Speed

"Right, so, like man, there's this, like, bomb man, on the sleigh, right, and if, like, you, like, go any slower than, like mach 1 or something, like, it's gonna explode, right".

"Awesome, dude".

Basically that is what Cian and myself were thinking as we headed up to the slopes behind the house for our weekly sleigh-of-death routine. 'Cos there's being alive, and then there's living a life. Dude.

Think about it.

Then think about this: with a fall in gradient of 1:63 (i.e. for every metre travelled the slope drops 63 sweet-mother-of-Jesus centimetres), down a slope 85 metres long with a backing wind of 27km/h and with a combined weight of 100 kilograms, depending on our initial acceleration, we could reach escape velocity within 30 metres of our start.

Or so Cian told me. I was just completely taken in by the awesome rush that was sure to happen once we got that red rocket on the snow-covered road.

And whoosh! Away we went.

There were, as befits any edge-of-the-seat, sleigh-by-wire riding, some 'Bail! Bail! Bail! moments along the way.

But we are fairly confident that we will be wearing the green as Ireland's best medal hopes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.