Camp--Day One

Day one is done, and I'm toast.  Which means that, instead of a blog post with some particular point or focus or theme...you're just getting a recitation of today's events.

You're welcome.

We started the day with two hours on ice, which was a lot of fun.  Mostly drills, working on getting the basics down.  I have a pretty extensive need to learn how to do a proper weight-shift, which will allow me to use body weight instead of just the leg strength I've mostly been relying on to skate fast (hey, I grew the body weight; might as well use it!)  Up until my "skating technique epiphany" of a year ago, I was pretty much incapable of  any weight shift and had more or less given up on being able to do it at all.  Now that I've seen a glimmer of ability to do a proper skating stroke, though, I think it's time to spend some effort on seeing if I can actually get to the point of doing it correctly, consistently.  Derek Parra is an excellent coach and he has some great skaters helping him out.  They were able to explain a couple of (very important) things that I've been struggling with, so I have some new stuff to work on when the Oval opens back in Roseville.

(Oh, by the way, there will be no pictures for today's post...by the time I headed to the Oval this morning I had lost my camera three times but only found it two.  It has now been found the third time, so hopefully I'll have some photos tomorrow.)

After the ice time we had a break for lunch--in my case, a peanut butter sandwich, chips, two brown sugar cinnamon poptarts, and a diet coke.  Lunch of champions middle-aged skaters with butts that cannot truthfully claim to be "all muscle."

The afternoon brought an interesting talk on weight training, which included some flexibility screening that highlighted the fact that I should not have stopped doing the hamstring stretches suggested by my chiropractor.  Then it was on to some dryland.  The exercises were all useful and beneficial, and Derek was good about having us do them only enough times to show that we understood how to do them...but still, two hours is a lot of dryland. By the time he got to the third-to-the-last-exercise--one-footed jumps with the jumping foot on a step--most of us were pretty pathetic.

"C'mon, jump high!  Remember that free leg just hangs there!  Let's see how high you can get!"  Derek exhorted.  (The guy never seems to run out of energy or enthusiasm).  Since I was, at that point, having a bit of difficulty just walking up the steps, let alone jumping up from one on one leg, I'm afraid I didn't exactly "get high."

Then it was off to dinner with about 10 other skaters, which was a lot of fun and a lot of food.  One of the other skaters and I have the same birthday, and it happens to be tomorrow--so the meal ended with the server bringing us each an ice cream sundae and the rest of the group singing Happy Birthday.  A great way to end the evening, and to enjoy what I suspect will be the last pain-free hours of the next couple days.  I'm tired now, but nothing (except my low back) is actually sore.  However, I expect that to have changed by the time I crawl out of bed tomorrow, after delayed-onset muscle soreness has had a chance to take up residence in pretty much any body part that moves.  Tomorrow should be interesting--two ice workouts and one dryland...hopefully I'll still be able to move!