Well. That was Weird.

Today's workout, that is.  It was quite weird, in a (presumably) thyroid sort of way.  The workout started with a WooHoo, switched to a WTF, then back to a WooHoo and then another WTF.  Those of you with kids in kindergarten will recognize this as an ABAB pattern:  WooHoo/WTF/WooHoo/WTF.  The weird part, of course, is that once workouts descend into WTF, they rarely return to WooHoo.

All signs pointed to today's 5x4K (5x10 laps) going well.  I had rested up over the weekend (a bit too much, actually), and my legs were feeling good.  It was actually below 60 degrees when I started for the Oval at 7 am--I love cool weather.  And, Coach TieGuy had been in town this weekend and we had met at the Oval on Sunday.  He set up my new long track skates for me (adjusting the position of the blade is kind of an art: TieGuy excels at it, and I suck at it).  He gave the official TieGuy stamp of approval to the new stretches I have begun doing in a attempt to get my inflexible hips, quads, and hamstrings to more happily assume a near-correct skating position.  And best of all, despite the fact that I've been on my own, technique-wise, all spring and summer, he was able to watch me skate a few laps without covering his eyes in horror.  He gave me a couple new things (er, actually old-things-I-haven't-mastered-and-had-been-forgetting-to-work-on) to focus on:  drive the left knee in the corner entries; and relax the left arm on the back. My left arm apparently no longer does the chicken wing, but now it's all stiff and tense.  Actually, "stiff and tense" is kind of a trademark of mine; once, at an inline clinic, one of the coaches watched me attempt the skill du jour and then said "well, you're doing it more or less correctly...but you're out on the dance floor doing the robot and the band is playing a Barry White song."  I'm not a dancer, but I think I got his point.  TieGuy and I refer to my skating style as "All Force No Grace."  Apparently, though, the left arm stands out even amidst the general stiff-and-tense gracelessness.

Anyway, armed with a couple new things to focus on, a cool morning, and fresh legs, I was ready to go.  Melissa was there, as was her dad--he's a skater, too, but wasn't planning to do the workout with us.  In fact, his eyes widened a bit in horror when we told him what TieGuy had written for the day's workout.

"Welcome to TieLand," I said.

The first two sets of 10 laps went very well--I was planning on trying for 47 second laps, but the first set averaged 46.1, and the second 45.4.  WooHoo!  The third set started out a little slow; 46's instead of 45's, but still feeling OK.  Then, at lap 5, the WTF--a 48.  Followed by a 50, which by lap 10 had turned into a 55.4, for a nice 49.8 second average.

As I said...WTF?!  This is NOT my usual "getting tired in an endurance workout" pattern.  I suddenly went from "feeling pretty good, still pushing it" to "nothing there, nope, forget it" in one lap.  I was not amused.

Well, I was pretty sure it was thyroid med timing again.  I had taken my fast-acting dose a bit too early, and since this workout was a long one, it was now over 5 hours since I had taken the meds.  Three hours is optimal, four is pushing it.  So I did the only thing I could--I skated directly to my car and took one of my two remaining doses.  I didn't know how fast it would start to take effect, so I decided to wait a half hour before my next set.  I spent the time talking to Mel's dad while we watched Mel do practice starts and fast laps--yes, in the middle of a 50-lap workout.  The girl is an animal.

Then, when my half-hour was up, we went out for set number 4.  Back to WooHoo--laps averaged 46.3.  And set 5 was even better...well, most of it.  I was hammering (well, it's hammering for me!) out low 45's for the first 6 laps, then slipped to 46 and then 47 but still felt pretty good--until lap 10, when I encountered WTF #2.  Lap 10 was a 51.3.  This time, though, I knew the cause; I could feel that I was getting PVC's, a harmless but performance-thwarting heart arrhythmia that I've had for over 20 years.  Oh, well...the first 9 laps in the last set averaged 45.8, which I was thrilled with.  And the 4 WooHoo sets averaged 45.9--the first  long endurance workout all spring and summer that has averaged less than 48 second laps.

Weird or not, I'll take it.  And I really need to start paying closer attention to my thyroid med timing!

Oh, Snap...Where are You?

In general, things are going better on the Oval, and I think my thyroid levels must be pretty good (I'll find out for sure next Tuesday when I go in to the doctor for a follow-up visit).  My lap times in endurance workouts are creeping back down towards where they should be, and I'm not having any workouts that are following what I think of as the "hypo profile"...where each lap is at least a second slower than the previous lap (this is especially fun in 3K or 5K races).

However, there is one aspect of my skating that doesn't seem to have come back.

I miss my "snap."

Now, I make no claim to having any sort of top speed on ice (or inlines).  I'm a distance skater, and in addition to the clumsiness I've mentioned once or twice here, I was also blessed with an abundance of slow-twitch muscles and a dearth of fast-twitch.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that the only fast-twitch muscles I possess are those involved in eating and talking.

But still, I've become accustomed to a certain speed for my tempo and interval workouts.  I always think of 40-second laps as kind of standard for intervals; workouts that are supposed to be done at 70 or 80% might be 41's or 42's, and shorter tempos or actual races might be as low as 37's, but to me, "interval" says "40."  This seems to be true whether I'm on ice or inlines (which is a bit strange, because ice should be faster...if your technique is good enough, that is.)

But this summer, I think I've only done two laps at 39, and none faster than that.  Interval laps that should be 40's are usually 41's, and often higher.  I'm skating hard, pushing myself, technique is feeling about like it always does...and yet, I'm slow.

I'm hoping this is just a "haven't done much effective speedwork while hypo and just need to catch up" sort of thing, rather than a "well, what do you expect; you are getting older, you know" kind of thing. Because the "snapless" trend has been building over the last couple years...my 500 times have been getting slower rather than faster...and I am, of course, getting older.  When I started getting really serious about skating, and really improving, I figured I'd have at least until I was 50 before I started noticing age-related slowdowns.  Now, though--2 months shy of 48--I don't know.  Maybe the slowdown is starting.

Coach TieGuy, of course, would remind me has reminded me many times that I'm not training for the 500.  I'm training for the 3K and 5K, and those are getting faster (or at least, they were last year).   In fact, I usually  think of the 500 as a "warmup" rather than a race.  And, of course, it's the preseason right now; I'm doing workouts, not races, and perhaps I should just shut the 2 inch binders and quit looking at past years' data.  But I can't help looking (I even have a little chart made, on which I enter average lap times from this year's and previous years' comparable workouts.  I stare at that little chart a lot).  And I can't help wondering if the slowdown has started, if I've already skated my lifetime Personal Bests.

And I can't help wanting my snap back

Embracing My Inner Wuss

There are a lot of words for it:  Wuss.  Wimp.  Weenie (why do so many start with "w?").  Our broomball-playing friends' favorite, "Sally" (as in "hitch up the skirt, throw down the purse, and shoot that ball you Sally!").  And, of course, there's the old standby "chicken."

I freely admit to being all of the above.

It's kind of funny, because people who don't know me well, but who know what my hobbies are/have been, tend to assume that I'm this risk-taking adrenaline junkie who lives for speed and danger.  I guess I can understand this; I played women's rugby in college, raced off-road motorcycles for 12 years, co-drove for the Hubster in his rally truck for 3 years (including the epic rollover here) , and have gone dirt biking, snowmobiling, and Jeeping in the mountains many times.  And, of course, there's the current obsession with speedskating.  See, it's even got "speed" right there in the name--I must be a speed freak, right?

Actually, I couldn't be any further from a risk-taking speed-loving adrenaline junkie.  I don't like speed, I don't like risk, I don't like being upside down or sideways or out of control in any way, shape or form.  Some of this, I think, comes from being clumsy (as I mentioned here).  In baseball, pitchers are frequently told to "trust your stuff."  Well, when you're clumsy you learn pretty quick not to "trust your stuff."  Your ability to judge how far/hard/fast/high you need to do something; your ability to execute what you've figured out that you need to do; even your ability to figure out which direction to dodge...all are extremely suspect when you're a klutz.  (This is undoubtedly why I get so much more frustrated with the Skate Park Punks Patrons than do other skaters; I'm never sure I'll dodge the right way when they dart out in front of me.)

In addition to my inherent clumsiness, there have been a couple of epic experiences that have shaped my Inner Wuss. One of these was my first off-road motorcyle race.  When I met the Hubster, he was racing in long-distance cross-country off-road motorcycle races called Enduros.  He taught me and all his other friends to ride, and about four months after I rode a dirt bike for the first time, I thought it might be cool to do a race...forgetting about that whole "clumsy" thing.

In Enduros, you mostly race on single-track trails and so there's no way to do a mass start.  Instead, four riders start every minute, thus allowing everyone space on the trail.  Now, I don't remember, in my first race, whether I started on the same minute with one of the other (2 or 3) women and just got behind, or whether I had started a minute behind and was starting to catch up--all I know is that, about 12 miles into the 60 mile race, I was seeing glimpses of my competition through the trees.

Instantly, I forgot my usual wussy approach to speed events.  Cool....I'm catching someone, I'm riding hard, ooh, I see her again, getting closer, hey--I'm kind of good at this, I'm...

WHAM!

I'm lying on the ground under my bike with more pain than I've ever experienced radiating from my left knee.

Somehow I managed to get out from under my bike and get it up on the kickstand.  (Hubster had drilled into me the horrors of leaving a bike running while it lay on its side).  Then I sat down to survey the damage--under my riding pants and hard plastic knee/shinguard, my knee was bloody and swelling fast.  No way I was going to be able to get back on my bike and ride out of there...in fact, it hurt so much that my only focus right then was not throwing up.

Eventually, someone came along...another woman rider, who offered a bandaid (!) and sympathy but couldn't do much else.  Then, finally, the "Sweep Crew" arrived, folks who ride through the race course after the last rider, looking for those who are stuck, broken down, out of gas...or injured.

Because this race was put on by the dirt bike club the Hubster belonged to, I knew the Sweep riders slightly--two brothers who, while very nice and who wanted very much to help, didn't quite know what to do with me.  After determining that the closest road was about a mile ahead of us, and ascertaining that I couldn't ride, they looked at me thoughtfully.

"I'll carry you out," offered one.

Um, no.  He was about 5' 9" and 165; I'm 5'5 and, um, definitely more than he could carry through the woods for a mile.

More head-scratching, and he finally decided to ride me out to the road double on my bike (which was easier to ride slowly than his race-tuned machine), then go back for his own bike.

The rest of the day was not a lot of fun: riding double on the bike while trying not to bump my knee; riding back to the campground in one helpful fellow's truck; then riding to the hospital in another's; waiting for the doctor to stitch up someone's chainsaw wound before he could see me and then getting stitches myself; and finally, almost worst of all, getting back to camp and discovering the grief the Hubster had been enduring.

You see, at the time, the Hubster was merely Friendster; in fact, he had an out-of-state girlfriend.  None of his buddies in the dirt bike club believed that we weren't dating, though, because we came to all the races and riding weekends together (what can I say; I had a pickup truck and he didn't!).  So, the entire time I was at the hospital, Hubster was subjected to frequent updates:  Your girlfriend crashed.  Your girlfriend went to the hospital.  Your girlfriend is on her way back from the hospital.

Don't worry, your wife is fine.

I think that last one almost put him over the edge.

Anyway, it was a very painful lesson in "why I shouldn't try to do things at high speed."  Because I had never even seen the root that I rode over at the wrong angle, which catapulted my bike into a tree, which caused me to go over the bars and bash my knee on a sharp bike bit in the process.  I didn't react improperly; I never reacted at all.  And while I continued to race for 12 more years, I don't think I ever again rode as hard as I did in that first 12 miles of my first race.

Still, I kept trying "adrenaline junkie" type things.  Rally racing, snowmobiling, a mountain bike race.  And I gradually learned that, as intriguing as they might sound...I was just not cut out for them.

So now, I skate.  I know there are some risks in skating, especially in inlining, but they're pretty tame compared to dirt biking and rally racing.  And it seems as though my skating world narrows a bit every year...I tried short track and found it too scary; I no longer skate pack style races because they freak me out too much; I rarely do inline road races because of the possibility of crashing.

Yes, I'm envious of, and in awe of, women my age who are risk takers; who do mountain bike races and skate short track and crash and get up smiling.  But I've finally learned, that's just not me.  I'm clumsy and cautious and I like my (relatively) safe little long-track world where I can skate as hard as I can and not worry about going too fast down a hill or someone cutting in front of me or crashing into a tree.

I'm a wuss, and I'm OK with that.

Cabin Time

Back to skating news soon.  In the meantime, The Hubster, the dog and I just got back from the cabin again, so here are some random photos of the fun we had.  You will note that none of the photos contain dryland, because no dryland was done.

The Hubster and I did do one workout; we mountain biked at our favorite trail, Pincushion Mountain.  Unfortunately  we managed (although we do this trail at least once a year) to get lost on the wrong trail within the first 100 yards.  That led to a lot of this:

Just me 'n my map.  The trail we erroneously ended up on, though, had been printed on the trail map in a light orange, which had rapidly faded to invisible.  Where the heck are we?

At one point, I thought we were where my right finger is.

The map said we were at my left finger.

Eventually we figured out the invisible-ink issue with the map and suddenly it all made sense...although, as  the Hubster said, "you shouldn't have to use lemon juice to read the map."

We got back on the main trail right before the best part of the scenery, the overlook.

In the past, the Hubster has ridden up this rock face.

Now, a combination of age, wisdom, clipless pedals, and a full suspension bike that doesn't climb very well dictate that he do this:

For the record, I have never attempted to ride up or down this rock.

It's well worth the effort of getting to the top, though; there's a spectacular view of Grand Marais, Lake Superior, and the surrounding woods.  Obligatory scenery shots:

Headin' for the hills...

In addition to the biking, we did some work around the cabins.

 Here's Keira following the Hubster down the road.

She thinks his tractor's sexy.

We also spent a lot of time with my parents.  My dad in his garden...

Yes, his hat says "Slaughter The Wildlife"  He's unaware of the '90's band name/album title referenced on the the hat...he just likes the sentiment.

And here's my mom, with her crew.

They're very well-behaved...when there's popcorn.

The Hubster has learned to overlook their less civilized moments...

You know it's been a good vacation when the dog can barely keep her eyes open on the way home.

Anyway, we had fun.  We got home at 10:30 last night...and at 7:30 this morning I was back on the Oval doing the first lap of my 4x6K workout.  Life is good.

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

(or, as I said to the Hubster this spring as I attempted to button an increasingly-tight pair of pants, "a waist is a terrible thing to mind.")

Skating is a physical sport, of course, but mental conditioning is just as important as physical. You need to be able, especially in a long race like a 5k, to keep focused on pushing yourself to your limit, and not let your brain talk your body out of doing what it is able to do.  I've always had issues with this, and Coach TieGuy has spent a considerable amount of time over the past few years explaining to me (over and over) that a lot of my limitations when skating are mental.  After many explanations--which I believed but didn't seem to be able to internalize--he finally tried a more graphic approach.  Once, when I finished (I thought) an endurance workout and was at the end (I thought) of my physical abilities, he cheerfully told me (through the walkie talkie) "OK, one more now!"  And, of course, I was able to do one more lap.  Then there was the whole "TieGuy channels Yoda's 'Try/Not Try' speech but uses proper grammer and syntax" episode.  I don't remember what went wrong with what workout, but something did and TieGuy wanted to demonstrate to me that my mental limits, not my physical, were stopping me.  So, after I finished the workout at less-than prescribed pace, he said "now, you're going to go out and do a 40 second lap."

"But I..."

"No, you're going to do a 40."

"I'm not sure I..."

"You're going to do a 40."

"OK, I'll try..."

"No.  You won't 'try,' you'll do a 40."

"OK, FINE!  I'll do a 40."

But I didn't.  I did a 39.

After that, TieGuy mostly just made his point by giving me a meaningful look and tapping his head.

But anyway, minds...they need workouts just as much as bodies do, and, just as my body is currently (thanks to the thyroid) not where it should be, my mind is not really in skating shape either. This was proven to me yet again in yesterday's workout...

Yesterday's workout was supposed to be 5x6k at 80% effort; yes, 75 laps of fun.  By the time I looked at the workout on Sunday night--and immediately gasped in horror--it was too late to call Coach TieGuy and beg for mercy calmly and rationally explain that perhaps 75 laps might not be in my best interest at this time, and what would be a reasonable substitute? (Evidence #1 of Unfit Brain Syndrome (UBS)--in the past, I would have known darn well what was planned for this workout, and would have been looking forward to it for days,  in that sick, obsessed-athlete "it will be fun to see if I can do this" sort of way).  Anyway, since I couldn't whine to TieGuy, I decided that I could probably figure out an acceptable modification on my own.  A quick canter through my 2-inch-binders revealed that, while I had been assigned this exact workout a couple of times in the previous two years, I had never actually completed it as written--one time TieGuy stopped me after 4 sets, and the other time he told me that he'd drop the fifth set if I'd do the third and fourth without a break, 12k  straight (I'm still not sure that was a bargain.).  Taking into consideration my relatively weak back (for some reason, when I'm hypo my back gets sore really fast when I'm skating, like at 3-4 laps instead of my usual 10 laps or so, which means I've been "standing up" a lot when skating these past 3 months), I didn't think 6k at a time--15 laps--was going to work, but I figured I'd give some 5k's a try...maybe 2 or3, see how I felt...(Evidence #2 of UBS--in the past, although I might get to a point mid-workout where I was secretly--or not-so-secretly--hoping that TieGuy might shorten my workout, I would never have been shortening it in my head before ever setting skate on the track).

So, after a "the Oval maintenance guy squeegeed the two big puddles that were in the infield right across the track" rain delay, my friend Mel and I set off on the first 5k.  As always, in the interest of accurate (i.e., without a draft) data collection, I had the much-faster Mel skate outside of me.  My goal was 47-48 second laps, and the first set was exactly that--lap times varied from  46.4 to 49.1 seconds, which I thought was pretty good, especially since I had decided to look at the lap times only after I was done with a set, not after each lap--mostly because I was afraid they'd be slow and I'd be depressed.  Trying to finish a 12 lap set when depressed is not a good thing.   Set two started out well, with mostly 47's and 48's, and one 46.  Then I hit lap 9, and I could tell that I was slowing pretty drastically.  I hit my watch for the split at the timing line, and as I broke my "no peeking" rule and glanced in dismay at the "50.5" on the display, Mel (who's a big proponent of "quit before fatigue makes your technique issues worse") yelled "I think you should stop now."

Well, that wasn't gonna happen.  Because I don't have any stats for 9-lap sets.  And I have too much of what I like to refer to as "Obsessive Compliance Disorder" to feel comfortable comparing average lap times in a 9-lap set to average lap times in a 10-lap set. I know, I know.  But still, I was going to finish at least 10 laps so I could honorably compare my times to previous 10-lap sets.  So I yelled (gasped, actually) back, "I'm going to do one more."

So I did, but I decided that if I could bring it back down under 50, I'd keep going.  And I did--lap 10 was a 49.5.  So I continued on to lap 11, which was a 48.6.  And then lap 12, which was a 47.7.  Evidence #3 of UBS...big negative splits at the end of an endurance set.

So then, after Mel had to leave, I did another set.  And that one ended on a 46.  At that point I had done what I had planned to do--3 sets--but thinking about it, I knew I shouldn't end there.  The 46 was proof that I had plenty left, physically, to do another set at the correct pace, and it would be a good mental workout to make myself do one more.  So I did.  And, in the third and fourth sets, I looked at my stopwatch for every split.  This gave me something to aim for...hey, that lap was a 47.  I want the next one to be a 47, too...  And it worked, for the most part.

In the first 3 sets, despite the fact that the laps averaged approximately the right pace, there always came a time somewhere between lap 7 and 9 where I'd slow considerably, and then speed up again after that.  I know (since I was in my brain at the time) that this was purely mental, a function of thinking (despite my best efforts not to), "hey, you've still got 5 laps left.  I don't think you can keep this up for 5 laps."  Once the "laps remaining" got down to a manageable 3 or so, though, I'd get back on the pace.  Definitely a mental rather than physical limit, and by the fourth set, I managed to avoid the "mental lapse slow lap."

It's quite obvious to me, though, that I'll need to work just as hard on my mental conditioning as my physical if I plan to be ready to race in three months.

And the Darwin Award Goes To...

This has nothing to do with skating, I just thought it was funny...

Yesterday the Hubster and I put up a short section of split-rail fence.  Since it was a nice cool day, we thought Keira (the dog who is so laid back she's usually horizontal) might like to join us for some lie-in-the-grass-and-sniff-the-breeze time.

Here she is; notice that the fence rails are doing duty as dog-restrainers.  Not that they're having to work very hard.

So there's Keira, relaxing on the lawn and doing her best statue imitation...when a tiny toad hops up onto her foot.

 Yup, right there on her left paw...a toad.  Keira seems concerned, no?

Here's a closer look.

It would have been cute to get a picture of Keira sniffing the toad...but that never happened, because she never actually realized that someone was sitting on her foot.  The toad, for his (her?) part, also never seemed to realize that he hadn't just hopped onto a warm, furry rock.  Clearly he had no idea that he was perched atop someone who could, if she desired, turn him into a tasty toad-flavored snack in less than 2 seconds.  If she knew he was there, I mean.

It was all very Disney-esque in a "scene from Bambi" sort of way, but it did confirm our suspicion that our dog is not the brightest bulb on the string...

Missed Photo Opportunity

Dang!  I just realized that I missed a great photo opp!  I had my camera in my bag, but I just wasn't thinking...

Today, when Mel and I skated, we got to share the track with...no, not Skate Park Punks Patrons.  Not a team of little figure skaters.  Not even a team of little hockey players doing dryland, although there was one of those--fortunately they stayed off the oval and on the grass.  No, we got to share the track with...

...two construction workers, two pallets full of "Skateboard Park Obstacles in a Box," and a bright green forklift.

(Imagine picture of bright green forklift here.)

When I first saw the pallets, I had the faint hope that perhaps the Oval staff would be constructing a fence between the Oval and the skatepark.  Or maybe a cage.  I'm pretty sure that they were just adding skatepark obstacles, though.  Bummer.

And the stuff really wasn't in the way (well, since Mel usually skates outside of me because she's much faster, she had to dodge the forklift every lap, but it really wasn't a problem for me).  On my second-to-last interval, though, my oxygen-deprived delirium caused me to think that I saw the stationary forklift moving across the track in front of me.  Flinching on inline skates at 80% of top speed is not recommended, but fortunately I've had a lot of practice (you know, since I tend to overreact to everything that might possibly be in my way) and I didn't even come close to crashing.  And since my heart rate was probably already at 200, well, there was no room for that to elevate, either.

Just another day at the track.  But next time I'll take pictures.

Nope, I'm STILL Not an Inliner

Race Report:  Minnesota Half-Marathon
Ooh, my first race report!  This is bound to be long...

As planned, I got up a O'Dark Thirty this morning, threw my stuff in the car, and drove through McDonald's on the way to St. Paul.  I'm used to doing long track ice races, in which I know the venue, the Ovals have their own parking lots, and "check in" in the morning literally means putting a checkmark next to your name on a list.  Consequently, it's not surprising that I got lost on the way to the parking lot, and made what was perhaps a tactical error in the "check in" department.   My sister and I had wanted to get our race packets the day before in case there were long lines at the pick-up in the morning, so I had driven all the way into St. Paul yesterday to pick up the packets pre-race day.

We needn't have worried.

(I did stop in the registration tent to ask where we should pin our numbers.  "Oh," said the cheerful lady at the registration table, "since you have chips the numbers aren't used for timing.  We really only need them if you crash, so we can identify your unconscious body.  So you can pin it pretty much anywhere.")

In long track races, you bring all your own sustenance.  I was happy to see that here, there was plenty of food all ready for post-race action:

And unlike at most long track races (although my home Oval in Roseville can be spectacular at night with the Christmas-light-lit trees surrounding it) the scenery was beautiful:

I haven't raced an inline race since, oh, 2006, so I figured this would be interesting.  Actually, I can still say I haven't raced an inline race since 2006, since I'm not sure that what I did today should be classified as "racing."  Anyway, I met up with my sister "Energizer Bunny" and her husband "Sherpa Boy," and we began to get ready.

We have a lot of stuff to put on.

And in.  Mocha Clif Shot, anyone?

And then we saw our friend "I Rarely Skate and Yet I Will Kick Your Butts", who we had not known was racing.  Cool!  We had plenty of time to get caught up on each other's lives as we continued to don our mountain of gear.

CamelBacks and inhalers and duct tape, oh my!

Then it was time to send Sherpa Boy off with our backpacks and cameras, and head to the start.

Sherpa Boy is a very tolerant and patient individual.

We had a long wait at the start.  I haven't started in the Open wave of an inline race before; when I used to race I usually did so in the Advanced class, which typically meant I was sharing the starting line with 20-60 other women of fairly similar skating ability.  Therefore, it wasn't hugely critical to line up in just the right spot; we would all be launching at pretty much the same speed.  This time, in the Open wave, about 400 other skaters and I were trying to figure out who we should be in front of and who we should be behind.  Since Energizer Bunny and our friend I Rarely Skate and I were also planning to skate with 2 other friends, there were 5 of us trying to find a nice roomy place to stand.  Here's where I really missed my long track racing--I wanted my own lane all to myself, and I was getting pretty irritated at all the skaters around me who kept oozing forward to fill any available open space around me.  Really, people, have some consideration for personal space!

Here we are at the start.  Yes, that's me in orange.  No, I don't know the guy I was talking to.  No, I'm not sure why I was shaking my finger at him.  I don't think I was chastising him for standing too close.  I'm pretty sure.

See how tightly we were packed in there?  Like a bunch of little helmeted sardines.

That's our other friend, "I've Only Skated About 3 Times This Year and Yet I Will Kick Your Butts," in the blue skinsuit (with a rather unfortunate look on her face).  The little bugger won our age group!

Finally it was time to go.  First the pros took off.  They looked like this:

Actually I think this was from the pro finish, but whatever, they're still impressive!

Then we were off.  The Open wave started just as you would imagine 400 skaters of disparate ability and skating experience would start: it was a total "cluster."  (Don't make me spell it out for you; this is a G-rated blog...)  People on rec skates with tiny wheels, wearing jeans and skateboard helmets (these are generally not good signs in an inline race) were being passed  left and right by skinsuit-clad racers on 110 mm wheels.  There were no such things as pace lines; it was just an exercise in survival.  We 5 tried, simultaneously, to: a) avoid crashing, b) dodge slower skaters we were overtaking while also c) not cutting off faster skaters who were overtaking us, and hopefully, d) stay together.  We managed a-c, but it wasn't until at least a mile into the race that we achieved "d."  Finally we were able to settle into a paceline and skate.

The next couple of miles were fun, although I did notice that my brain does not seem to be cut out for longer events.  I'm assuming that "damn, 10 more miles to go" is not the appropriate mental response when one sees the 3 Mile marker.  We traded off the lead and had a pretty good pace going.  Then, somewhere around mile...I don't know, 8?...the others, Energizer Bunny, I Rarely Skate, I've Only Skated, and friend #4 (male), "Why Are All These Women Following Me" began to pull away from me.  In my highly motivated and competitive fashion, I said "See ya.  Have fun." and immediately dropped back to a more comfortable pace.  It seems that I am not motivated much by seeing my friends skate away from me; no, I need someone yelling lap times at me to really light a fire under my butt.

So I skated on, mostly by myself.  I don't think I had a draft at all for the last 5 miles of the race For the record, you save 20% or more of your energy by drafting off of someone, but since the "metric style" long track races that I compete in do not feature the opportunity to draft, I suck at it and really don't like doing it.  I always imagine the whole pace line taking a header when the first person in line trips, and since that actually happened to me once, I really don't mind not drafting off someone.

Along about mile 9, I began to notice a pain in my left heel/ankle area. A "blister is forming now" kind of pain. And by about mile 10, I could feel the skin layers in the blister separating each time I pushed with my left foot, and then re-adhering as I unweighted the foot.  Fun.  I was also, by this time, really regretting my decision not to wear a skinsuit. (I'm actually on the same inline team as I've Only Skated, so I have a couple of inline skinsuits. Even though I'm not an inliner).  Anyway, I had decided not to wear a skinsuit because I feel that a certain level of skating should accompany the full-on lycra look, and I was thinking that that level of skating likely wasn't happening for me today.  I had forgotten, though, what happens when you wear loose nylon shorts on a hot humid day.  Damp nylon has an affinity for vast tracts of sweaty flesh (like, oh, say, my thighs), and likes to stick to said flesh in very irritating fashion.  After freeing various (as Hubster likes to refer to them) "chunks of volupt" from the clutches of the nylon approximately once per 20 yards for 10 miles, I was truly regretting not donning the form-fitting "team colors."

Finally, though, the finish line came into view and, with a couple of muttered-under-the-breath curses at my blister and one last yank at my shorts,  I coasted across the line.  Sherpa Boy got some end-of-the-race pictures:

Here's Energizer Bunny nearing the finish line.  Can you believe she'll be 50 next month?

Here's our friend I've Only Skated (in blue) cruising in for the Womens 40-49 win.

And here I am, trudging chunkily along (my, that's a flattering photo!).  Yes, the woman in front of me is in my age group, and yes, she beat me.

After the race I raided the food tent (gatorade, banana, two "energy buns," and potato chips.  You'd think I hadn't eaten in a week) and then went to change into my shoes.  It was then that I realized how much my summer hobby of reading athlete blogs has affected me...

One of the blogs I enjoy (listed in my sidebar) is "Steve in a Speedo? Gross!"  Steve is a local Minnesota athlete (mostly triathlons) with a great sense of humor, an engaging writing style, and a penchant for taking photos of some rather odd stuff.  So, as I peeled my sock off my blistered foot and peered at the ragged flesh, I found myself thinking "hmm, Steve would definitely have a picture of this in his blog, if it was his foot."  Unfortunately I had not yet repossessed my camera from Sherpa Boy, a fact that I lamented more when I stood up off the concrete step, turned around, and reached down for my backpack.

There was a perfect, lovely sweat-butt-print where I had been sitting.  Steve would likely call this evidence of "swass" (yes, I believe that's a contraction of exactly the two words you think it is).  I simultaneously realized two things as I stared at the butt-print: a) I would definitely have taken a picture of it if I had my camera, and b) clearly it is time for me to go back to work and stop spending so much time on the internet.

So here we are post-race:

Me, looking fat and sweaty with my finisher's medal.

And Energizer Bunny, looking rather fresh and perky as she removes the duct tape from her knee pads (don't ask.)

We hung around for quite a bit eating, talking, and waiting for awards.  This is another difference from long track skating...there are so many people at events like this, and there is such a festive atmosphere.  I ran into about 10 people I know, there was a live musician entertaining us, and it was fun to people-watch all the athletes milling around (apparently compression socks are now the rage; this was not the case when I shuffled ran my marathon back in 1982.)  It's definitely a change from the laid-back long track atmosphere where a small number of athletes wander back and forth between the ice and the warming house or the spinning bikes.  Both events are a ton of fun in their own ways, though.

As it turned out, I've Only Skated won the Women's 40-49 class, I Rarely Skate was third, Energizer Bunny was fourth (dang, just out of the awards, as she often seems to be), and I was seventh.  As this was out of 40 women in the age group, I figured that wasn't too bad. 

And then I went home and took a nap.

I'm Still Not an Inliner

Despite my vehement protest in my previous post that I am not an inliner...today I signed up to skate the Minnesota Half-Marathon tomorrow in St. Paul

Proof: the shirt, the chip, the race number.

I've done this race probably 3 times, back when it was a full marathon.  Once (in 2004 or so) I skated it wearing an "event monitor"--a portable EKG on which you can record any errant heartbeats. (I've had arrhythmias my whole life; I skated a long track masters meet wearing an event monitor once, and once, when trying to diagnose what turned out to be my  thyroid problems, I drove to the Mayo Clinic where my cardiologist put a Holter monitor on me, which records every heartbeat for 24 hours.  Then I drove to Milwaukee, did a workout wearing the monitor, and then drove back to the Mayo to drop off the monitor.  Fun times).  Anyway, the race I'm doing has shrunk considerably since the last time I did it, and I don't just mean because it went from a full marathon to a half.  There are a lot fewer skaters in the event tomorrow, and a lot fewer vendors in the Expo today.  Kind of sad; it used to take a hour just to work your way through all the skate and clothing booths after picking up your race packet.

After I left the Expo, of course, I realized I forgot to ask a few key questions:  where does the number go?  Is there a "bag drop" so you can leave your shoes, etc. somewhere easily accessible? Oh, well...I'll figure it out tomorrow.

I plan to skate with my sister tomorrow, if I can keep up with her! I told her she's free to drop me and jump on a faster pace line if the opportunity presents itself, but I won't leave her behind if it turns out that she's going slower than I could.  Selfless?  No, just lazy...I'm not planning to do this thing all out.  Coach TieGuy is fine with me doing it but it isn't actually in my planned workouts, so I really don't want to hurt myself, either by crashing or by pushing too hard.  Lot of training left before ice season!

To that end, here is what I plan to be sporting at the starting line tomorrow:

Yes, I'll be rockin' the knee pads, the CamelBack (I may remove the pepper spray, though) and the 5x84's.  (They have Bank Robber wheels.  Do those things even exist anymore?)  I have to wear the 5x84's, my old skates, because my Achilles is starting to hurt a bit and the old Vaypors, above, which only fit the 5x84 frames, are the only skates (of my 5 pair) that don't contact the Achilles at that spot.  They're so old and stretched out that I have to wear them with the hiking socks pictured above.  (For those who don't skate, most people now skate on frames with 4, 110 millimeter wheels.  My 84 mm wheels look tiny in comparison.  I use 4x90's on the Oval, but I don't want to switch to the really big wheels because I like to keep my equipment as consistent as possible from year to year.  Data, you know.)   I also plan to bring the camera...I can stash it in that nice zipper pocket on the CamelBack.  Don't worry, I won't use it in the race... 

Despite the fact that the race is only a half-marathon, I felt that some day-before carbo-loading would be in order (again...don't tell my dietitian!).  So I made, and ate, a pan of sugarfree Cinnamon Rolls today.  Yes, you can make sugarfree Cinnamon Rolls--just use regular frozen bread dough rather than sweet roll dough, so that the bread part has almost no sugar.  Then you can use Splenda for the sugar in the cinnamon/sugar filling and the cream cheese frosting.  As to why you'd make sugarfree Cinnamon Rolls, well, the fact that I ate the entire pan in one day should be a clue.  I have a hard enough time stopping eating when the stuff is sugarfree and thus not quite as tasty nor as harsh on the ol' blood sugar; real sugar might as well be crack.  As my grandpa used to say, I have "no terminal facilities" when it comes to sugar.

I do, however (despite the fact that they are pretty much pure sugar) eat gels, blocks, and recovery drinks.  Which turned out to be a good thing.  Earlier this evening I was packing an old backpack with all my necessary stuff for tomorrow--in case they have a bag drop, I don't want to use my good skate backpack.  I was digging through my good skate backpack for the proper flavor/caffeine combo of Clif Shot for pre-race use (Mocha, with the full caffeine shot--I would have preferred the Espresso with 2 shots but those are always the first I run out of), when I encountered...my asthma inhaler.  That I had forgotten to switch to my old backpack.  Oops.  Wonder what else I'll forget?

So tomorrow, the plan is up at 5:00, take my full (not half!) dose of thyroid meds, throw my stuff in the car, drive through the nearest McDonald's (yes), and head for the race, where I'll meet up with my sister and a friend.

Should be a blast.

Wow. Well. That certainly settles THAT.

No, I’m not harping on The Question again.  I think we pretty much covered that already.  Er, well, actually, now that I think about it, there is one aspect of The Question that I didn’t fully explain in my last post.  So I’ll do it now.  Because I can.  You’ll just have to wait a bit to see what settles what…oh, the suspense!

Anyway…many of my skating friends assume that I skate “that way” because I’m an inliner.  Let me go on record here, once and for all: I am not an inliner.

Oh, sure, I do a lot of inlining in my summer workouts.  And I’ve raced a few inline marathons, as well as many Summer Inline Series oval races.  But I am not an “inliner” the way my long track friends use the term; that is, someone who began their skating career on inlines and then switched to ice.

Many people assume that, because inliners tend to have a quicker tempo and to skate “higher,” I must have learned my technique on inlines and am merely having trouble switching to ice.  Actually, while I did have inline skates before I had long track speedskates, this picture should dispel the notion that I was an inline skater before I tried ice.

Here I am, circa 1991--one year before I took my first “Learn to Speedskate” class on ice.  Yes, this is the sum total of my inline skills at the time: standing shakily on the sidewalk with every conceivable body part padded (except, for some inexplicable reason, my head).

So there you have it—I did not learn my “bunny on crack” tempo from inlining.  In fact, I only began inlining after I started long track ice, so I could keep practicing skating during the summer. My inline and ice techniques look very similar now, but that’s because what works for me on ice works for me on inline, as well.

So…where was I?  Oh, yeah…that settles that.

“That” being a workout experiment I conducted today, and that being proving to myself, hopefully once and for all, that my sluggish skating was, indeed, wholly a product of my sluggish thyroid.

I just got back from a week at the cabin, and thus haven’t skated (or, you may have noticed, blogged) since last Tuesday.  I had an endurance workout to do this morning but, for various reasons, messed up my morning fast-acting thyroid hormone dose (I took half of what I usually do). 

And my workout sucked. 

In fact, it sucked so much that I quit after 2x4K (I was supposed to do 4). My laps for the first 4K averaged 49.3 seconds, and ranged from a 45 to a 55. Ugh. The second set was worse.  In the past, I’ve done 5x4K and had the laps average 46 seconds…for all 50 laps.  Clearly, something was amiss, especially after my good workouts just before going to the cabin.

Logic would tell me that, naturally, if my thyroid is causing the skating problem and I mess up my thyroid med dose, then of course (I think there’s an implied “duh” in this statement) the subsequent workout will suck.  Still, my mind, as it usually does, took off on all the “what ifs.”  What if it isn’t thyroid?  What else could it be? What if…what if…what if.  Until, fortunately, I figured out a simple, elegant way of finding out:

Take my next normal thyroid med dose (I take this particular med 4 times a day, so I still had a couple doses to go), then do another 4K this afternoon.  If I skate well, then it’s definitely the thyroid. If not…well, let’s not think about that.

So that’s what I did.  I took my usual thyroid meds the normal amount of time before skating, then went to the Oval shortly before the Summer Inline Series races were due to start , to do a “test workout” (I brought my skinsuit along just in case things went very well and I wanted to race for the first time this season).

I was more nervous driving to the Oval than I usually am for races.

And I did a 4K. And the laps averaged 45.7 seconds.  Yes, 7%, almost 4 seconds per lap, better than this morning.

Clearly, the thyroid is indeed the problem, the whole problem, and nothing but the problem.   (Note: for those of you who might be wondering if thyroid meds might be a nice way to take 4 seconds off your lap times, you can stop wondering. Thyroid hormones are not a performance enhancing substance because having too much is just as bad as not  having enough.  The best you can do is to replicate what your body would produce were it functioning correctly, thus allowing you to perform to your natural capability.)

And then I was so happy that I skated three SIS races, in which I discovered that I have a lot of catching up to do on my fitness and mental toughness, but which were a blast nevertheless.

And you can be damn sure I’ll take my full med dose before tomorrow’s interval workout.

The Question

It's time.

I knew that, sooner or later, I would have to address The Question.  And I'm quite certain that this post on The Question will be the most-viewed one on my blog--if only because, every time someone asks me The Question, I'm going to direct them here (maybe I should tattoo the URL on my forearm or something).

Friends have approached The Question in a variety of creative, tactful ways over the years.  

Andrew was the first, I think; during my 3K and 5K in my first only time skating the US Championships, back in 2007, Andrew yelled Question-reminding encouragement in the form of phrases such as "groove it" and "ride the glide."

Later, in Calgary, a young Milwaukee skater (hi, Blake!) said, in an attempt to be encouraging after my dismal 5K performance, "Well, you'll be really fast when you get the technique figured out."

He was referring, of course, to The Question.

When I gave Danny a ride to Milwaukee and back for a weekend of skating, five and a half hours each way, he made it all the way there and almost halfway home before turning to face me from the passenger seat and saying, tentatively, "You know I couldn't go the whole way without bringing this up..."   And then we discussed The Question.

Mel, when I gave her a ride to Milwaukee, didn't make it out of the Twin Cities before addressing The Question.

Local coach and Olympian Jason, who was kind enough to coach me a few times before I met TieGuy, was providing commentary for a race once and was heard to say, during my 3K (with mild surprise), "Wow, Kaari isn't slowing down yet...in fact, she's gaining on the other skater."  People who skate the way I do shouldn't be able to keep it up for a 3K, which, of course, begs  The Question. 

And even the nice little old Latvian master's skater that I met at a Salt Lake City event, an Olympian in her day, I think, got in on the action, asking me, with great enthusiasm and heavily-accented English, "You are inliner, yes?"  This was her way of asking The Question.

So what is The Question?  Well, for those who haven't seen me skate (or those who need a refresher), check out this video:

I am the taller skater in blue.  Yes, that's Coach TieGuy in, well, the tie, of course.

And there you have the visual representation of The Question, which usually goes something like this:

"What the Hell is with the crazy tempo?"

As you see in the video, I have a much faster tempo than the girl I am skating against.  In fact, I have a much faster tempo than almost anyone else on the ice.  Typically, skaters take 6-10 strokes on each straightaway (men on the lower side, women higher).  I take 12-14 on windless indoor ice, 16-18 or maybe even 20 on a windy day on slow outdoor ice.

Yes, I skate like a bunny on crack.

And pretty much every skater I have ever met is simply panting to change that.

Except the one who counts--Coach TieGuy.  Hear him in the video yelling (somewhat desperately) "Up the tempo! Up the tempo!"?  TieGuy knows why I have the tempo that I do, and he knows how to make it work for me.

This is one of the things I like most about Coach TieGuy (in addition, of course, to his fine selection of neckwear): he doesn't coach speedskating.  He coaches speedskaters.  Unique individuals with different abilities and problems and capabilities.  And I am, apparently, a speedskater with a lot of "uniqueness."

In skating, technique is just as important as fitness and strength; in general, if you don't do it right you won't be able to do it fast.  However...when you start the sport as an, um, older individual, you may or may not be able to learn to truly "do it right," especially if you're somewhat coordinationally challenged.  So you may have to learn the "most right" way you, personally, can do it.

So take note, people: following is, once and for all, the reason I skate with a high tempo:

Because that's the only way, right now, that I can go fast.

And, all false modesty aside, I do go pretty fast (when the thyroid is behaving, anyway).  In the race in the video above, I skated my Pettit (Milwaukee) Personal Best, a 4:55 3K.  Which is pretty damn good for a 47-year-old woman.  So I have to think that the "crazy tempo" is working for me.

Right now, I have several things that limit my ability to skate "the right way."  I have inflexible hips and an old low back injury, which limit my ability to get "low" and thus have a long push.  I have poor balance and have great difficulty committing my center of gravity over the skate I am gliding on, which makes it difficult to build pressure on that skate and thus generate a good weight shift and powerful push.  In other words, I am only (at this time) capable of short, relatively weak pushes.  So, if I were to attempt to "skate like everyone else" by artificially slowing my tempo and using fewer strokes per straightaway, I would slow down.  Fewer weak strokes is slower than more weak strokes.  So I don't try to artificially slow my tempo just to look like I'm "skating right."  Because I still wouldn't be "skating right," I would just be "skating slow."

Would I like to "skate like everyone else?"  Absolutely.  I hate seeing video of myself skating; I know how hard I've worked, and how hard Coach TieGuy has worked, to improve my technique, and yet I still can't do it "the right way" and I always think I look somewhat out of place when I skate.  

Until I look at my times.  Then I am happy.

TieGuy has figured out how to make me as fast as possible, given my physiology and abilities.  We do work on technique, a lot, and I'm always happy when I master another small skill that will take me closer to skating like a "real skater."  But I'm 47, and I don't have many years left before I won't get faster no matter how hard I train or how good my technique gets.  I want to maximize my speed now, given that sooner or later age will slow me down.  So for now, if I want to be fast, I'm stuck with "bunny on crack."

I hope that answers The Question.