photo by Steve Penland

Saturday, December 31, 2011

2011

To do a little plagiarizing, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times (skating wise, that is.  In general, my life is great and I really have very little to complain about.  I only wish for better health for my parents.  Other than that...life is great).

But back to skating--this is, after all, The Long Track Life.  And skating in 2011 went from horribly discouraging--in the spring and summer, when my thyroid levels dipped again and it took a bit of work to get the meds adjusted properly--to fantastic, in the fall when I went to Milwaukee to skate and discovered that some technique improvements had resulted in significantly faster times.  2011 was truly a year of dreams coming true--when I started this blog I had several posts, including this one, in which I lamented my unorthodox skating style.  It wasn't that I didn't want to skate more conventionally, and it wasn't that Coach TieGuy hadn't moved heaven and earth to try to teach me to skate more conventionally; it's just that we had come to the realization that the more conventionally I skated, the more slowly I skated.  So I did my Bunny on Crack "crazy tempo" skating, and was pretty fast (for my age), if I do say so myself.  But still, I was beginning to realize that, to get faster with my current technique, I'd need to get in even better shape--and I'm already frequently riding the ragged edge of overtraining/injury.  So I dreamed of someday, somehow, making that technical leap that would allow me to skate "properly," getting more power to the ice and going faster with less effort.

I dreamed of it, but honestly had pretty much given up hope of it happening.

I still truly don't know what led to the change in my skating.   This summer I started trying stuff that I'd tried before; only, when I'd tried it before, I'd gotten slower.  This time I got faster.

Whatever the reason, I'll take it!

Not that there isn't still some work left for 2012.  This video, of a 500 meter and 1500 meter time trial from this morning, amply demonstrates that.  A strong wind caused a bit of regression in my technique, and I seem to have developed a funky new armswing that looks like a cross between swimming and imitating windshield wipers.  My starts, particularly the 1500, are truly horrific.  And I see that the Chicken Wing is back.  So yeah, 2012 will be busy on the ice!

2011...yeah, it was a good year.  And 2012 will start off with my big meet of the year, the Masters Single Distance in Milwaukee, next weekend.

I can't wait.

Happy New Year!



Thursday, December 29, 2011

H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks

I have nothing against hockey players.  In fact, I married one (sort of--The Hubster grew up playing hockey in Canada, but has since switched to broomball).

Two of them, however, made my workout very interesting last night.

On paper, it should have been a great workout.  Just two tempos--500 and 1500 meters.  Perfect weather--35 degrees and calm (where is our Minnesota winter!?). And, best of all, Coach TieGuy was in town.

Unfortunately it became quite clear, as I got into the workout, that I was not living up to these auspicious portents.  Warmup was OK; Coach TieGuy was able to point out a couple of things that I had become sloppy with in the past few months, but in general was pleased with my NIT (New Improved Technique).  The 500 tempo was lackluster, though; partly, no doubt, because I hate 500 tempos.  The 500 meter start line is right after a corner, so when you need to stand on the line to do a start you need to make darn sure that no skaters are coming down the backstretch--if they come around the corner to find you standing there, really bad stuff will happen.  (Take note of that--that right there is what we in the literary world call "foreshadowing.")  So to minimize the possibility of disaster I basically skated to the start line, paused briefly to assume the "ready" position, and then took off.  Clumsily.

So the 500 was "meh."  Still, it was nice to have Coach TieGuy back on the other end of the FRS radio, even though--due to my less-than-thorough inspection of the remaining battery life in our radios--his comments sounded something like "....ccccckkkkk....entry...ccck...good exit...cccckkkk...knees...."  After the 500, he told me that I was forgetting to do the extra crossover when coming out of a corner, which, upon reflection, I decided was probably due to forgetting to "drift out" when exiting the corner.  So I resolved to do better in the 1500.

The 1500 shares the starting-line-after-a-corner problem with the 500, but it seemed that a few skaters had gone in for their mid-workout warmup so the track was less crowded.  So my start was better, and as I approached the first corner I focused on attacking the corner, drifting out slightly on the exit, and getting that extra crossover to help carry my cornering speed into the straightaway.

I exited the corner, extra crossover, good, look down the track...

...and see an 8-year-old hockey player, stick and all, skating slowly across the ice from her practice in the oval infield to the exit on the outside of the track.

Given the fact that she was skating to the outside, and I was drifting to the outside, we were both heading for the same patch of oval real estate.  Collision was imminent.

I stood up out of my skating stance, swerved (as much as I could) to my right to pass her on the outside--there was no way I could swerve back to the inside, behind her, at that speed--and yelled "YOU HAVE TO LOOK!!! GEEZ!!!"  Except that there was an "us" on the end of my "geez."  Hope I didn't offend anyone.

And then I got back down into skating position and resumed my tempo.  About five seconds later, a rink attendant came on the loudspeaker to remind hockey players that they must not cross the track unattended, and that coaches must not let their players cross without adult supervision.

The rest of the tempo was not pretty; by the last lap, I was really struggling.  When I finished, I coasted over to TieGuy for the lap times.

"Opener was...let me see...34.  Then a 39.5, then a 41.8"

"And?"  I said.  "What was the last lap?"  A 1500 is the opener plus 3 laps.

Coach TieGuy gave me a strange look.

"That's all," he said.

Turns out I had been so flustered by the near-collision that I lost my ability to count to 3, and quit a lap early.

Oh, well...given how I felt, the last lap would have been spectacularly bad, anyway.

So, after my cooldown, we headed back to the locker room.  (The skating center building has a large warming-house room as well as several locker rooms for the hockey arena, and the oval staff are nice enough to let the speedskaters use a locker room whenever there isn't a varsity hockey game going on.)  As TieGuy and I discussed my skating while I took off my skates, the door opened and a 20-something hockey player, complete with goalie gear, stuck his head in the room and asked if he could share our locker room.  Seems there was an alumni hockey game coming up and all the other rooms were taken.

"Sure," I said, "as long as you don't smell too bad."  Sometimes our locker room reeks of unwashed hockey gear.

"Um...I don't think so..." he said, as he came into the room.

Somehow, though, within 5 minutes one fairly-unstinky-goalie had morphed into 10 large hockey players stuffing themselves into gear that had obviously never been introduced to Febreeze.

10 large hockey players, moreover, who had obviously never been introduced to the concept of "there's a woman in the locker room."

Yes, I looked up from stuffing my skates into my bag just in time to be mooned by one of the players.

In future, I'd appreciate it if all hockey players at the oval--whether little girls or young men--would keep their asses out of my way.

Monday, December 26, 2011

A Cabin Christmas--Day 2

Day 2 of our cabin Christmas.  My sister Energizer Bunny and her husband Sherpa Boy (and their two cats) arrived last night, and things have settled into a nice routine: Stoke the wood stove.  Eat.  Read.  Eat.  Stoke the wood stove (when heating with wood, it's advantageous to be staying with a couple of middle-aged women who have to get up multiple times during the night to go to the bathroom--no need for the menfolk to bestir themselves to stoke the fire in the middle of the night!).  Eat.  Talk. Eat. Wash dishes from eating.  Eat.  Cook.  Eat.

We broke the routine a couple of times to check out the wave action:
And to go for a walk, down the beach, up the Superior Hiking Trail, and back down the highway to the cabin:
The four-mile walk served the dual purpose of burning off the breakfast French Toast casserole...
That's a lot of food for 4 medium-sized people! 
And not to worry; that's a Caffeine Free Diet Dew I've got there.
Yes, for breakfast.  Be quiet.
...as well as making room for lunch--which in my case was leftover Little Smokies from breakfast and leftover apple crisp from last night's dessert.

So clearly, it's time to head home tomorrow--and not only because a couple more days of eating like this would probably necessitate a skinsuit upsize.  In addition to that, the Death Valley bed we're sleeping on is starting to affect my back, and the cats are starting to affect my asthma--particularly this black-and-white fellow, affectionately known as "DanderBomb."
Yes, "DanderBomb" only has three legs. He's a stray that Energizer Bunny and Sherpa Boy rescued when he showed up at their door injured many winters ago.  He was so charmingly friendly and playfully, even when horribly hurt, that the vet agreed to operate on him at a greatly reduced rate.  Unfortunately, "charmingly friendly and playful when horribly hurt" segued into "feisty little rabble-rouser when healthy," and so DanderBomb's real name is Sh*t Head," or "Shi Thead" when he's in polite company.  So "DanderBomb" is actually an upgrade.

Anyway, tomorrow it's the drive home, followed by a workout at the Oval.  It's the first night of two weeks of  tapering to get ready for my big meet.

And I've already got the carbo-loading done, so I'm one step ahead!

Sunday, December 25, 2011

A Cabin Christmas--Day 1

The Hubster, the Hound and I are at the family cabin on Lake Superior for Christmas.  My sister Energizer Bunny and her husband Sherpa Boy (and their two cats) will join us this afternoon.  Random thoughts from the trip thus far:

  • It's best not to be smug because you have water at your cabin and your cousins, in another cabin, couldn't get theirs working. After assuring them that they could visit us anytime for showers, a flush toilet, and unlimited "fill-the-bucket" trips last night, we awoke to no water this morning.  Or rather, I awoke.  Hubster is still sleeping, but on a brief foray out of the bedroom to the bathroom earlier this morning, he said that there must be a leak in the system or a tap open somewhere, so all he'll need to do is pump up water again to refill the tank. In the meantime, I'm typing this with rather dirty hands.
  • On a related note, there are advantages and disadvantages to outhouses in the winter (our summer-only cabin, 20 yards away, has no indoor plumbing so we're all borrowing its outhouse).  The upside?  The outhouse never smells better than it does in the winter, when everything is frozen. The downside?  Updraft.
  • Still, cold breezes nothwithstanding, we have a pretty neat outhouse.  Here's the view from the window (don't ask why our outhouse has a window)



  • Keira, who sometimes looks a bit goofy in her usual urban setting, looks very dignified in a wild, primitive sort of way when she's romping in the woods up here.  This is what we call her "Noble Staghound" pose 

  • Don't argue with the Hubster when he says that the oven, pre-heating for the baking of the traditional Christmas Eve frozen pizza, smells like "burning mouse." Apparently he's smelled many a burning mouse (you know, on exhaust manifolds and snowmobile exhaust pipes and such).
  • Remember that Keira, despite her almost complete lack of hunting abilities, is quite capable of tracking down and attempting to eat a dead, frozen eelpout (or, as my family calls them, "lawyer") on the lakeshore.  She will be most un-amused when I drag the disgusting trophy from her mouth and, to prevent her from "hunting it up" again, chuck it down the outhouse.  This will be the closest I come to Christmas Eve Lutefisk this year.
  • Smother a laugh when I relay the story of tossing the lawyer in the outhouse to Energizer Bunny and she says "Eww, gross, you shouldn't have done that...now it's gonna stink!"  She does know what's in the outhouse, right?
  • And now...the Hubster is up, the water is fixed, the cabin is warm, there's a beautiful view out the window, nostalgic "cabin music" on the iPod, and it's time to make cookies.
Merry Christmas!

Friday, December 23, 2011

Playin' With the Boys

First off, I will apologize to anyone who now has a "Top Gun" volleyball scene flashback/earworm. Those of you who have no idea what I mean are obviously not old enough to be masters skaters.

Anyway, last night's workout was fun.  It was a Hellishly long interval workout--2x (5x3 laps) at 70% effort, with 600 meters rest between the 3-lappers.  Yes, 30 laps--12k--of intervals.  Fortunately only at 70%, though--most interval workouts are 80 or 90%--so it seemed doable.  And the weather was perfect: 25 degrees and no wind.  The "no wind" part is a rare and beautiful thing here on Frozen Tundra Oval.

So I thought it would probably go OK.  The only thing that I thought might be a fly in the ointment was my Experiment.  In my coursework to become a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, I did quite a bit of studying of Single Subject Research Design.  So, drawing on my knowledge of ABAB designs (baseline/treatment/reversal to baseline/reapply treatment), I figured that the last day of school before break might be a good time to reverse my "severe caffeine reduction to gauge effect of caffeine on PVC's" treatment to a nice baseline level.

In other words, I had a 20 ounce Diet Dew before skating.

So I thought that there might be some PVC action tonight.  Since I started the caffeine reduction they've been remarkably infrequent (although not totally absent), but in the interest of being a good researcher I figured I should reverse to that happy, fully-caffeinated baseline state for a bit to be sure that the PVC reduction was not merely a coincidence.

My first set of 3 laps went well. I figured 43-44 second laps would be an appropriate pace, but my first set were 41's and 42's but still felt like 70%.  I approved. Then, as I coasted my all-too-short 600 meter rest, I spotted fellow masters skater Aussie Boy skating vaguely about, apparently without a workout plan.

"Hey Aussie Boy," I yelled, "wanna join me for some laps?"

After ascertaining that by "some laps" I meant "sets of 3 laps" and not "sets of 12 laps"--Aussie Boy is not a fan of endurance skating--he agreed to join me.  And since he knows of my anal-retentive obsessive-compulsive control-freak need to know my un-draft-assisted lap times he agreed (even though he's faster than I am) to skate behind me.

The next 4 sets of 3 laps went great--40-42 second laps.  Well, except for the last lap of the last set.  As I headed into the first turn I felt the familiar "flippy floppy", "hollow" feeling in my chest that signals PVC's, followed by the "I've suddenly become an 80-year-old chronic smoker with COPD" feeling in my legs and lungs.  Consequently the last lap was  a 45, and it's unfortunately clear that I must return to my "severely reduced/hopefully soon completely eliminated caffeine" treatment phase of my experiment. Dang.  I really love my caffeine.

Oh, well. I love skating more.

I went in for my customary "I now skate sockless because my new skates fit best that way" warm-up-the-toes break after my first 5 sets.  Aussie Boy said he'd stay outside skating but would watch for me to come back out so he could do the remaining 5 sets with me.

When I came back outside after a leisurely toe-warming, I was greeted by the sight of Aussie Boy and two other masters skaters, 50's Boy and 60's Boy, anxiously awaiting my return.

Cool.  I got me a posse of skaters!

It probably looked pretty funny--me, in black tights and a bright green jacket, leading my three Johnny-Cash-Black clad disciples through the laps.  All we needed was a nice red caboose.

It was a lot of fun, though.  Lap times remained good, although I got pretty tired; the last set was all 42's. It was fun to skate with people for a change, even though I wasn't drafting off of them (I think there's a slight draft advantage to leading a group of people, though, if I remember right...).  All in all, a great last workout before a holiday break.  Now I can spend the next 4 workout-less days enjoying family and fun, and trying not to eat so many Christmas cookies that my skinsuit won't fit come next Tuesday.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Awesomeness--with a side of facepalm

Because I'm a geek, I rate every workout on a 1-10 scale.  After I became hypothyroid but before I was diagnosed, there were a lot of twos and even some ones.  A one is a No Good, Very Bad, Horrible Workout.

Tonight's workout was a nine.

On tap for tonight were 5x2k, at a nice comfortable 50% pace.  I figured I'd work on relaxing, getting more out of my straightaway strokes, and trying to figure out my corner entries.  Somewhere in the second set I was cruising along, working moderately hard but not so hard that I couldn't focus on technique, when it happened.

I felt the skate I was gliding on begin to "carve" at the end of each stroke, as I drove my opposite knee forward.

It took me a couple laps to realize what was happening. I had heard skaters speak of this "carving" before, most recently fellow masters skater Sprinter Boy on the drive down to Milwaukee a couple of weeks ago.  I had responded to his discussion of carving the way I had to many a similar discussion about some of the finer technical points of skating--with a verbal "oh, yeah, uh huh" and a mental "which leg?  Huh?  What? When?  I have no conception of this thing of which you speak."

But today I felt the carving.  And it was cool.   It felt like I was skating (finally!) the way I see other people skate.  People who go a lot faster than I do.

So I had to share the joy.  When I clapped my way into the locker room for my "warming of the feet" mid-workout break, the rest of the masters skaters were already assembled there.

"Hey," I said to Sprinter Boy as I plopped down happily on the bench and started untying my skates, "I'm about to give you a glimpse of what Coach TieGuy had to put up with for the past five years when he'd try to explain things to me.  You know that carving thing you were telling me about?  I had no idea what you were talking about...but I think I just had a..."

"Facepalm moment?"  offered Sprinter Boy.

"Uh, I was gonna say epiphany, but yeah..."  And I explained that I had suddenly gone from "Huh?  What?" to "Oh, yeah...that.  I know exactly what you mean."

So it was good.  Really good.  Much awesomeness, in fact. I felt like tonight's workout was as much of an improvement over the first part of the season, technique-wise, as the first part of this season has been over the previous seasons.  So yeah, a nine.

Maybe even a ten.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

I'll Take PB's over PVC's Any Day

So here's how today's races went:
No caffeine for 48 hours.
2 races.
PVC's in warmup and at the end of the 1000 meter; none in the 3k.
2 PB's.

I'll take it.

Neither race was great from a technical standpoint.  I blew every corner entry in the 1000, so that plus the PVC's at 800 meters undoubtedly made it a bit slower than it could have been.  Still, my old Personal Best was 1:38; today's race was 1:37.78.  Since the old PB was from January 2008, I was quite happy with today's time. The 3k went better, technically, for the most part--except an "almost fall" at 400 meters.  So I know I could have gone faster in that, too.  Old PB (also from January 2008) was 5:13.24; today was 5:13.18.  Again, happy.

I'm not entirely convinced that the caffeine-free status accounted for the PVC-free status in the 3k (or maybe I just don't want to believe it...I miss my caffeine!  When will this dang headache go away?).  Anyway, I did have some PVC's in warmup and at the end of the 1k, so I wasn't completely free of them.  And I've noticed that, in practice, it seems like I get less of them later in the workout (after I've skated a few hard laps) than at the beginning. We had an unusually short amount of time between the 1k and the 3k today--20 minutes, versus the usual hour or more. Maybe I need to experiment with doing some hard laps relatively shortly before my races (if I can; I have a really hard time skating hard in the warmup lane during races).

Or maybe I just need to suck it up and accept the fact that, at least until my big race January 7 and 8, I'll be caffeine-free.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Caffeine-free and Cranky

This is gonna be a short post because I like to keep this blog profanity-free and, given my current level of crankiness, I'm not sure how long I'll be able to sustain that.

Going caffeine-free sucks.

Notice I didn't say being caffeine free.  That's because, despite trying for over a week, I'm not yet.  Well, I haven't had any caffeine today but I've only been up for two hours, so the day is young.

I tried to go completely caffeine free twice in the past week, when I figured I'd tapered enough to be able to stop  altogether.  Both times I ended up with an emergency application of caffeine before lunchtime.  Both those days were workdays, though, which not only meant that I was less tolerant of feeling lousy, but also that I didn't think it fair to inflict my crankiness on students and co-workers.

Today it's just me and the Hubster and the dog.

I hope they both survive.

On the PVC front, I'm still getting them when skating, even though I'm down to about a half cup of coffee a day (and I drink it more than 12 hours before skating).  I have noticed a big reduction in PVC's when inactive or only doing light activity like walking the dog, though.  Tomorrow I'll race completely caffeine-free (assuming I don't cave today, that is), so we'll see what happens.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Darn...my bad habits are turning on me

It started with the Splenda.

Having been sugarfree for over 10 years, I was a big fan of Splenda.  Until I discovered that it has been implicated in thyroid dysfunction.

So the Splenda had to go.

Of course, life without sweets is unthinkable, so with Splenda off the table (literally as well as figuratively), I reverted back to sugar.  And for a time, it was good.  But then, I started noticing that some stuff was too sweet.


"Too sweet" is a concept that previously did not exist in my vocabulary.  I was always the one who wanted the piece of cake with the most frosting; the third marshmallow in my s'more; the extra scoop of sugar on my Cheerios.  So when I ate (for the first time in 11 years) peanut M&M's...and Reese's pieces...and Kit Kat bars, and found them "too sweet," it was a bit of a surreal experience.

Don't get me wrong; I'd much rather find candy and such things to be too sweet and thus unappealing.  After all, there's a reason I quit eating them 11 years ago--a complete lack of ability to control my intake.  Still, it's a bit disquieting to discover that there is such a thing as "too sweet," and to discover that many former favorites are now falling into this category. Even my beloved PopTarts seem to have now--after a couple of weeks of wild overindulgence--crossed the line into "too sweet" territory...the frosted ones, anyway.  I'm still working my way through a box of unfrosted strawberry...

And now, caffeine seems to have joined the list of Bad Habits of Mine That No Longer Work For Me.  As I mentioned in my last post, I've been having some trouble with PVC's--Premature Ventricular Contractions, a type of heart arrhythmia--when I skate.  I've had them off and on for over 20 years, and sometimes when I skate, but they've never been as clearly exercise-triggered before as they are right now.

And they seem to happen a lot more after I drink caffeine.

I've always known that caffeine can be linked to PVC's, but I've never noticed a connection personally.  They've just had their own random patterns.  But now, it seems that every time I have caffeine (which is at least three times a day), PVC's follow shortly.

Yesterday was the last straw.  I'd gone down to Milwaukee again to do another 3k.  I was pretty confident that I could do a sub-5:00 (which I've only done twice in Milwaukee, once when the "constant tailwind" blowers were on), but I secretly was hoping for a PB.  After all, things have been going really well lately.  Why not?

So I did a 500, and it went well--second fastest time ever in Milwaukee.  Then I had a couple hour wait before my 3k.  Good, I thought, more time for the caffeine from my early-morning coffee to leave my system. (I had cut back on my coffee by about half, but hadn't thought it prudent to abandon it altogether).  But, shortly before my 3k, I started getting PVC's.   And I had them at the starting line.  And I had them throughout the first 600 meters of the race.

I had given a local Minnesota skater, Sprinter Boy, a ride down to Milwaukee.  Since his sprints were done long before my 3k, he was kind enough to offer to give me my splits on the backstretch.  We had discussed my projected times, and I had predicted a 37-second first lap, followed by a 38.  I wanted to hold the 39's at bay for as long as possible, and hopefully never hit 40.  When the PVC's got bad at around 400 meters into the race though, I figured 37 be damned, I have to back off a bit or I won't finish the race. So I eased up for the final 100 yards of the first lap, and figured I'd point meaningfully to my chest as, I struggled past Sprinter Boy on the backstretch, to explain my undoubtedly-sluggish first lap.

When I came out of the corner and saw the lap board, though, it read...6.7.  As in 36.7.

Geez, if I hadn't eased up I probably would have gotten a 35.

Shortly after that the PVC's stopped.  I struggled through the next few laps but felt better as the race went on, and actually felt the strongest in the two final laps.  Which was good, considering that I had a bigger audience for this race than I'm used to--I was the final skater in the meet, I had no pair and thus was the only one on the ice, and was actually skating after the time that the skate school classes were supposed to start.  So I had about 100 anxious little kids and their parents watching me skate and undoubtedly thinking "can't she go any faster?"  So it would have sucked to have had a bad race.

Anyway, the race turned out OK--4:56.91, my second fastest (un-blower-aided) Milwaukee time.  After the first lap, the splits were a 38, one 40, and the rest 39's.  So I was happy, but also a bit frustrated.  It was a very unpleasant race, and the uncertainty of not knowing when I'll get PVC's and how long into the race/practice they'll last is not something I want to have to deal with every time I skate.

So I'm quitting caffeine, at least long enough to see if it makes a difference (if it doesn't, you can bet I'll crack open a cold Diet Dew before you can say Premature Ventricular Contraction).  If the caffeine-ectomy doesn't work, I'll probably see my doctor (no sense seeing him before I quit the caffeine, since I'm pretty sure that's the first thing he'll recommend).  In the meantime I'll nurse my caffeine-withdrawal headache and think happy thoughts about how much fun it will be to skate hard without my heart beating funny...

Sunday, December 4, 2011

American Cup, Day 2--You Make My Heart Beat Faster (or at least have PVC's)

Back for Day 2.

I always like to get to races early, because I find that it's in my best interest to get out on the warmup ice as soon as the Zamboni clears the track.  It worked out great yesterday; we had a full hour of warmup ice, and it turned out that the first half hour was populated by me and four other early-riser masters skaters, while the second half hour was occupied by the other 65 skaters.

Just the way I like it.

Today, though, we only had half an hour of warmup time, so even though I was the first one on the ice I was quickly joined by more skaters than I'd like.  Since my first race, the 1000 meter, wasn't for two hours after warmup was done, I figured it wouldn't matter the crowded ice made me a bit perfunctory in my warmup.

The day started with the Star Spangled Banner (although the Zamboni driver didn't stand at attention):

We did Oh Canada for the Canadian skaters, too.

Then I had two hours to hang around, watch races, talk to fellow skaters, do physical therapy exercises to keep my back happy, and obsess over the timing of my thyroid meds.  My 3000 meter race, which is simultaneously the one I'm most concerned about doing well in and the one that is most affected by thyroid med timing, was one of the last on the schedule and thus one of the hardest to accurately predict the time of.  I finally settled on a time to take the meds, but I still wasn't sure it would be optimal.  I was afraid that, if the race was later than I guessed it would be, I'd be low on meds by the time I skated.

Finally, at 11:00, it was time for my 1000 meter.  I view the 1000 as only a slight step up from the  500.  It's still short enough to both make me lose rational thought process and thus revert to a frantic scramble, and to require more fast-twitch muscles than I've ever possessed.  Still, the 1000 went well...well, except for the poor start, the slip in the first corner, and the PVC's (a harmless but performance-interfering heart arrhythmia) at 800 meters.  Despite all that my time, 1:40.13, was my fourth fastest outdoor 1k, and 4 seconds faster than I skated the distance in this meet a year ago.

Cool.

Another two hours of wandering around, PT exercises, catching Coach TieGuy--who was kept busy being one of the starters at the event--for a moment or two to discuss my skating, and visualizing my 3k.  Then it was time to skate.

I had asked one of the coaches from the local club if he could give me my lap times in the 3k, since Coach TieGuy was busy waving a gun around, and he was kind enough to oblige.  So I knew that my opener (the first 200 meters) was slower than usual, at 24.6 seconds.  I knew that my first lap was a 39.2, pretty much right where I wanted it to be.

And I knew that my second lap was a 42.5.

Yes, a 3.3 second die in the second lap.

Now, to put that in perspective, when I skated a 5k--12.5 laps--in Milwaukee in late October, it took me 7 laps to slow 3.3 seconds.  So doing it in one lap was kind of a shocker.

And then I slowed another 1.1 seconds in the next lap, to a 43.6.

At this point, I was figuring that this would be a "hypo skate," in which I slow by a second or more every lap, until I finally crawl across the finish line.  Damn, I thought, I knew I mistimed my thyroid meds... (when I told the Hubster about my race, and mentioned this concern, he said "Really?  You thought about that while you were racing?  What else did you think about?  What you need to put on the grocery list?  World Peace?"  What can I say...my mind wanders sometimes).

Anyway, lap four was no better, at 43.9.  But lap four had something else...more PVC's. At least those would explain the slow pace.  And their absence, in lap five, would explain why lap five was over a second faster at 42.8, lap six was a nice consistent 42.9, and the final lap, lap seven, was a 43.0.  My total time was 5:22.39--my second fastest outdoor 3k ever.

So, I don't know.  Usually I feel PVC's--they feel like a "thump," or a couple of faster beats followed by a slower one--but I know that it's quite possible to have them and not feel them.  Maybe that's what happened in laps two and three, but I guess I'll never know. All I know is that, at the end of the day, I had a couple of very good race times--and a nice earworm of Matt Nathanson's "You Make My Heart Beat Faster."

Oh, and a T-shirt.
Nothing beats a good race T-shirt...except a good race.  When you have them both, well, you've got yourself a darn good weekend.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

American Cup Race Report, Day 1--Take That, 500 meter!

I have a love-hate relationship with the 500 meter.  I love to hate it.  Coach TieGuy (who is a firm believer in the power of the mental side of athletics) used to have me incorporate recitations of "I love the 500" into my mental race preparation, but it didn't do much good.  I stink at the 500, it always makes me feel like a total klutz, and so I hate it.

Today, I hated it a little less.

This weekend is the American Cup I Long Track Speedskating race, the first in the four-race American Cup series.  The other three races are held in Milwaukee, Salt Lake, and, strangely enough, Calgary (this one doubles as the North American Championships, which explains its Canadian locale).  American Cup races are "regular" races, as opposed to Masters-specific events, and are only divided into Junior (under 19) and Senior (19 to death) divisions.  Since I'm possibly closer to death than to 19, I never care much about how I stack up against other (younger) racers in these events; I just want to get good times for me.  Preferably Personal Bests (PB's), although that hasn't happened at an outdoor meet in a long time.

Today I was optimistic, though.  The conditions were good--30 degrees and only a light to moderate wind.  It's always funny to see the "indoor babies" who skate in Milwaukee come up to the Frozen Tundra of Minnesota to race.  You can always tell them from the "natives" during warmup; they're the ones sporting full-on neoprene face masks, neck warmers, and goggles.
Um, guys...it's 32 degrees out... (no, he didn't wear the hat during the races!)

Anyways, super cold ice is slow, as is ice with standing water on it or snow on it, or ice at any temperature during 40-mile-per-hour winds, or...you get the idea.  There are a lot of ways that a Minnesota winter can sabotage your race efforts...but today looked good.

Then, too, there was the optimism of my New Improved Technique (NIT).  I had hopes for NIT helping me get some decent times in the longer races, particularly tomorrow's 3k.  The 500, though, I figured was probably a lost cause.  Over the last couple years I've gone from typically doing 50-second 500's outdoors to typically doing 52's.  I figure my aging legs are losing their fast-twitch muscles.

All three or four of them.

So when I visualized my races this past week during my mental race prep, I didn't bother to worry about trying to figure out what time I was hoping for in the 500.  I just wanted to get it over with, practice my NIT during the race, and move on to the fun stuff.

So last night I finished all my race prep--visualized, sharpened skates, packed skinsuit and recovery drink and camera.  At 11:00, as I was getting ready for bed, the Hubster appeared at the bedroom door in his Carhartts.  11:00, it seems, is a good time to throw the snow tires on the wife's car.

Actually I was fine with that, since the Hubster is a bit of a night owl and often does his auto maintenance after midnight.  I was a little alarmed, though, when his Carhartt-clad self reappeared in the bedroom at 3:00 am to inquire as to my departure time in the morning.  Turns out one of the snow tires had a nail in it and couldn't be mounted until it was fixed.  So the Hubster--who hadn't planned on attending this weekend's races--hauled himself out of bed at the get-the-worm hour of 7 am, in order to drive me to the races so that he could then take the tire to be fixed and then come back and watch me skate.

It all went fine until after he dropped me off.  As I was wandering aimlessly about the almost-deserted warming house (I like to get places early), I suddenly realized that I had left my thyroid medication in the car--and I needed to take it!  So I sprinted back up the stairs, flew out the door, and fortunately saw the Hubster's Avalanche just starting to pull away from the curb.  My pre-race warmup suddenly expanded to include a desperate, arm-waving sprint in pursuit of the Hubster, who was looking determinedly in the other direction as he drove off.  Fortunately I managed to flag him down before he exceeded my top speed, but the frantic sprint pissed off my already-unhappy low back...and a happy low back is critical to an enjoyable--and fast--speedskating experience.  So my optimism wavered a bit there.

Still, warmup went well, and the application of a couple of physical therapy exercises seemed to calm my back down to normal semi-unhappy levels.  By the time the men started skating their 500's, I was feeling pretty good again.

Men's 500 meter...the scoreboard lists the skaters as "Blumel, M" and "Blumel, M"--two brothers were paired together.  I think M Blumel won.

And then it was my turn.  I had a lot of technical things I wanted to get right in the 500, but still didn't really have a time I was shooting for.  Oh, I did tell the Hubster that I'd be happy with a 50...considering that I got a 52 at this race last year, that seemed a bit far-fetched, but a girl can dream, right?  

My list of technical things to focus on during the 500--as written in my trusty notepad before the race--went something like this: right foot a bit further back on start.  Keep hips forward during first 50 meters.  Power strokes, don't scramble.  Left hip in on corner.  Stay low in corner.  Drive knees and focus on full recovery stroke on backstretch.  Big left recovery stroke before entering corner.  Final straight--keep the power, don't scramble.

My actual thought process during the 500 was a bit less helpful, and went something like this: "Go to the start"  Alright, right foot a little bit farther back..."Ready"  Hmm that doesn't feel quite right, oh well too late.  "BANG"  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa....skate skate skate damn forgot to breathe skate skate corner! corner!  my pair is passing me who's going to switch lanes first she's slowing I'll go past her good into the other lane skate skate skate AAAAAAAAA last inner!  Last inner!  Sharp corner!  Hip in!  Whew, made it.  Skate skate skate skate skate finish line.

Look at scoreboard.

49.67

Cool.  A PB.

(Actually, I couldn't confirm that it was a PB until I got home and looked in my data notebook...I didn't bother to look up my outdoor 500 PB before the race because I figured it was irrelevant.)

So yeah...take that, 500.  I finally lowered my outdoor PB, for the first time since 2008.  So maybe I don't hate the 500, after all.

(Oh, yeah...my second race, the 1500, also went well.  No PB--my old PB was set on a day that had absolutely perfect conditions for outdoor racing, so that one might stand for a while.  But my time was 5 seconds faster than what I typically did in outdoor 1500's for the past two years.  So I'm happy. And now I have to go sharpen my skates, because tomorrow I have the 1000 and the 3k.)

Here's the only picture the Hubster got of me today, taken during my cooldown (I forgot the video camera so he tried to take video with our little still camera, with less than stunning results).

Back tomorrow with Day 2!

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Pace Yourself

I used to be pretty good at pacing.

If I was told to do a 40 second lap, or a 45, or a 42, I would (assuming I was physically capable) do a 40 or a 45 or a 42.  Once when my sister and I were doing an inline workout at the Dome, I told her "we'll start with a 1:30, then drop 5 seconds every lap and end with a 1:10."

And we did exactly that.

I'm not sure what skills are involved in being able to skate laps at a requested pace; I do know that, whatever they are, I'm surprised that I have them.  I don't usually tend to be too high on the physical-skills-ladder.  I'm sure it hasn't hurt that for much of the past five years, I've had Coach TieGuy in my ear (via walkie-talkie earbud) telling me my lap times the instant I completed the laps, for literally thousands and thousands of laps.  With enough repetition, even I can usually figure something out.

And being able to pace oneself is a handy skill when one's favorite races are 7.5 and 12.5 laps long.  I've been paired with many a young 'un who hasn't quite learned pacing yet and who starts out on a 36 and finishes on a 46 while I chug along at 39's and 40's for the whole race--and end up with a faster time.  It's always fun to beat the young 'uns.

Lately, however, I seem to be having issues with pacing.  I blame it on my New Improved Technique (perhaps I should start referring to this as NIT, so I don't have to type as many letters; as with any physical skill, I suck at typing).  Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah...pacing issues.

See, the thing I haven't gotten used to yet in my NIT is the fact that I can get really tired even though I'm not frantically moving my legs as fast as possible.  I'll be cruising along, feeling like my legs are moving rather slowly, when all of a sudden I'll realize that I'm completely exhausted.  I think of it as kind of a relaxed agony. And it leads to some interesting workouts.

Take yesterday, for example.  My endurance workout was somewhat shortened due to this upcoming weekends' racing--I was supposed to do 3x3k, the first 3k at warmup pace and the next two at 70%.  A fairly relaxed evening, I thought.

Not.

The first set, at warmup pace, went well--once I got going, all the laps were between 44.2 and 45.3 seconds--a pretty consistent pace.  The next set, the first 70% one, was where things fell apart.  I don't look at my lap times until I'm done with a set, because looking at my stopwatch while skating carries all sorts of risk, so I didn't know my times until I was done.  All I knew was that I started off feeling nice and relaxed, working the NIT, feeling good.  Until lap four, that is, when I suddenly hit the wall.  Completely out of breath, heart pounding, legs heavy.  Ugh, I thought, as I struggled through the last three laps.  What the Hell?  I looked at my final lap time as I finished the last lap, and it was 44.3.  Same range as the first set, so I figured something must have happened...perhaps my heart arrhythmia acting up (I get PVC's that mess me up for a lap or two sometimes). In fact, I was so convinced it must have been PVC's that I headed into the warming house to throw on my heart rate monitor so I could see what was going on (although I have no idea if the monitor would show a higher rate with PVC's--usually I can feel them so there's no doubt).

Once in the warming house, though, I looked at the other lap times. The first one was a 42, which is right about where I wanted the 70% laps.

The second lap was a 40.

Oops.

Turns out I didn't have PVC's, I just went too fast the second lap.  And I didn't do any better the second set--the first 3 laps were 41, 39, and 40.  Then the last 3 were 43, 42, and 44.

Clearly, I need to figure out what it feels like to skate hard when not churning my legs as fast as humanly possible.  I need to learn what level of "relaxed agony" corresponds to what lap time.

Otherwise Sunday's 3K race is not going to be pretty.

Still, it's a fun problem to have...I'm going too fast  at some point in my workout.  Sure, I pay for it a couple laps later, but let me repeat...I'm going too fast at some point in my workout.

Sweet.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Dog-o-Rama

Since I haven't been skating in 5 days, I need to find another way to amuse myself.  My parents' three little ankle-biter dogs (and my dog Keira) did the trick this weekend.

Here are the three...Bronko, the oldest, biggest and mellowest, is a 9-year-old Chihuahua-Jack Russel mix.  Birdee, the black MinPin, is two, and way too smart for her own (and her owners') good.  Belle, the puppy, is a smart, bossy 7-month old MinPin.
I'd fix Belle's red eye, but it's kind of fitting...

They're not always playing.  Here they are, staking their claim to my mom's new recliner...
I'm not sure where my mom plans to sit.

Meanwhile, Keira decides that her own bed, brought 600 miles from home, is no longer acceptable.  Instead, she prefers the "little guys" bed...overhang notwithstanding.

The MinPins are loud and bossy, but they're friendly, too...especially when it gets a little chilly in the house.
Clearly, I won't be going anywhere soon.

The pups love to eat, too.  My mom is chief treat-dispenser.
Notice Belle sneaking in for a freebie while Birdee is getting rewarded for "shake."

Belle sleeping off Thanksgiving dinner with my dad.

Meanwhile, Birdee monitors the Hubster's surfing.

MinPin bookends (only lacking the books)

And finally, I leave you with my favorite picture from the weekend which, if I knew how to caption photos, would be captioned "My Ninja moves...let me show u dem"


(Not to worry--I have three workouts this week and two days of racing next weekend...I'm sure I'll have something skating-related for you soon!)

Saturday, November 26, 2011

5 Days Off

I have 5 days off skating for the holiday weekend, because the Hubster (and Keira) and I are visiting my "snowbird" parents in northwestern Arkansas.  There are not a lot of opportunities for skating in northwestern Arkansas.  (I know I could do dryland.  My hip and leg hurt when I do dryland.  So shut up).  My only exercise since Wednesday night has been going for walks with the Hubster, my parents, and our collective four dogs; fending off the "MinPin Avalanche" that greets me every morning when I step out of the spare bedroom at my parents' house; getting up from the table to get more food; and surfing the net.  Couple this with two 10-hour days of driving (you do remember that I get 75 Miles Per PopTart, right?  10 hours of driving equals a lot of PopTarts), and I may need to let out my skinsuit before next week's American Cup races.  Maybe I'll remove the jackets that are hanging from my dad's exercise bike and spin a bit...do some stretches and PT exercises...I suppose I could even risk aggravating my hip/hamstring/back and do a little dryland...

Or I could just eat a couple more cookies.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

I Have a Screw Loose

Note: Fellow middle-aged-lady-speedskater and skate blogger Sharon was kind enough to include me in  a series of posts she's doing that feature interviews with a "committed, full-time speedskater" (Kevin Jagger)  , a "totally obsessed but has a day job" skater (me), and a "just starting but soon to be just as nuts as the rest of us" skater (Sharon herself). Check it out, and the rest of Sharon's posts as well...she's very funny and insightful!  And the first post in the interview series, I think, demonstrates nicely something that I might have been told a time or two...I truly don't know when to stop talking.


So.  I have a screw loose.  Well, technically it's a bolt, and technically it's not loose, it's out.  As in "lying on the ice" out.  As in "gosh I hope nobody skates over it and kills themselves" out.  As in "thanks so much, fellow masters skater, for finding my bolt for me and sparing me from a lawsuit" out.

Tonight was night two of the 2011-12 season, and I was looking forward to seeing if my interval times would be any faster this year.  Ever since I started skating my interval times have pretty much been 40 seconds per lap.  Inline or ice, Milwaukee or Roseville--it didn't matter.  I couldn't break that damn 40 average.  And sometimes, in hypo-ville, I couldn't even come close to it.  So I thought that tonight, with my "new and improved" technique, might be interesting.

Before I set out onto the ice, I performed a little skate maintenance.  As I've mentioned here, I tend to be a bit perfunctory in the tighten-that-bolt department, so I figured that, even though I'd just tightened the bolts when I was in Salt Lake, it might be prudent to do it again.  So I tightened all the bolts on my skates.

All the bolts that I knew about, anyway.

And then I went out and skated.  And the first 400's were great--38's and 39's.  Hmm, things are looking up. After my "set rest," I launched into the 600's.  The first one was good--the full lap was a 38--but something about my left skate felt and sounded funny.  "Oh, well," I thought, "I must be pushing funny with my left skate. There can't be anything wrong with it; I just tightened everything."  So I continued on, doing two more of the prescribed four 600's.  They were slower, at 40 and 41 seconds, and my skate was sounding and feeling increasingly funky.  "Maybe I broke a spring," I thought, "after all, nothing else can be wrong; I just tightened everything."  So I looked, but both springs were intact.  But when I grabbed the blade and wiggled it, there was a definite wobble.

"Damn, " I said to anyone who would listen as I clomped unevenly back across the walkway to the warming house, right skate "clapping" robustly with each step, left skate slopping and thumping, "I just tightened these bolts--I don't know how they came loose in less than 15 laps."

Inside the warming house, a fellow master's skater grabbed my left skate and examined it.

"Here's your problem," he said.  "One of these bolts fell out."

What bolts?  Where?  Oh, you mean these two bolts, that hold the front of the blade to the frame?  These two bolts that I've never, in 10 years of skating on clap skates, noticed nor tightened?

Yeah, those.

Unfortunately, even though one friend found the errant bolt on the ice, and two others provided me with the correct tools (I carry tools in my skate bag, but the bolts-I've-never-noticed require a wrench-I-don't-have), I couldn't re-assemble the skate-- skating on a loose bolt had messed up the threads in the blade.  Fortunately, though, Mechanically Inclined Hubster has drilled into me the concept of "if it doesn't turn, for God's sake don't force it," so I didn't make things worse by following my usual "I'll make it fit" approach.

Clearly, there was nothing to do but head home.  So I took a picture of the oval...

...and drove home to present my tale of woe to the Hubster, whose task it would be to fix what I had broken.

Here are my skates, one all forlorn with its unattached bits...
One of these things is not like the other...

The Hubster, while expressing willingness and ability to fix the skate, couldn't help but marvel a bit.  "There are only so many parts to skates," he said, "and I think you've now messed up all of them."

What can I say...I'm an overachiever.

With a screw loose.


Wednesday, November 16, 2011

It Never Gets Old

Tuesday, November 15, 2011--the first night of the new season at my home oval.  I'm still a little tired from the Salt Lake Camp, but there is no way I'd miss opening night.

As I turn out of the driveway onto the familiar route--30 miles that I travel at least three days a week, ten months of the year--everything seems exciting...the cold air, the starlit sky, my long track skates in the back seat and my skating playlist on the iPod.  By the time I turn onto the freeway 10 miles later, I feel like a kid on Christmas morning--except my Christmas will last until March.  My heart pounds as though I've had three cups of coffee, and it's all I can do not to punch the accelerator and sing along to my iPod at the top of my lungs (I do give in to the latter urge, but resist the former).

Thirty minutes later, when I catch my first glimpse of the oval floodlights and the carefully-placed "windbreak" of evergreens that surround the ice, already wearing their festive Christmas lights, I can't stop grinning.  And it only gets better from there--seeing old friends, being the first one on the ice, discovering that despite the 40 degree temperature I can comfortably skate without socks and despite the 30 mile an hour wind I can still maintain decent lap times.  And then the best part--having two fellow masters skaters come into the warming house at the warmup break and say "Wow!  What's up with the new technique?  You're gliding now!"

November 15, 2011.  Heading home from the first Roseville workout of the year--heater and iPod blasting, legs cold and faintly aching, empty bottle of recovery drink rattling in the cupholder--there's nowhere I'd rather be.  Skating has brought me some of my highest highs and lowest lows; it has made me fit and it has injured me; it has brought me tears of frustration, pain, and joy.  A fellow masters skater said, at camp last week, "skating is what I do, but it isn't who I am."  I understand what he's saying...but I think it goes well beyond "what I do" for me.  It's an addiction, and one that I hope never fades.  I love skating, and I especially love the first night of the season.

It just never gets old.

Monday, November 14, 2011

SLC Camp Day 4

Sunday, Day 4 of the Camp.  Fortunately my legs felt much better on Day 4 than they had on Day 3.  I'm going to credit the ice bath (if you can call a bathtub full of from-the-tap cold water and two motel-room ice-buckets of ice an "ice bath.") on Saturday night. Anyway, I was glad my legs felt better, because I wanted to do a 3k in the end-of-camp time trials.

First, though, I had to get through the 500.  OK, I didn't have to do a 500, but I consider it a vital part of my warmup for longer races.  I really don't like 500's...they're short, but there's still plenty of time to screw up in plenty of ways, and I usually do.  This 500, though, went pretty well--not terribly fast, at 48.3, but  technically probably one of the better ones I've done.  And since this was an informal time trial and thus we could sign up for whichever lane we wanted, I was able to select the coveted (by me, anyway) first inner/last outer starting position, which allows me--by virtue of having the bigger-radius last outer turn in the final corner when I'm going my fastest--to have the best chance possible of executing the corner correctly.  And I did execute it correctly, more or less--at any rate, it wasn't my usual complete disaster of a final-corner-in-the-500, so I counted that as a success.  That final corner is the only place the Salt Lake oval video cameras don't capture you when you're skating, so I was spared a dissection of that part of my race...but the rest of it looked pretty decent to me--for me, anyway--and Derek Parra, who was reviewing everyone's videos, didn't disagree.

So, on to the 3k.  My legs were pretty sore and tired at this point, so I really didn't know what to expect.  Since I had done a 5:02 in the first 3k of my 5k a couple of weeks ago in Milwaukee, and Milwaukee is at least a second per lap slower than Salt Lake, I figured that, to be conservative, I'd tell myself to be happy with anything under a 5:00.  I've only ever done one 3k over 5:00 in Salt Lake, at a very disastrous (possibly because of undiagnosed hypothyroidism) Masters meet in January of 2010.  So I figured that, even with the preceding 3-day's worth of hard workouts, a sub 5:00 should be pretty much a certainty.

Not so.

The 3k turned out to be an exact clone of both the disastrous 3k of January 2010 and the disastrous 5k of March 2011...starting out OK, then within a lap or two quickly segueing from painful to excruciating to I-can-barely-put-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, when-will-this-nightmare-end.  Together, these three races--my most recent three in Salt Lake--make up the total of my most disappointing, most excruciating, most frustrating, most confusing races of all time.  If all my long distance races felt like these three, I'd become a sprinter faster than you can say "I love the 500."

As I coasted past Derek on the backstretch, where he had remained, after starting the race, to yell encouragement to me and my pair (who skated a fantastic race), I responded to his "nice job" with "man that sucked!  I think the first 3k of my 5k in Milwaukee was faster than that."

And, when I checked the times--indeed, it almost had been.  My time was 5:01...so I had now skated over 5:00 twice in Salt Lake.

Disappointing, to be sure, and baffling as well.  When Derek went over the video with me, I really didn't see much more wrong than usual.  Sure, I couldn't get my hip into the corner and my straights were a bit, um, high tempo--but nothing out of the ordinary for me; in fact, my technique in this race looked better than what I had done in 3k's in Milwaukee last year--3k's that were significantly faster than this one.  So despite how horrible this race felt and how slow the time was, I can't blame it on technique implosion.

So I'm not sure what to think.  Could be just coincidence that my last 3 Salt Lake races have been my worst 3 races ever; there certainly could be 3 different causes (undiagnosed hypothyroidism, length of time at high altitude, fatigue from the camp) for the 3 disasters.  But they all felt horrible in exactly the same way.  I don't know...maybe sucky races all suck the same.  Or maybe there's something else going on..

But, whatever.  I'm going to follow the advice of Coach TieGuy and the sports psychologist--focus on the positive.  I had two fantastic races in Milwaukee so far this season, and tomorrow night is the first night of practice on my home oval.

That's all I need to think about.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

SLC Masters Camp--Days 2 and 3

OK, today I'm going to have to abandon my usual attempt to be witty or to at least have a coherent focus for my blog entry...because I'm just too tired.  (What?  You haven't noticed that I usually try to be witty and/or have a coherent focus?  Well, then, today's entry will just seem like business as usual to you!) .  So instead, I'll just try to hit the high points of the past 2 days.

Yesterday, Day 2 of the camp, didn't get its own entry because after 2 ice workouts and one dryland workout  in one day, I was too tired when I got back to the motel to do anything but eat some granola bars, call the Hubster, and fall into bed.  Day 2 was a lot of fun, though--I managed to surprise myself by doing pretty well on some skating drills (I discovered I can now do a one-legged squat when gliding on my skate...I've never been able to do that before).  So I felt better about the drill portion of the ice workouts.  And then...we got to skate.  Six minutes of skating, focusing on the things we'd learned.  I think I smiled the whole six minutes.  And then we got to do it again...but this time I only smiled for the first 4 minutes, because after that my legs were so tired it was all I could do to keep skating.  But still, it was fun, and after we got done skating I got a comment that made my day; Marian, one of the assistant coaches (who I've skated with in masters meets, so she's seen my "bunny on crack" technique before), told me that my skating is very different from what it was a year ago.

In a good way.

So that was nice.

Day 3 started painfully.  My legs and low back were not happy with what they'd endured for the previous two days, and were letting me know their displeasure in no uncertain terms.  Fortunately today's first workout was on-ice...it's a lot easier to ignore pain when you're having fun skating than when you're slogging through dryland.  And today, I finally figured out (OK, someone else figured out for me) my problem with corner entries.

After some fast 500's, I told Derek that I was still blowing every corner entry at high speed (as I did in my 500 and 1000 meter time trials in Milwaukee a couple of weeks ago).

"That's because your hip is out in the corner," he said, and proceeded to demonstrate while I skated behind him.

So I tried doing what he had done, and lo and behold...I could enter the corner without losing speed, and I could actually lean in the corner.

Now, I'm quite certain that Coach TieGuy has mentioned, once or a thousand times twice, that I should get my hip into the corner.  Why I could do it this time but not before I don't know...but I do think that I've got more balance and maybe a bit more body awareness this year than I had before, which is enabling me to do things differently on skates than I've been able to before.  And I'm sure I'll continue to blow corner entries at speed for a while, but at least now I've felt what it's supposed to feel like a couple of times, and now I can pursue that feeling every time I skate.

After our workout in the morning, we had an interesting lecture from a Sports Psychologist. There wasn't a whole lot of new information for me, because TieGuy is well-versed in the mental side of skating (and apparently needs to be, because, as he often tells me, many of my skating problems originate between my ears). So I've been doing visualizations and relaxation exercises and banishing negative self-talk for several years.  Still, it was an interesting talk, and Derek Parra told several related stories that had us riveted--he's a very entertaining speaker and his passion for the sport comes through loud and clear when he talks.

This afternoon was slideboard, which was fortunately not too intensive of a workout but more an opportunity to work on our slideboard technique.  And tomorrow, the last day of the camp, we get to do time trials.  I really want to do a 3k, despite how trashed my legs are, because, well, 3k's (and 5k's, but I don't think I have one of those in my legs this weekend) are kind of my thing.  So we'll see.  Just in case I do a distance event tomorrow, I've sucked it up and made myself carbo load tonight--pizza, a couple of PopTarts, and a few Reese's Pieces.  Just another one of the many sacrifices we make for our sport...

And now, time to visualize a few high-speed corners, try to convince myself that an ice bath would be helpful for my aching legs, and to rest up for one more day of fun on the fast ice.

Friday, November 11, 2011

SLC Masters Camp--Day 1

Random thoughts after the first day of the Masters camp in Salt Lake City:

  • The TSA is now happy to allow you to carry on your speedskates--complete with their 16.5-inch blades, honed to surgical-scalpel sharpness.  They will not, however, allow you to carry on your mini-Leatherman's tool with its dull 1.5 inch blade.
  • Subaru Imprezas (my car back home is an older Impreza) now have automatic transmissions with the stupid "I want to pretend I'm driving a manual, without having to use a clutch" option.  If you do not know this and accidentally shift into this mode instead of into "Drive," you will be baffled as to why your "automatic transmission" vehicle suddenly appears to be in need of a shift as you accelerate down the road leaving the airport.  Fortunately, if you paw blindly at the shifter, you are likely to accidentally push it into the much-needed higher gear, thus averting disaster and allowing you to complete the rest of the drive to your hotel (prodding the shifter whenever the engine begins redlining)--although still none the wiser as to how to get out of this mode, or indeed, whether it's even possible to get out of this mode.  Acquiring this vital knowledge will require a phone call home to car expert Hubster, and a quick perusal of the Impreza owner's manual.
  • When you're using your Garmin "Nuvi" GPS, and you're ignoring Nuvi's directions because you "kind of know where you're going" and don't like what she's telling you, after the third or fourth time you disregard her direction you might expect to hear a hint of exasperation in her voice, perhaps even a "bitch, if you're just going to ignore me anyway, why did you turn me on?"  But no--Nuvi will continue to deliver her "ReCALculating" in the same calm, patient tone.  Nuvi is obviously not a perimenopausal woman.
OK, on to skating!  On Thursday, we had a skating session and a dryland session.  Here are some observations from Thursday:
  • It is apparently possible to become quite fatigued and out of breath when doing static on-ice skating drills (gliding on two feet in proper skating position, etc.).  I was amazed to discover that I was breathing hard after doing two laps of pretty much not moving any body parts.
  • I was not amazed, although nonetheless unhappy, to discover that, while I apparently assume and hold the skating position just fine when not moving, as soon as I try to move a body part things go to heck.  In fact, I somehow managed to do the first "moving" drill completely backwards (pushing with the wrong leg) for  four laps before realizing what I was doing (the fact that every other skater in the camp had cruised past me like I was standing still in the course of those four laps was my first clue).
  • Derek Parra and his able assistants Robert, Josh, and Marian are doing a fantastic job of explaining the intricacies of long track skating.  However, I am continuing to experience the same malady I've experienced with Coach TieGuy over the past 5 years--the almost-complete inability to process information about physical skills.  I watch, I listen, I pay very close attention--and it all goes in one ear and out the other with no understanding taking place in between.  I think this goes a long way towards explaining my lengthy quest to conquer the finer basic points of long track technique (and it also highlights the fact that Coach TieGuy has patience unrivaled even by Nuvi).
  • When you take a bunch of old skaters, work them hard, then put them in a warm room and feed them a very good lunch, you risk having many of them fall asleep during the subsequent lecture on nutrition.  I'm afraid we didn't give the presenters quite the undivided attention they deserved. (Although we did manage to focus quite nicely on the carrot-cake bars.)
  • No matter how well you think you may have mastered the technique of a dryland drill, the video camera will prove otherwise!
All in all, it was a great first day.  I'm pleased that I'm not too sore today (actually, my neck is the most sore, thanks to the, as Hubster calls them, NeckJackerSpecial pillows in my motel room).  I was cautious in executing the jump-type dryland exercises yesterday because of my low back/hip/hamstring issues, but all prone-to-injury body parts feel pretty good this morning.  Today we have two ice sessions and one dryland session, though, so that status may very well change by tomorrow morning...

And now, off for another day of fun!

Sunday, November 6, 2011

I'm Going to Camp

The long track life has been a bit quiet, workout-wise, this past week.  I've been simultaneously resting on my laurels recovering from my 5k and hard workout last weekend in Milwaukee, and resting up for my upcoming four days of fun--on Wednesday, I'm flying to Salt Lake City for a Masters Skating Camp led by Olympic Gold Medal winner Derek Parra.

I've been to one masters skating camp before, at Calgary back in 1995.  My main memory of that event is that, while it was a lot of fun, it was also insanely hard (and I was only in my early 30's at the time!).  We had two dryland and two ice workouts a day, for, if I remember right, 5 or 6 days.  Of course, few of us had done any dryland before the camp and thus we were immediately plunged into that lovely "my ass and legs are on fire" post-first-dryland state, where we remained for the rest of the camp.  Compound the issue by adding more workouts every, oh, four hours, and we were hurting units by the time we got back on the plane.  I remember that, when we were out at a restaurant in the evening and a group of us women would head to the bathroom, we would fight over who got the handicapped stall--you know, the one with the higher toilet and grab bars, to make standing up easier.

I'm hoping that this camp will be more focused on learning how to do dryland exercises properly and on improving our skating technique, rather than just putting us through nasty workouts.  Coach TieGuy puts me through plenty of nasty workouts as it is.  Basically, I'm hoping to have fun spending a long weekend with some other obsessed old skaters, get some time on fast ice, and hopefully learn a few things (Coach TieGuy, of course, has taught me pretty much everything I know...but I'm a slow learner, and sometimes someone will say something that you've heard a thousand times, but will say it in a different way--and it will suddenly sink in.  In particular, I'm hoping that a way to avoid freaking out when I hit a corner at 500 or 1000 speed will sink in...but I digress...) .

So...time to sharpen the skates, do some laundry, and pack.  I'll try to do a few updates from the camp, if I have time and energy!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Goals, I Has Them

(Sorry about the title; I've been reading the "ICanHasCheezburger" website, and I think the LOLCatSpeak has infiltrated my brain...).

So.

Goals.  I do have them.

When I first started training with Coach TieGuy, I achieved my then-current goal pretty quickly--a sub-5:00 3k. And then, once I had that 4:57.57, I started thinking about a 4:52, which was the qualifying time to be allowed to skate in the US Championships.  So I focused my training on making that time, and took a trip to Calgary in August (after having not been on the ice for 5 months) to try to make the qualifying time...and did it.  Skating in the US Championships that December (2007) in Salt Lake remains one of the high points of my skating career.

Achieving my first couple goals came easily, so I thought "hmm, this skating goal thing is a snap.  Decide on a goal, and do it.  Simple"

My next goal was to qualify for the Olympic Trials in December of 2009.  Initially I thought that achieving this goal was, barring incredibly bad luck, a given--because in a way I already had.  The US Championships are, in an Olympic year, the final part of the speedskating Olympic team selection, and the part that people commonly think of as the "Olympic Trials."  And I had, of course, already achieved the qualifying time for the US Championships in 2007.  I certainly should be able to do it again in 2009.  (My goal was simply to skate at the Trials; I would likely be the slowest person there, but just getting there was my goal.)

Well, then US Speedskating lowered the qualifying times for the US Championships/Olympic Trials--by 18 seconds in the 3k, and 13 in the 5k.  This put the 3k time completely out of reach for me, but the 5k time--8:02.03--was looking like something to work towards.  My second 5k ever, in the 2007 US Championships, was an 8:16, so the qualifying time looked do-able, if challenging. So I started working on lowering my 5k times...just as my thyroid started tanking.  My times got slower rather than faster, and things were pretty depressing and frustrating for a couple of years.  The 2010 Olympics came and went, and I had come nowhere near the qualifying time for the Trials.

Last year, after my hypothyroidism was diagnosed and treated, I finally had a good season and got Personal Bests in several distances.  My big goal last season was to break the Master's World Record in the 5k in my age group--it's 8:29.56, and after I skated a 4:42 3k in Calgary in February, it looked like I should be able to do an 8:15 or so in the 5k in Salt Lake a couple of days later.  But I ended up having the worst race of my life (friends have since told me that, in addition to being sick, my time at altitude--7 days--likely impaired my performance).  I ended up with an 8:30.86.  (Salt Lake and Calgary are at least 1 second per lap faster than Milwaukee, because of the altitude.  For example, my Milwaukee PB in the 3k--7.5 laps--is 4:55, but it's 4:42 at Calgary.  So an 8:30 5k in Milwaukee is cause for celebration; in Salt Lake, it's cause for despair)

Soooo....my 8:30.43 on Saturday was just .87 seconds off the record .  I'm not upset that I missed the record because it wouldn't have counted anyway--Masters records have to be set at Masters sanctioned meets, and this wasn't one.  In fact, there's only one Masters sanctioned 5k for women this year anywhere in North America...the Masters Single Distance race in early January in Milwaukee.  So, I'm going on record...my goal for this year is to break the Masters World Record in the 5k in the Women's 45-49 age group.

After that?  Well, there is another Olympics coming up in 2014. Maybe...if US Speedskating doesn't lower the qualifying times again...if I stay healthy...if my technique breakthrough continues to evolve and to allow me to skate faster with less effort...well, maybe I'll focus on that 8:02.03 again.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

It Just Keeps Getting Better

After my great 3k last weekend, I had it all planned out--I would go down to Milwaukee again the first week in November and try a 5k.  I had it all planned out, that is, until I looked at the Time Trial schedule...there were no Time Trials the first weekend of November.  In fact, when I looked closely at the schedule I realized that if I wanted to do a 5k in Milwaukee any time before my big race, the Masters Single Distance in early January, it would have to be now, the last weekend in October.  I really didn't want to go to Milwaukee two weekends in a row, but what are you gonna do?  It would be really dumb to have my first indoor 5k of the year be in my big race.

So I headed to Milwaukee after work on Friday, but I wasn't excited about it.  Last week I couldn't wait to go to Milwaukee; I was happy, excited, and looking forward to getting some ice time (and that was even before my races ended up being fantastic).  This time...meh.  I'd been cranky for most of the week, for no apparent reason (but at my age, one can always conveniently blame fluctuating hormones).  As I headed East on the freeway, I actually found myself thinking "What are you doing?  You could be at home, sitting on the couch with the Hubster, catching up on DVR'ed episodes of "Top Shot" and commenting on the cute poses the dog assumes when she sleeps." (Yeah, we really know how to party!).  So the karma for the weekend was not good.

Even before it became kardeerma.

That's right.  I had a car/deer interface.

Fortunately I saw him bounding through the ditch towards the freeway in enough time to start braking--and to start wondering if the moving van behind me could brake as fast as I could. The deer was moving fast and I was slowing, so I hoped he might actually clear my lane safely, but no such luck--I thumped a bit of him with my right front bumper.

I immediately pulled over and got out to inspect the damage.  Surprisingly, there was none...just a slightly ajar fog-light-space cover, and a small clump of deer fur (sadly, I don't think the poor deer was as undamaged as my car).  So I popped the fog-light cover back in place, got back on the road, and dialed the Hubster (admittedly, with shaking fingers).

Now, the Hubster is a Car Guy, and the health of our vehicles is of paramount importance to him...but still, I was hoping for a slightly different response to my blurted "I just hit a deer."

Something other than "Oh...great."

No "oh my gosh, are you OK?"  No "are you hurt?"  Dude, I could be sitting here with an antler impaling a vital body part, and you're wondering how much damage I've done to the car?!

Naturally, the remaining three hours of the drive did not go well.  I alternated between feeling absolutely horrible that I had hit and likely maimed the poor deer, and nervously scanning the ditch for any of his relatives  that might share his suicidal tendencies.  And when I did, briefly, forget about deer, I was reminded by seeing another body on the side of the road or, worse, a Deer Smear...100 yards of blood and random lumps of mangled flesh coating my lane.  Wisconsin in the fall is not a happy time to be a deer.

Saturday didn't start much better than Friday had ended.  By the time I was ready for my 500, I was feeling like the human embodiment of one of those athletic excuse shirts: "My skates feel dull.  My skinsuit is too tight.  I kicked myself in the ankle.  I looked at the finish time for the 500s' and thought it was the start time and almost missed my race."

But I was there to race, excuses notwithstanding...so I checked my skates and found that they were, indeed, sharp.  I took off a layer under my skinsuit to allow breathing room.  I inspected my ankle and found that it was just bruised, not bloodied.  And, due to my compulsion to be horrifically early for everything, I still had plenty of time to get to my race even though I had read the schedule wrong.

And the 500, surprisingly, turned out well.  I'm not a sprinter and typically suck at the 500, but this one went OK--a 49.22.  I'm quite capable of throwing down a blazing 50-second 500 (for those of you who don't skate, most 12-year-olds  are faster than that), and in fact I did just that last October in Milwaukee.  So the 49 was good, and I had even blown the final corner, so I know there's more speed available.  I've struggled for years to lower my 500 times without much success (even though my other times have improved), so it's nice to feel like maybe my improved technique will finally allow some downward movement in my 500 times.

But I still wasn't feeling hopeful about the 5k.  For one thing, there was my pair.  Or rather, pairs.  There were only 3 of us doing the 5k, so they put us together in a quartet; me solo first, followed by the other two.

Who were both men.

One of them was a young man who I've seen grow up skating in Minnesota, and who is now in college.  He's a very nice young man, and I really wasn't looking forward to messing up his race by making him go around me once or twice as he lapped me.  The other guy was an unknown, a Roger someone.  I asked some fellow skaters if they knew "Roger."  At first they looked blank, but then said "OH.  Ro-zhay."  And they said no more.  But I got the impression that Ro-zhay was fast. 

So it wasn't looking good.

But then, literally as I was standing on the starting line, an official came up to me and said he was sorry, but they'd need me to skate solo...they didn't have enough people timing to do a quartet.

I didn't think it would be appropriate to kiss him.

So I started the race, thrilled to be the only one on the track.  My goal was to achieve around an 8:36 (last year's 5k in October was 8:38), which meant laps between 40 and 41 seconds.  I tend to go out a bit too fast, so I really wanted to do a 39 and no faster in my first lap.  But, despite relaxing and taking it easy, my first split was...37.

Oops.

But I felt really good and relaxed, so I kept going.  Focus on the technique, no "running," nail the corner entries and exits.

And the laps ticked by, incredibly smooth and easy, for the first 7--a 38, then a 39, then 40's.  In fact, I felt great until lap 8, with 4 to go.  At that point my back got pretty sore and I really had to start working, but the remaining  4 laps were 41's and one 42.

For a final time of 8:30.43.

Wow.

It was, I think, my best 5k since my 8:16 (on fast Salt Lake ice) in 2007.  In fact, the first 3k of the 5k was 3 seconds faster than my 3k last weekend, and the 5k time was my second best ever in Milwaukee (and the best was achieved on a day when the "constant tailwind" blowers had been turned on, which they no longer are).

So yeah...a good great day, and another reminder that what happens leading up to a race, for me, often has absolutely no bearing on how the race will go.

(Oh, and Ro-zhay?  Turns out he's a Swiss Olympian, and would likely have lapped me at least 3 times in the 5k.  Although he was very nice, and shook my hand before the race and managed not to show any dismay at having to race a 48-year-old woman...I think it's best for both of us that I got to skate by myself!)