Whatever was going on in her life, Lake Louise has either reinforced or restored Lindsey Vonn's faith in her ability to ski fast.
The American's 15 career World Cup victories at the Alberta ski resort is the most by a skier at one venue. Vonn herself has lost count.
"I thought it was 12 and clearly I'm wrong," Vonn said Wednesday.
"For me, I just love racing here. It's not really about counting the wins. It's the perfect way for me to start the season, it's always been a place where I've gotten confidence and it's a springboard for the rest of the season.
"It's gotten to the point where if I don't win, it's really disappointing because I have won so many times here."
The first women's downhills of the 2015-16 season are Friday and Saturday followed by a super-G on Sunday.
Austrians posted four of the five fastest times in Wednesday's opening training run with Cornelia Huetter the quickest. Her teammate Nicole Schmidhofer was second and Lara Gut of Switzerland placed third.
Larisa Yurkiw of Owen Sound, Ont., was 10th and Valerie Grenier of Mont-Tremblant, Que., was 39th. Vonn skied off course and finished 34th.
A large snowfall prior to the men's races in Lake Louise allowed for the construction of a more complex course of rollers and jumps.
"It's a little bit more exciting than normal," Vonn said. "I kind of liked it the way it was, but I will take any races in Lake Louise, no matter what the terrain.
"I'm just going to adjust my line because obviously it wasn't right today, but I'm not going to back off at all."
Vonn re-ignited in Lake Louise a year ago after a tumultuous year and a half. Two knee surgeries in as many years had limited her to a handful of races and forced her to withdraw from the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
She shed tears of joy and relief after winning last year's second downhill in Lake Louise. Vonn won seven more races in 2014-15 for a career total of 67. She surpassed Austria's Annemarie Prosser as the winningest female in World Cup history.
Vonn has twice achieved the Lake Louise hat trick of sweeping both downhills and the super-G in 2011 and 2012. Her sweep in 2011 came a few days after she announced she was divorcing Thomas Vonn, her husband of four years.
The 31-year-old Minnesotan and golfer Tiger Woods were a sports celebrity couple for more than two years, but Vonn announced in May they had amicably split because of their hectic lives.
Vonn fractured her ankle at an August training camp, but recovered in time to get back on snow in October. She required stitches in her thumb in November, however, after trying to break up a scrap between her two dogs.
"My thumb looks hideous," she said. "I'm never going to be a hand model, so I've accepted that."
In 2009, Vonn crossed the finish line in Lake Louise with blood dribbling from her mouth. Her knee connected with her chin during the race, yet Vonn still won the first of her two downhill victories that year.
She executed an incredible piece of skiing the following year in a race she didn't win. Vonn went down on her left hip entering a section of the course named Fall Away, but made an impressive recovery on the slope's face to finish second.
Winning the season's overall World Cup title is a measure of a skier's talent and consistency over the four disciplines of downhill, super-G, slalom and giant slalom. Vonn has hoisted that crystal globe four times in her career.
With 2015 and 2014 champion Anna Fenninger of Austria out for the season with a knee injury and 2013 overall winner Tina Maze of Slovenia taking a year's hiatus, Vonn has fewer challengers for a fifth.
"It's nice having won it before because I guess I'm the only one in the field that's won it," Vonn said. "It's totally different than any other title.
"You can't focus on it. You have to just worry about skiing the best you can every day and at the end, you're either on top or your not."
Her toughest competition for an overall crown this season may come from her 20-year-old teammate Mikaela Shiffrin, who won a pair of slaloms in Aspen, Colo., last weekend.
Shiffrin isn't racing downhills in Lake Louise, but is scheduled to make her super-G debut Sunday.
This content appears as provided to The Globe by the originating wire service. It has not been edited by Globe staff.