Coming into these games I have been having the best season of my life, and for the first time ever feel confidence in my skiing day after day, and I felt that anything was possible. I was not a favorite, I was probably not even on the map to a lot of people, but in my heart I knew that I could get up on the podium, and was set on doing what I needed to to get there.

And then Bammmmm...

I don't remember much of the training run that led up to the crash, and none of the crash itself. The first thing I remember is being under the helicopter and having the snow pelting me in the face from the wind. My Co-pilot covered my face with his hand and I just shut my eyes and tried to put the pieces together about where I was and how I had gotten here, but that was useless, the memory still hasn't come back. I remember a lot of people around me and being very overwhelmed by them, but knowing I was going to have to go through this process, so just settling in and keeping myself calm by thinking about getting back up on the mountain and skiing. I was freezing, and I think I asked for blankets about every minute to try to warm up. My temperature when I got to the hospital was 91 degrees (33 degrees Celsius). They gave me a blanket that was blowing hot air into it called a bear hugger, and I curled up in that while all the tests were coming back negative. I knew I was ok, I have had concussions before and I started to come around a lot faster this time then in the past, so I knew it wasn't that bad. When they released me from the hospital, I went straight back to my condo and sat in the shower for 20 min. I was still so cold, and pretty shaken up, but it was then that I set my mind to being the strongest and bravest I had ever been and getting back up on that hill to get back at the course that took me down the first go around.

Cancellation after cancellation gave me a great opportunity to rest my body. I woke up day after day wondering how everything in my body could hurt, but how nothing was actually "hurt". But what I really wanted was not to rest my body, but to just get back out on the course so I could know that everything was alright, and that skiing was just skiing and I could still ski with the confidence I had before. The cancellations gave me too much time to think, and too much time for everyone else to talk about how crazy that crash was. I started doing therapy right away and felt a little bit better each day. The next training run finally got off 4 days later. I got nervous when I inspected the course, but that was nothing to how I felt in the starting gate. I was actually talking myself into just doing the run, instead of using the run as a training tool to find how I could fast on race day. My technician was so good about trying to distract me, and trying to keep me calm, and without him I would have been even more of a mess. The training run was the hardest battle I have ever had mentally. Once I got on course I kept telling myself to fight, to stay forward, to stick my nose in it, but my body would not listen. I made it to the finish though, and knew I would not let myself feel like that on race day.

The next training run was also cancelled, but I did get the chance to go skiing and felt more like myself. The turns were fun, I liked the wind in my face, and I wasn't scared by every little bump or mistake that happened under my skis.

On race day I felt like my self, maybe even better. I think I used up all of my nerves on the training run day, and I felt so calm, prepared, and ready to rip. I ran 4th which was good, cause I knew that I wouldn't have time to wait around and start thinking, and I knew there was a good chance of there being no delays before I went. I felt like it was a good run, although I could have tucked more, and there are a few spots that I wish I was a bit more aggressive. I had some really fast splits, but the section of the course I fell on was a really, really slow split. I don't remember backing off in that part of the course, but subconsciously I must have. I was 3rd fastest on the bottom of the course. Everyone was happy for me for just getting back out there and finishing 11th, but I came to Vancouver for something, and left without it, and that broke my heart.

I did everything I could to overcome a situation that I was not prepared to handle, a situation nobody else out there was also dealing with, a situation that was because of luck of the draw. There are a ton of what ifs...what if I had not of drawn second for the training run, what if the forerunners were better, and our coaches could have predicted the amount of air I would get at a higher speed, what if the first girl down didn't back off so much, what if they had cancelled the race before me instead of after me.... They could go on and on, but the reality is that my dream Olympics started with kissing the net at 65mph, missing opening ceremonies because I was too sore to sit up, spending hours and hours in therapy everyday, testing my mental ability to throw myself back down the course that I was lucky to walk away from the first time down, and then fighting for an 11th place finish that was good enough in everyone's eyes but my own.

The emotion that goes into an Olympic competition is unbelievable. One chance every four years is a lot of work for a small moment in time, and it was hard for me to accept that what I had worked so hard for, what all the blood sweat and tears was for can be gone in a second. I just saw my video of my crash for the first time yesterday, and I know I am lucky. I hit that fence with a lot of speed, and normally crashes like that don't end up so well. I thought the blood, sweat and tears were supposed to bring you glory when you want it the most, but maybe all the blood, sweat, and tears were to make me strong enough to handle the cards I was dealt. My coaches summed it up perfectly saying, "you were not strong enough to recover from the mistake, but you were strong enough to take the hit and walk away."