Lucky Headphones and Olympic Qualification!

Hi Friends,

Things are going great over on this side of the pond. In the past four days I have been in Germany, Italy and Switzerland. The great news is that I have secured my spot on the 2010 Olympic team by meeting the top-20 criteria set out for me by my national sport organization. Because I'm on the comeback train from injury it was deemed necessary for me to prove my fitness by getting a top 20 result in a World Cup. When there are hoops to be jumped through there's no time to waste so I set my sights on my best chance of all: a skate sprint in Dusseldorf, Germany Dec 5th and geared my training towards it.

This super unique World Cup runs a skate sprint on 828 meters of snow expertly placed along the Rhine in the snowless city of Dusseldorf. With the odors of cheese, beer and smoke wafting onto the course the atmosphere is nothing if not uniquely exciting with many spectators out to cheer. It's great.

I was psyched up and totally stoked that my new headphones: Beats by Dr. Dre (compliments of my good friends at Best Buy) arrived just in time by special delivery from one of our wax staff who came over from Canada just before the race. Wearing these cool Beats I was able to be totally in my own zone for warm up despite the chaos of racing in a city. When I wore them without tunes pumping I was more in touch with my breathing and focused head space. When I wanted to get really psyched I cranked the Lady Gaga, Kanye and Rihanna and felt my energy soar with the music.

I placed 12th in my race and am so proud to be able to send out some Olympic high fives out to my blog readers and turn my laser-beam of focus to the classic sprint at the Olympics Feb 17th.

This weekend I have a skate sprint on Sunday on a long course here in Davos, Switzerland where I'll be highly pumped just to get in the points (top 30). Should be fun.

Thanks for tuning in, and until next time...

Pump some tunes!!

Chandra