Settling in to the Olympics

I have been in the Olympic village for 5 days now, with 2 days on the Cypress course. 

The Olympic vilage in Vancouver is amazing.  We have an inspiring view of the harbour and the coastal mountains, and the rooms are spectacular.  My favorite part about being in the village is watching as it fills up with different teams and countries.  it is always interesting to try to guess which sport a person does based on their stature. 

The village is totally catered towards an athlete's needs.  There is a beautiful fitness centre, a full medical centre, a bank, post office, general and souvenier shop, multiple lounges, dvd rooms, meditation and yoga spaces and dedicated athlete lounges with big screens and full time olympic coverage.  The cafeteria serves a wide variety of food, and all of the paper cups, plates, and platic cutlery are compostable!  it is great to see.  

We have been on the course up at Cypress for 2 training sessions so far.  it is a long bus ride to get there... especilly when the bus breaks down... 2 days in a row!!!  It is not an easy fix either when the security procedures are so controlled.  They have to call another secured and registered bus from the main dispatch, and make sure there is a police escort so that we can transfer from bus to bus on the side of the highway.  We were not allowed to open the doors or step off of the bus until the other bus arrived.  Both times it made us an hour late to get up to the mountain, so our training was definitely comprimised.  There was not an adequate contingency plan put in place before this happened, so everything was in dissaray and it took a lot longer than it should have to figure out.

Regardless of the bus malfunctions, I still had decent training and am getting used to the course.  We can't get very many runs in a training session because of the long lap time.  We have to take snowmobiles down to the bottom of the really slow lift.  With 30 minutes a lap, we can only get about 5 training runs in per session.  I have resorted to hiking for some of my training period so that i will get more skiing time on the course.  Apart from all of the logistical problems, the course itself is great and everybody did an amazing job making it happen.  it is not an easy situation here with the lack of snow and warm temperatures, but the crew is working tirelessy to create the best course possible.  Innovative procedures iike hay and dry ice are being used to preserve the snow.

I am looking forward to getting back up there tomorrow to dial in my run.