Photo courtesy of Shannon Bahrke

• The odds a flight will depart on time are 1 in 1.26.

I am sitting on a plane heading from Salt Lake City to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, for our official Olympic training camp. It’s got me thinking about all the time I have spent on airplanes. We travel pretty much once a month in the summer for training camps, and once a week or every other week during the competition season. We mostly fly with Delta and it sure is nice because one of their hubs is in Salt Lake.

Now if you picture me in first class, living it up in the lap of luxury, I assure you, you have the wrong athlete. I walk past all of those people in first class too, looking snooty, and I want to accidentally spill their “before takeoff” water on them too! OK, maybe I’m just a little jealous, but I just keep on walking past them straight to the back, usually in the last row that doesn’t recline and next to the bathroom.

Some of my must-haves on a plane include my Kindle™ (love, love, LOVE my Kindle™), easy slip on/off shoes, Ambien® so I can sleep on those long flights, a neck pillow, snack food, a sweatshirt for when the flight attendants think Arctic is the right temperature setting, and my iPod®.

I’ve sat next to all kinds of people, really nice people, stinky people, loud-laughing people, snoring people, big people, small people, funny people, arm-rest-stealing people, people who have a small bladder, people with lots of screaming babies. But my favorite people are always the ones who say “Hi,” strike up a small conversation, and then let me be. Sometimes my plane time is my only downtime to unwind and get some ME time!

So as I sit on this very short flight to Steamboat Springs, my mind can’t help but wonder what is on the horizon. We are here for a training camp and then heading to compete at the Olympics!! Will I do what it takes to get myself on the podium? Will I have a successful camp? Will I get enough sleep while I am there? Will I have a bowl of ice cream tonight? And will I soon be skiing the best I’ve ever skied?

These questions are still to be answered. It’s nice to just sit on this airplane, in this moment, and enjoy the possibilities!!

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