How Cool Is That? The Proposed 2018 Pyeongchang Speedskating Arena/UFO Spaceship

GoPro footage the Pettit National Ice Center posted of Nancy, Brian, Robert Lehmann, Darren Huang and me doing the first laps skated this year on the Pettit's fresh ice (from mid-August). It's actually a pretty slow pace but still neat to watch.

Friends, Supporters, Sports Fanatics...

this is risky and not really in our comfort zone, but here it goes...

Jeffrey and I are trying to raise money to help fund our training, travel and competitions leading up to the Olympic Trials starting this December 27th, 2013, and for the rest of the 2013-14 Olympic season. As you probably know, even though Nancy and I are National Team level skaters in the US we've got to constantly raise our own money to skate. This year we haven't landed any big sponsors so (even though we didn't really want to at first because it gets hard asking people for money) we said what the heck, lets make a crowd-funding page cause I think people might have some fun being a part of our big season this year. We have a good blog for people to follow and some sweet gifts that I designed if people contribute too. You can go to our crowdfunding site hosted on RallyMe by clicking this link https://www.rallyme.com/rallies/187

If you can support us, we can't thank you enough and if not, your prayers and encouragement are really just as important! We want everyone to have fun following our progress, to feel a part of our team, and to be proud of what we achieve.

Like many of the other awesome athletes on the RallyMe site, we must train at the highest level but also deal with the stress of having enough money to do it since there often isn’t much commercial money to support winter sport athletes. On top of that, because we have a private coach and choose to train in Milwaukee, we cannot be part of the National team and the services provided to them in Salt Lake City. Consequently, over the last couple years, we have developed our own network of people who have helped us out so far with their services and are indebted to them. But at the same time, the other costs like our coach's travel to and from Milwaukee and car lease, competitions- airfare/hotel/transportation, equipment i.e. blades, health insurance, and our house rent in Milwaukee have hurt us financially.

We have gotten this far into our careers because of the generosity of many family, friends, and people that have already put their services and financial means into our journey. We couldn't have gotten this far without them, but to continue to move forward, we are enlisting your help!

Thanks a lot, and again, Jeffrey and I love what we are doing, have a passion to do our best and succeed, but at the same time, know that we were given this talent for a greater purpose.

God Bless!

Nancy & Jeffrey Swider-Peltz Jr.


1 Corinthians 9:25

Update! August 2013

...our Milwaukee speedskating family...

So it's been a month since we've come back from summer ice training in Inzell, Germany. If you haven't watched our Inzell recap video, enjoy watching it here:

For the first 2 weeks in August we trained out of our hometown in Wheaton, drove up to Northbrook, IL for some velodrome cycling with Brian Hansen & Robert Lehmann (our German Olympian teammate), and had a mini training camp at Brian's Michigan lakehouse including Darren Huang (our Taiwanese teammate). Darren made a crazy, awesome video from that trip, watch here:
                         

Stair training in Michigan

Ice officially opened up for us Milwaukee speedskaters on August 15th (during the 'off-season' from the end of March til now, the 400m long track ice is taken out of the Pettit ice rink because of financial reasons), so we all moved up to Milwaukee, where we will now be based for the rest of this season. The first couple days back on the ice is always super fun...getting to see everyone again while sharing that same excitement of a new season about to begin. (see first/top picture)

Velodrome training in Northbrook, IL

Since we developed a little skating base from our summer ice training in Inzell, Germany, we spent just 2 days adjusting back to the ice before we jumped into hard ice workouts. Jeffrey continually gets better day to day. Again, he is coming from just a couple years of full-focused speedskating training so compared to most speedskaters his age, his base is not as developed. But this year he is even stronger and technically more solid...I am excited to see his hard work pay off! Brian never ceases to amaze us with his almost flawless technique and his powerful workouts. He will be a force to be reckoned with this coming season. Darren also is improving daily and we all love his passion to make this next Olympic team...if he does, he will be the first person EVER to make the winter Olympics from Taiwan (you can read more about him on his fan page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Darren-Huang-黃大原/340351086084934?ref=profile Robert has dramatically improved his skating over these last couple months of training with us and has rediscovered his passion for the sport while taking away some great life lessons from Coach Nancy Sr. herself. And then there is myself. I'm pumped to say that I am healthy and without injuries, as was my story the last three years. Training is going great and I am eager to continually build my base throughout these next weeks before the competition season begins and before we know it, we are at the Olympic Trials (Dec 27-31st!).

Brian, Darren, Robert, Bruce, Coach, Nancy Jr., Jeffrey Jr.

Jumping in Lake Michigan

But as tough as these last weeks have been, we've still been able to
incorporate a little fun in between to give Robert a taste of good ol' America. From a Brewers baseball game (thanks for the tickets Mitch Ferguson!), to watching my younger brother, Johnny's, American football practice, to jumping in Lake Michigan, to getting a glimpse of a crazy Harley Davidson weekend in Milwaukee...we created some great memories as a team amongst our hard work. Sadly Robert had to go back to Germany this past Saturday, but he will always be part of TeamSwiderPeltz :) He was a great contribution to our team, obviously helping us out with workouts, but also giving us constructive criticism that has made us a better team. He will be greatly missed now, but we hope to be seeing him soon on the Fall World Cup Circuit in November.

Brewers baseball game in Milwaukee

As always, thanks for the support you give us to pursue our speedskating passion and it is our
hope you enjoy reading about our journey to
make this next Olympic team together!

God Bless!
Nancy Jr.

1 Corinthians 9:25

Robert, speedskater turned American football QB