Tomorrow Should be Interesting

As I mentioned in my Ode to PopTarts, I had a really good workout yesterday. A really, really good workout. As in, 2 seconds per lap faster than I expected.  And I had another really good workout this morning--2 seconds per lap faster than I've ever skated at Milwaukee.

Urban Dictionary does not contain enough profane, colorful expressions of surprise to convey how I felt about those workouts.

I was fully expecting the workouts this weekend to suck.  Since I wanted to be able to quantify exactly how much the workouts sucked, I decided to exactly replicate my last Thursday-Friday-Saturday workout/time trial combo from late October, which happened to have occurred in 2009.  Being the obsessive little creature that I am, I of course have the exact details--including times for every lap--of the two workouts I did on that weekend, as well as the 1000 meter and 3000 meter time trials I did.  Doing those exact same workouts and time trials should, I figured, give me a good idea of how my fitness compares to previous years...and I was not expecting the comparison to be pretty.

But then I skated yesterday, and was blown away by how well it went.  And when today went even better, well--I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.

So what's making the difference?  I think it's some technique improvements I've (finally!) been able to make.  Why I'm able to execute them now when I haven't been before, I don't know...maybe it's improved flexibility (I've really been working on hips and hamstrings); maybe it's just my hours and hours and hours of skating finally catching up with me.  Whatever the reason, I seem to now be able to "skate more like a real skater"--and a faster one, at that.

Basically, this summer I just started trying to really snap my leg at the finish of each push; to "fling" my leg around on the recovery;  and to drive my knee forward before setting it down. Hence, I often find myself chanting "snapflingdrive" to myself when skating.  But it really seems to make a difference, especially if I really focus on the "fling" (big recovery) with my left leg prior to my first crossover step in the corner...it really seems to make me much faster in the corners.  I think this is likely what Coach TieGuy has meant when he's told me, time after time and year after year, to "dive into the corner" (it's a wonder I didn't drive him to drink).  And my  straightaways are down to 12 strokes (at Milwaukee) versus my previous 16 or so...but I did it by making my recovery bigger and my knee drive more pronounced, both of which take more time and thus slow down my tempo--but which also make for a more powerful stroke.  I never wanted to just "slow down my tempo," and TieGuy proved to me many times that just "trying to skate with a lower tempo" only made me slower, which makes sense--reducing the number of strokes without making each stroke more powerful equals less power output.  My new improved stroke does seem to provide more power per stroke, though...it feels weird, because I'm going faster and getting tired, but it feels like I'm relaxed when skating, rather than churning madly along in my old bunny on crack style.

So...I'm excited about time trials tomorrow.  I don't know how well I'll be able to maintain my "snapflingdrive" at race effort, but I can't wait to find out--and I find myself, for the first time in 6 months, feeling really, really hopeful about the upcoming long track season.