This Should Be Interesting...

On Wednesday I leave for Salt Lake City, for a four-day Masters long track camp run by Olympic Gold Medal winner Derek Parra.  I went last year and had a blast.  However, it was a lot of work.  In fact, we campers just got an email from Derek giving us last-minute details--and reminding us that it will be a lot of work.  Derek does a good job of realizing that we are all, um, "mature" skaters, and thus are probably more interested in bringing home information about technique and instruction on how to do dryland exercises, rather than bringing home muscles screaming from having to do massive workouts of said dryland exercises.  Still, it's impossible to have two dryland and two-on ice workouts a day for four days and not do a lot of work.

And therein lies the problem, and the reason that this should be interesting.

I am not used to doing a lot of work.

As you will undoubtedly recall, workouts here at the Long Track Life have been a bit sketchy lately. I'm blaming bad thyroid and bad attitude.  Whatever the reason, though, my workout volume has been the lowest this summer/fall that it's been in 8 years.  (My rear end volume, conversely, is the highest it's been.  I think it's an inverse relationship.)  This, of course, does not bode well for 14 workouts in three-and-a-half days.

I did do a little dryland this past week; dryland is one of those exercises that, no matter how little you do when you first do it, will make you extremely sore for days after your first attempt at it (or your first attempt in more than a month). So I figured it would be best if that "first attempt" was not the first day of a four-day camp.  So last Sunday I did a quick 5-minute dryland workout with my friend Mel at the end of my (short and slow) skating workout.  And it went fine; no soreness the next day, no problem.  I figured I'd do one 10-minute workout in the middle of this past week, and then I'd be ready for camp.

My body apparently had other ideas, though.  In my Wednesday workout, by the time I straightened up from the second minute of exercises (squats) my quads were extremely unhappy with me--shaky, cramping up, and deciding to skip the "delayed" part of "delayed onset muscle soreness" and get right down to business.  And even though I cut the workout off at six minutes, my legs were sore--very sore--for the next three days.

So...my thyroid levels are still out of whack.  I can't do more than 2 minutes of dryland without regretting it extensively the next day.  I'm not sure which skinsuit I'll fit into.  My heart arrhythmia still likes to act up with exercise. And I haven't been on ice since last March.

Yup, I'm ready for camp!