Ice V. Diamonds- to be this girl's best friend...

Now don't let the title totally mislead you on this one, I am a true girly girl at heart and those shiny little stones will rock my world someday. When I'm rich. But until then, my rush comes from another form of ice; the cold, slick, frozen water kind.

I can still remember the feeling I got five years ago here in Norway one morning before training. It was the second time I had been here as a junior and we had a World Cup. It was really early and REALLY dark just before sliding. I was walking up the track just like I do before every session. I look at the ice, at the curves, do mind runs while I listen to my ipod, but mostly I just kind of zone out and let my body warm up. This particular morning though we were the first group to go and as I was walking up the track along the outside of curve 8 I heard the workers walk by spritzing the track. I continued up and came to the belly of curve 7, at first I was paying more attention to the big curve ahead of me (6) and following it down to the small straight away before the track turned into curve 7 where I then I looked down at the ice. The lights behind me hit the fresh spritzed ice perfectly. The only word that came to my head right then was SPEED.

The glisten from the light created this sparkle on the clear ice that just made me want to GO. It gave me those butterflies in my stomach [that I've been told happens when you're inlove... ;0)] and my heart started racing and my smile was uncontrollable. But the sparkle... that's what got me. The glitter of the light, the pureness of the ice, the cold air but this excited (and yet calming) feeling. That's what is exciting about Luge. This understanding that it's you vs. this monster of a track but in the end all you want to do is be friends!

So until the day that I can 1. afford to buy my OWN diamonds or 2. find a rich husband who wants to buy them for me... I'm going to stick with my ice. It's what makes me happy (and sad and mad and frusterated and yet I couldn't imagine my life without it right now... like a typical relationship I guess!) at the end of the day. It's one of my best friends.