Progress

I've had some little bits of encouraging progress in the skating department lately: a 40-second lap; a heart rate of 203 during some maximum-effort stuff; consistently being able to skate hard enough to get out of breath and feel pukey; and having no workouts, in the past 10 days or so, that feature that special "dead hypo legs" feeling.  Plus, I'm feeling hot at random times lately, which is (hopefully) a sign that the thyroid levels are getting to where they should be.

So, between feeling like I might be starting to skate normally now and feeling guilty for wimping out on the Minnesota Half Marathon last weekend, I'm currently toying with the idea of doing the North Shore Inline Marathon this year.  I've done it seven times or so, but not since 2006--when I got really serious with my long track skating I decided to skip the September North Shore event, because I didn't want to mess up my training schedule or my body that close to the ice season.  Plus, a mid-September race can be a bit stressful for me logistically, since it's shortly after school starts up again and I'm usually a little stressball at that time of year.

This year, though, I'm kind of making it up as I go along in the workout department, and I've been focusing on technique more than specific workouts this summer (thanks, hypothyroid).  So there's really nothing to "mess up," workout-plan-wise, and I could probably use a bit more endurance work, anyway.  The race start time has moved from buttcrack-of-dawn to 10:30, so I could actually drive up to the race in the morning rather than having to stay in Duluth the night before, which makes things logistically easier (and cheaper).  And I have somewhat of a love affair with Lake Superior, so getting to skate down the shore is pretty cool.

I have no illusions about how I'd do in the race; in fact, I plan to skate it like I did in 2005.  That was the year I was sick for 6 weeks in early summer, and then had a tachycardia-with-exercise problem for the rest of the summer (probably triggered by the virus).  I couldn't skate hard at all that summer (I think I did a total of 10 laps at 45 seconds throughout the whole summer; everything else was recovery-pace because I just couldn't go any faster).  I was already signed up for the North Shore when the tachycardia started, though, so I decided to just go ahead and do it but do it in a relaxed, enjoy-the-scenery mode (my cardiologist was fine with this, and in fact I was scheduled for an ablation procedure to fix my other arrhythmia 10 days after the race). So I did a casual, relaxed race, and really enjoyed it, and actually got a decent time.  

So that would be my plan this year, as well.  Skate a relaxed, fun race, and just enjoy the experience.  My sister Energizer Bunny is doing the race as well, and we'll be starting in the same wave, but I have no illusions about being able to keep up with her.  Still, it will be fun to have her there, even if I can't skate with her.

So now I just have to sign up for the race.  Oh, yeah...and start skating a few trail miles in my new skates with the 100 mm setup.  Probably not a good idea to race 26.2 miles in them when the farthest I've skated in them is 6 miles...