Sometimes I can't sleep at night because I'm so excited to work on sprinting the next day, because I'm such a bad sprinter.
Lauren Gibbs
More and more, I am realizing that life is too short to do crap that doesn't make you happy, and we only get one shot at it all.
A combine is a series of athletic tasks that help a coaching staff measure an athlete's ability to be competitive in a sport. A bobsled combine requires a sprint, broad jump, two-handed shot toss, and a back squat and power clean.
I went to a good school, played sports; things came relatively easy for me. Whenever I would get faced with adversity, I would always go do something else.
Unfortunately, our sport has a weight limit, so every season, I have to lose weight. You just get tired of not eating the way you want to eat, so in the off-season, I'll binge and gain a few pounds and then have to lose them back.
I never get sick - not a cold, not a cough or sore throat. Everyone around me can be hacking up a lung, and I'm fine.
I grew up thinking that corporate America was my destination. Then I got there, and I was making the money I wanted to make, but I just wasn't happy.
I played volleyball for Brown University and loved playing there. I played all four years and was captain my senior year. Second team all-Ivy, academic all-Ivy. I really loved it. When I was graduated, I figured that was it.
Bobsled is the first time I decided, win, lose, or draw, I was all-in for all four years. I figured if I was going to step away from a very lucrative career, I owed it to myself and my family to see this through to the very end.
I had a corporate job and wore a suit to work every day, and I just kind of felt like I wasn't living my authentic self or doing what I was passionate about.
Once my pilot and I push and jump into the sled, I hold on for dear life in the back while she skillfully and hopefully quickly navigates the two of us down a mile of icy, often bumpy, sharp right and left turns. I then pull the brakes at the end.
Every day, I put on a suit, and I felt like I was playing dress-up in my mum's closet. It just wasn't right.
I think the biggest thing to being an elite-level bobsledder is grit. You have to really want it. It's a very blue-collar sport. We do a lot of the work ourselves; we sand the runners, we wash the sled, we help maintain the sled. Obviously, we have a sled mechanic that travels with us, but a lot of the work we do ourselves.
One of the most common misconceptions about Olympic sports is that they only happen at the Olympics.
If I look in the mirror, my body is absolutely perfect. I think not enough women feel that way.
I am used to being places where I don't speak the language. What I am not used to is being in a part of a country where few people speak my language. Call it ignorance, arrogance, or what have you, but most places I have visited, I was lucky enough to be able to get by with English.
It is amazing how many thoughts can race through your head in a minute.
I travel quite a bit for both bobsled and leisure.
It is funny, the things you miss about a more conventional lifestyle. I miss seemingly mundane tasks, like cleaning the kitchen, moving my furniture around to achieve just the right look, and checking the mailbox. I miss making my bed in the morning before work.
When you start your bobsled career at 30, a time when most are settling down into their 'real careers' and many are getting married, you can imagine the barrage of questions and the look of, 'You're doing what?' that you receive.
If your dream sounds like a real stretch and everyone around you is looking at you like you have completely lost it, it might just be exactly what you need.
I'd always loved sports, and the Olympics were something I thought about often as a kid, but those dreams felt like a lifetime ago.
I love when things don't go to plan.
I've always been a risk taker. When I told my mum I was quitting my job to be a bobsledder, she wasn't surprised.
I'm a volleyball player, so I like Lycra and Spandex.
You have to find what you're really passionate about, throw yourself into it, and focus on those small wins.
When I graduated from college, I was told I could do great things and be great, but I didn't know what that meant and what it would feel like and the work that it would take.
I actually found CrossFit on a run from my house in Orange County. I moved around with it for a while, which is the best part about it. I love it, but it was something I did because I enjoyed the camaraderie aspect of it, not so much the competing side of it.
CrossFit really helped me with mental toughness, which I really appreciate. It also gave me this network of people cheering me on, which is incredible.
I love all food. All of it. I wish I could be a professional eater.
I think that was the scariest part about bobsled, is when you just don't know what's happening, you don't know where you are on the track, you don't know when it's going to be over, and you don't know what it's supposed to feel like.
I can't believe where life has taken me.
I've always loved public speaking, and that's something I definitely will pursue after the Olympics.
For the first time in long time, I can say I love what I do. I can't say that every day is easy or fun, but there are few greater thrills in life than hurling yourself down an iced-over water slide in a carbon fiber bathtub.
