Time to Deflate My Head

WOW! All I can say is wow. The past few days have been a whirlwind of excitement. If you have a chance, please check out the links at the end of this blog… they are crazy exciting!

Lumberjack World Championships

Displaying my fantastic sponsor "Duluth Trading Company" on my rear end before my boom final.

Showing a bit of intensity during my boom run final.

Let’s start with the good news: I am the 2009 Boom Run WORLD CHAMPION! I had two of my best runs ever at the finals show on Sunday and could not be more excited about my win. In other exciting boom run news, Nate had two fantastic runs as well and missed making finals by just a few hundredths of a second. Even more ironic? He jumped over the laser beam after one of his runs. Now who on earth would ever do a dumb thing like that?! Luckily they were nice enough to use the hand time.

Log rolling was less of a success story. I made it to the semi-finals with no falls. Katie Hoeschler and I had one of my most exciting matches I’ve ever rolled. ALL of our falls happened on the tiny #4 log, and it went like so: fall for Katie, fall for Shana, fall for Katie, fall for Shana, and finally… fall for Katie. I would like to say I wasn’t “on my game” that day, but honestly, Katie just really had her stuff together and rolled AMAZINGLY well. She is well deserving of her world championship title.

The rest of the amazing LWC weekend was filled with good times and great friends as always. Our hotel room at the Comfort Suites was cram-packed with Lumberjacks and I couldn’t have been happier about it. Okay, I may have been able to do without Tyler’s weird hockey friends, but other than that, I was happy to be with everybody. Here is some bullet point blogging to cover the weekend’s highlights:

Just a few of the many lumberjacks in our room.

• Knocking Katie off of the go cart track on Thursday night.
• Having Garrick and Gretchen represent Madison for the amateurs all weekend long. • The beautiful “50 Years of Lumberjack World Championships” book that I got to have a nice quote in. Unfortunately, the photos were slightly less flattering. :)
• Nate’s parents making it out to the competition.
• Deciding to be healthy and not ordering anything at Coops, then taking a “few bites” of Katie’s dinner.
• Nate and Thomas galloping around the restaurant piggy back.
• Getting DQed in the axe throw because I learned how to throw upside down in New Zealand. Then owing Jamie 130 push-ups for losing our bet.
• Jamie’s extra long shower and phone call with Jill.
• Olivia’s contribution to the “dinner for two” at Famous Dave’s.
• Spit Wad fights at Famous Dave’s.
• The same spit wad fights leading to Thomas wetting his pants and taking them off in the middle of the restaurant.
• Thomas giving a dollar bill to the drunk 50 year old lady trying to dance on the pole.
• Sitting on the dock looking over Lake Hayward.
• Reenacting our previous world championship matches with Jenny while actually rolling for 5th and 6th. Then asking the judges to pull our wheelchairs up to the dock.
• Watching Katie Hoeschler win her first (and well deserved) world championship title.
• Watching JR Salzman win his first world championship title since his injury in Iraq.
• Watching Tyler blow it in the boom run finals because he got drunk on Friday night.
• Darren exclaiming, “Opps, I fell.” And “I’m the belly flop champion of the WORLD!!!” after his failed boom run final.
• Getting the entire gang together for dinner at Old Hayward Saturday night.
• Darren’s one arm push-ups holding Ritchie, and then saying, “I’m really glad I didn’t land on him.”
• Trampolining, handstand, and back handspring contests at Brian’s.
• Darren wearing the wig as “Helga, the Olympic Gymnast.”
• The Duffy family dance to “Rollin’” and “Baby Got Back”.
• Flip cup with 16 drunken lumberjacks.
• And last but not least… seeing way too many white lumberjack butts on the boom run. …oh yes we did.

Today’s Media Frenzy:

Today I awoke to the news that my name made it to number one at “Google Trends”. I was also pointed in the direction of this article.
with one of the most flattering quotes I’ve heard, "From her bio at her site, and news from her escapades, Shana just may be living proof that beauty, toughness and fitness can go hand in hand." - Phil Butler
Thank you so much Phil.

And the coolest thing of all? I was on the FRONT PAGE of msn.com promoting my feature with Andrew Zimmern with the caption “Angel of Lumberjacks.” How freaking cool is that?!
From all of this I’ve gotten hundreds of touching e-mails and facebook messages. If you were one of the many who wrote, give me a few days, but I will respond.

Now I need to get to bed and focus on my long day of work ahead of me tomorrow. I think it will take a few days to digest all of this excitement. And then… last competition of the season in Grand Marais, Minnesota!!! Dave and Shana are going to kill everybody in the Jack and Jill saw… look out!

More news articles:
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/07/28/2009-07-28_shana_martin_lumberjack_world_championships_competitor_is_also_a_tireless_crusad.html

http://www.thecherrycreeknews.com/content/view/4898/2/