Blah

Today's races were, well, blah.  Which was a shame, because things went so well last night that I was sure I'd race well today.

Thanks to two full weeks of Christmas vacation (for the first time in, oh, ever), I didn't have to work Friday and thus was happily driving towards Milwaukee by noon.  My happy got even happier when the DJ on the radio announced that the governor of Minnesota had just closed all public schools for Monday due to the extreme cold forecasted.  Sweet...I get Monday off to recover from the races!

When I got to the oval for my day-before-the-races workout, I decided to mix up some of the caffeine-enriched "go fast juice" that my sister Energizer Bunny (who manages a nutrition store and is intimately familiar with all the energy products) had sold me the day before.  Gotta try these things out in a workout before you use them in a race, right?  And within ten minutes, the combination of smooth indoor ice, a couple fast laps with Sprinter Boy and Hawkeye Boy, and some good music on the oval sound system had me zipping along in a caffeine-enhanced haze of enthusiasm and positive thinking.  PB's in the upcoming races seemed like a definite possibility.

Unfortunately, the caffeine lingered long after the skating was done, and Friday night ended with me still wide awake at midnight, searching for something moderately entertaining on the hotel TV and calculating the hours until I needed to get up.

Saturday, as I expected after my short night, dawned early and sleepy.  The weak hotel coffee didn't perk me up, nor did my traditional pre-race McDonald's breakfast, my warm up laps, or my attempt at visualizing my race.  I stepped to the line for my first 500 meter race feeling decidedly...blah.

Oh, and fat, too. After skating my warmup in my MAT I suit, I decided that it was too tight ( being able to breathe while skating is a nice option) and I switched to my looser suit.  On the plus side, I was able to lend my MAT I suit to Mel ( who qualified for MAT I in a year they didn't give us skinsuits) and she skated to two PB's in it, so at least there's that.

Anyway, not surprisingly, the race WAS blah.  Slow, slipping opener; hacky, rough first corner; lackluster straightaway; panicky shuffle-step corner entry.  The corner exit felt OK, as did the final straightaway, but it was too little, too late.  My final time, 48.73, was not horrible and indeed it tied my third fastest Milwaukee 500 time...but it was far from what I wanted.  Oh, well...on to 500 meter race #2.   I had a faint hope that things might improve; sometimes, when a skating day starts off poorly, I feel better once I've gotten off the ice and then back on.  

That did not happen this time. Despite the application of Energizer Bunny's "go fast juice" between the two 500 meter races, my second 500 was worse than my first, featuring a startlingly thoroughly blown entry into the second corner that resulted in a time of 49-something.  Ugh.

That left the 1500.  I rarely do 1500's at Milwaukee, so I was hoping I might have gotten faster since
 my last 1500 there a year ago.  Sadly, my improved cornering skills failed to show up for the 1500
just as they had in the 500's, and my time ended up a fairly-forgettable 2:27.02.  Not a PB, and not
MAT I time.  Damn.  It was, however, my third fastest Milwaukee 1500, so I guess that's something.

So now I'm back in the motel room, after some excellent pizza and ice cream with Sprinter Boy and Mrs.  Sprinter.  I've sharpened and foam rolled and prepped the pre-race "go fast juice" and the post-race protein shake.  Time to get a good night's sleep and prepare to conquer the "blah" and have some good races tomorrow.