryTraining and National Team Selection Races. Since it has been a while I guess I feel a bit obligated to give you a quick short version of what has transpired.You can also can choose to read on for a more detail story.

In order not to ruin the story for those who want to read everything if you scroll down to the bottom of this e-mail the Very last paragraph is the short version.

The Long of It

As I mentioned in my last e-mail the top two push crews USA 1&2 headed up to Calgary Canada for a week of on ice push training in the Calgary Olympic Park Ice House, since we do not have such a facility here in the States. The Ice House is exactly how it sounds, it houses a 100 meter iced push track equipped with built in timing eyes that allows us to time the speed and velocity of our pushes, and coordination required in a four man load.

While in Calgary we did our weight/sprint training inside the Calgary Olympic Oval located at the University of Calgary; which also has an indoor speed skating track (this is and important fact). I think I have mentioned this before but my teammates and I are very..very...very...verry competitive in everything! Literally EVERTTHING!! What’s that!? Jesse please give us and example? Of course I will anything for you guys!!! Now in order to get into the Olympic Oval you have to be issued an I.D card that you scan at a pair of locked glass turnstile. These barriers are nothing to serious and we could just as easily jump over them if we choose to. However there is a trick when scanning these I.D cards, you can't just press them right up against the laser light scanner or it will not work, you have to hold it back a good four inches or so. After we got our I.D cards we approached the two access gates and whatever two guys were standing there kind of paused look at each other, squinting our eyes a bit and we know the Race WAS ON!! lol we immediately started to scan our I.D's faster than the other person to get through the gate faster!!! It just so happened that there was some arbitrary red lined just past the gate that we made the finish line just on pure instinct!! Some bags were getting stuck on the gate, almost breaking the gate but we did not care we each just wanted to win!! The lady who issued us the passes was just laughing her head off at us in amusement and disbelief!! She later informed us that every athlete that comes through the gates tend to do the same thing if they are with their teammates!! lol Oh and by the way I won the Great Gate Race of 2011!

Speaking of racing there was actually one more race that came aboout (that's Canadian for about). For the the first couple of days in Calgary we did a normal dynamic warm composed of different foot work drills and sprints before we lifted. Until Justin Olsen one of the guys on USA 1 noticed a sign for skate rentals (yeah its all downhill from here lol!), and it just so happened that the open ice time was right before our normal lifting time. At that very moment the gauntlet was thrown down for a USA 1 vs. USA 2 Ice Skating Race around the Oval!! It may not have been the smartest thing we ever did but a race is a race and it was on!! Two days later on Friday we made sure to bring a video camera to document the race!! I have to admit that Justin and I were the two worst skaters of the bunch hands down!! Here were the teams USA 1 ( Steve Langton, Curt Tomasevicz, Justin Olsen) USA 2 (Jesse Beckom, Chris Fogt, Johnny Quinn); each team had a strategy going into this massive relay race where we used The Stick as a baton lol it was awesome!!

Each team had a strategy going into the race USA 1 decided to have their slowest guy (a.k.a Justin Olsen) go first and we opted to have our slowest guy (a.k.a ME) go last! I suggested to my team that I go first and they could make up ground at the end if need be, but my team was thinking "lets get as big as lead as we can and I could finish it off, I was out voted so we went with their plan. The first leg of the race was Johnny Quinn (our fastest skater) vs. Justin Olsen (Slowest skater)! JQ got into a hockey like stance and took off with Justin tinkering behind him! JQ was a good 40 meters ahead of Justin 30 seconds into the race. JQ looked like a NHL player all the way, he had told us he knew how to skate but this was beyond anything we would have guessed. After a minute into the race JQ was out to a 200 meter lead on this 400 meter track!!

The second leg of the race was Chris Fogt (Second Best Skater) vs Steve Langton (Second best skater); Langton grew up in Boston so he was a bit better skater than Chris, but regardless we had a huge lead of about 200 meters by the time Christ got the baton!! At this point I am thinking all I have to do is not fall and we are good! lol Before the race we did two practice laps to get warmed up so I was feeling more confident than I had before, being that this was my third time Ice Skating ever. Now it’s the last Leg of the race Me ( Worst Skater) vs Curt Tomasevicz (Best Skater). I get the baton from Chris and in my mind’s eye I took off like Shanni Davis!!! Yeah about that.....it was more like Shanni Davis when he was two years old and his mother handed him some skates for the first time and he said Ooooo pretty skates! lol. I was just tinkering along like a baby dear learning how to walk! I thought I was going so fast! lol When we watched the film you could just see Curt eyeing me up for the kill!! Fyi Curt’s parents apparently had a lake house he often visited as a Kid and he frequently skated on it growing up (he failed to mention that before the race) As I continued to tinker around the track thoughts of opportunities where I could have learned how to skate better flashed through my head. The most recently being the offer that I passed on from my friends on the USA Figure skating Team who wanted to give me lessons this summer!! Right about now I was wishing I had taken that offer! Continually inching my way around the track (keep in mind we are in Canada where babies are born wearing ice skates) this 8yr old kid and his father come flying by me at what had to be 80mph! lol and all I could think is how badly I wanted to trip them both, watching as they crash into the boards! I approach the last turn I start thinking just don’t fall and don’t go to wide, but as I try to turn I find myself having some difficulty and almost fall. Then right as I am recovering from running into people there goes Curt pushed me and passed me for the me for the win!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Ok so maybe he didn't physically push me but he definitely pushed my Ego! lol I was so mad we ended up losing by about 50 meters or so but I finished the race and did not fall on my face....Well I fell over the side barrier after crossing the finish line but the race was over so it did not count! This summer I am going to learn how to skate and next year will be a whole different story!! Stupid Stupid Curt! lol

And did I mention that we got the whole race on video and at some point in time when one of the guys puts it to music and edits it, I will post it. The video and interviews are classic to say the least.

After finishing up Training in Calgary on October 9th, it was on to Lake Placid to prepare for the USBSF 2011 National Team Trial Selection Races. Our Team Trial Races were scheduled for Oct 21st for men’s and women’s 2-man, and another race on October 28 men’s 4-man and women’s 2-man (women solely race 2-man and not 4-man). This time frame allowed for a week of training on the track before the races, in order to ensure that both drivers and brakeman have enough time to familiarize ourselves with the track again. It’s an exciting time for both athletes new to the sport and for those of us who have been around for a while because at team trials anything can happen!

Luckily the only major thing that happened or should I say did not happen is that we got absolutely NO Snow at all during team trials and the days leading up to team trials temperatures were in the mid 60's. The high temperatures led to some days of sliding being cancelled and some of the skeleton races being rescheduled.For the most part team trials went smoothly, there were about 3 or four crashes and thankfully no one got injured. No one likes to crash, but I think when you are a rookie its best to get that first crash out of the way so you understand how not to get hurt when the sled rolls over and that you can survive it. I do have to say that the talent pool in Bobsled is getting a ton better. The rookies this year are really picking up the technique and concepts of pushing a sled quicker than rookies in the past have. That being there still remains a learning curve in properly applying pressure and force on the ice in the right direction to propel the sled forward, learning how to shine up runners for the race, as well as moving and maintain the sleds etc..etc..etc..

Going in to 2-Man race week I was giving the nod to race with Napier over the other two guys on my team. The race went well and I pushed Napier to his second fastest start time and the same time he had pushed during Olympic Trials. I was feeling great, and after my first push my teammates told me I looked powerful and my angles looked good. After the first heat we were in first place. Going into the second run I was feeling just as good as the first and my push was only a hundredth off my first push, the run felt good but we ended up in second by .11 of a second. I was a bit upset because like anything else in life I want to WIN plain and simple, but at that point in time I needed to reassure my driver of his abilities to drive and I needed him to have his head in the game because we still had a 4-man race coming up the following week that we needed to do good in. I told him "listen yeah we did not finish where we wanted but we are still in position to be on the National Team, and that he had tonight to mope but come tomorrow its 4-man time and we need to get the job done!" Even though Napes was still feeling a bit down he got my point. After the race we broke the sled down, removing the runners and putting on the travel transports so we can move it into our travel crates. That Saturday and Sunday we have off, which was really relaxing. We hit up church and were back to work on Monday.

Monday we began our prepping our 4-man sled for the race, adjusting handles and foot pegs to fit our ridding position because it had not been touched since last year and that was a totally different crew. After we set the sled up we work on dry loads (Practicing loading into the sled while the sled is in the garage and not moving) to work on or timing and loading position. Then the unexpected happened!!. On our second dry load Chris who pushes from the brakes loaded into the sled, reached for the lever that pulls the side push bars in, missed them and cut the inside of three of his fingers on the piece of thin metal that the push bars abut against! The cuts were really deep Chris ended up rushing to the emergency room where he received eight stitches in his fingers and was out for the next two days of training. On Monday and Tuesday we used a kid name Jeremy who was a rookie but had pretty good speed in his sprint testing similar to Chris. It was Big Time that Jeremy was able to step up and take trips with us, and we all expressed our gratitude to him for doing so! It also took us back a bit because he was so excited to be able to slide with us even if it was just for practice. It once again made me realize how privileged I am to be on one of the Top Sleds in the USA and representing my country! On Wednesday Chris was able to train with us, but because of his stitches he was unable to push from the breaks so he and Johnny switched positions so not to risk Chris ripping out his stitches. The loads in training were not as smooth as we would have liked but considering the circumstances that would have to do.

The race was not until Friday night and as usual everyone took that Thursday off to prepare the sled and runners for the race.As Friday rolled around it felt like forever waiting for when it was time to head out to the Bobsled race. For our team trials we follow the same format that we would if we were racing World Cup (Meaning that the sleds need to be at the top of the run/track, flipped and all sled work done forty-five minutes before the start of the race). Everything was going according to plan, our war-up was good and we were all ready to do our thing, to do what we were trained to do, to do what we were born to do, Glorious, THIS IS BOBSLED!!! lol (300 reference) We stepped on the block Johnny on the brakes, me on the left, Chris on the right and Napes on the Drivers Bar! Johnny screams out BACK SET Napier replies FRONT SET READY!!, we all hit the sled push giving it our all! Napes hopes in I take three more cycles in my sprint and load after him, Chris hopes in with Johnny following directly after! Johnny screams DOWN! we all sit, hands in the sled and Johnny hits the side push bars in right before entering curve one. We drew fourth in the race draw and at the bottom of the hill we were in second place behind USA 1 (USA 1 raced but had a bye because they finished 3rd in World Championships last year).

For the second run we went in reverse order from last to first. We stepped on the line and like before Johnny sets the sled then proceed to call the Cadence and Napier finishes it! We hit the sled like normal and I am feeling great pushing, Napes hopes in and like before I load three cycles after him but this time I do not feel Chris hope in directly after me so I know something is wrong, then I feel Chris hoped in with Johnny following after! I hear the down call so I sit down bringing my arms into the sled. I instantly feel that Chris is a bit out of position and he is not holding on inside the sled with his hurt hand. I then change my position a bit and push back against Chris more than usual as to securely lock him into the sled. We reached the bottom of the track in first position with USA1 waiting at the top to come down. As we are pulling the sled of the Ice I asked Chris what took him so long to load, he told me he had slipped then ended up running on the short wall for a bit before pulling himself into the sled! lol Its funny because he made it in the sled safely and we made it down safely. If we had finished outside of second I would not have been amused and to tell you the truth I am only amused as I type this e-mail because I was not so happy at the end of the race. After USA 1 pushed finish their run they still remained in first place with us in second and qualified for World Cup/National Team!!

It was a stressful few weeks at times but we did what we needed and on November 11th we head over to Europe and Ingls, Austria to Begin racing!Oh and before I forget you all need to check out two Things!

The first, is a Video that one of the guys made about Steve the number 1 Pusher in the World and Member of USA 1! Its a spoof video but its all true He won the World Push Championships In Italy last year! Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE-kPQeDsbo

Second, is series of new all natural cleaning and washing products I have been using at http://www.shutoutsolutions.com/(Tell Them I sent you) These products are great for people with sensitive skin, personally I love them and have been using the body wash, athletic spray and laundry soap for the past three months. Their cleaning line is amazing on all surfaces, leaving behind not chemical smells. Seriously check them out.

Pictures are posted on my web-site www.jessebeckom3.com, click the media tab then click on Calgary Training and 2011 National Team Trials

The Short of It

Here we go.......Training Up in Calgary wen really well; we got some good four-man training pushes in. One day to switch it up we had a USA 1 vs. USA 2 Ice skating race at the Canadian Olympic Oval where we lift at. Comedy ensued and USA 1 won. After a week of training we packed up and headed to Lake Placid, NY for our 2011 National Team Trials. In the Two-Man race I pushed my driver John Napier to his second fastest start since Olympic Year. We were in first place after our first run but ended up in second by .11 after the second heat finishing in Second/Silver Medal Position. During the four-man race we had to make some changes in race positions since Chris who is normally pushing from the fourth position sustained cuts on his right hand requiring eight stitches changed places with Johnny Quinn who usually pushes from the 3 man position to alleviate pain in Chris's hands. The race went well and we finished in Second/Silver position after two heats.

I and my teammates made the 2011 National Team and will be heading over to Europe on November 11, 2011 to begin racing, we will be there until December 19, 2011 so please say a prayer or two for us.

God Bless you all

Jesse

http://www.jessebeckom3.com/