Getting My Bearings

I am (as the Hubster frequently laments) a girl who is given to ignoring routine maintenance of my equipment.  Once, when the Hubster and I were dirt biking in Colorado, I neglected to check the tightness of various bolts, and managed to have my headlight fall off the first day of riding.  Then, having not learned from my mistakes (live and learn?  What's that?) I proceeded to lose a bolt from the rear fender the next day, causing the fender to droop and, consequently, causing the rear tire to do some fender redesign.  Hubster was not amused (although he was nice enough to fix both oopses with a couple zip ties, since the relevant bolts were long gone.)

Skates don't have nearly as many moving parts as dirt bikes, but there are still some maintenance tasks required.  Long track skates, of course, must be sharpened.  Since speedskates are flat ground, not hollow ground as are hockey skates and figure skates, they must be sharpened by hand. I'm fairly good about doing this regularly (every other time I skate or so), but I tend to be pretty perfunctory about putting a good edge on the blades. Since I'm also bad at detecting, when I'm skating, whether the blades have a good edge or not, this really  isn't much of a problem.

In addition to sharpening the skates, I need to check the bolts that hold the blades to the boot.  If they loosen a little, the angle of the blade to the boot can change--an angle that has been carefully calculated by Coach TieGuy since I, as I mentioned before, have an unfortunate lack of ability to discern whether my skates are functioning properly or not. If the bolts loosen a lot, the blade can move enough to cause you to crash, which I think even I would notice.  There's another bolt (actually a screw) on long track clap skates, though; the one at the hinge of the clap mechanism.

This little one right here...

...see the gray dot in the middle of the red part?  Can you tell it's an Allen bolt head?  No?  I couldn't either...until the bolt fell halfway out as I was skating a corner, and I crashed into a heap.

In my defense, I will say that this tiny bolt/screw/whatever it is had never loosened up on my old blades, not in 5 years of skating.  So I could...maybe...be forgiven for not knowing that it was something that should be checked regularly.  However, once it had loosened up for the first time, I don't think I can legitimately claim ignorance, and thus I have no excuse for having it loosen up--and subsequently crashing--a second time.

Inline skates, although they have no clap mechanism or tricky hidden bolts, do have some things that require maintenance.  Like long track skates, they have bolts that hold the frames to the boots, and these need to be checked/tightened regularly (and the punishment for forgetting to do so and thus crashing when the frame moves is much more severe on inlines...).  Inline skate wheels also have bearings, which need to be either cleaned (most people) or thrown away and replaced (me--did I mention I don't like doing maintenance tasks?) every so often.

I knew my bearings were getting bad a couple of weeks ago; they start to produce a characteristic whirring noise when they get debris in them, and mine were getting pretty loud.  But I figured what the heck...it's almost the end of the season, they're not really that bad, and maybe the noise will alert the Skate Park Punks Patrons that I'm coming down the track and they'll refrain from jumping out in front of me--kind of like those Deer Whistles you put on your car.  Besides, I once won $20 because of bad bearings.  (It was at a Summer Inline Series race many years ago.  My bearings were getting pretty noisy, and  some guy commented that I needed to replace them.  I said nah, they're OK, the season's almost done anyway.  He responded "well, you won't win tonight on those.  I'll bet you 10 bucks you don't win on those crappy bearings."  But I did win--2 races, so (even though I insisted that he didn't need to), he gave me $20.).

By last Friday, though, I couldn't take it any more--the bearings were loud enough that I suspected they might actually not be working properly anymore ("not working properly anymore" means "I have to skate harder to go fast," so this is something to pay attention to).  Besides, I had a set of brand new bearings that I had gotten for free from the inline team I sort of skate on (the mighty Media Machine), so it seemed silly not to put them in.

When I took the old bearings out, I tried, as I always do (just for fun), to spin each of them to see how compromised their function had become before I finally replaced them.  This time, two of the bearings would not spin at all--completely locked up.  I'm not sure how much extra effort is required to skate on locked-up bearings, but you'd think it would have at least some impact on a person's speed.  So I figured, when I headed out Saturday morning to do my tempo workout, that I'd maybe be a bit faster than I've been lately.

Um, no.  My second 1000 meter tempo was absolutely, positively, without a doubt the slowest one I've ever done.  My usual 1K tempo laps are around 40 seconds, maybe a 39...this year they've been more like 41-43.

Yesterday's tempo featured a 47 second and a 50 second lap.

To put that in perspective, I have done 5x12 lap workouts--60 laps--where the laps averaged 45 seconds.

Oh, sure, I had some "reasons" that might explain my sluggishness (Coach TieGuy likes to call them "excuses," but I prefer "reasons").  I'm sick, work is stressful right now, and Friday night (thanks, I think, to a combination of Sudafed and caffeine) I got exactly 1.5 hours of sleep.  Reasons or not, though, those are some mighty slow lap times!  Maybe the new bearings needed a bit of "break in" time, too...but I've never had bearings that need to be broken in cause a 10-second-per-lap slowdown.

Fortunately, though, I only had to wait 24 hours before I got to skate again, so I didn't get too far down the "how do I suck, let me count the ways" path.  And today's intervals were quite a bit better; enough, anyway, that I'm once again looking forward to the next workout, rather than looking back at the previous one and wondering what went wrong.  And I've got some fun new technique stuff to work on, and maybe a Pettit ice weekend coming up next weekend...that reminds me, better go check those sneaky hidden bolts on my long track skates...

A Very Good Day

This will be one of those posts where I have nothing profound to say...I simply wallow in the enjoyment of a great workout.  If you'd like, feel free to jump in and wallow vicariously with me...

After I posted last night I tried again to mold out the bad spot in my skate--this involves heating the offending portion of the skate with a hair dryer or, if you're brave, a heat gun (I, of course, use a hair dryer), and then trying to push out the spot with thumbs or, more effectively, some sort of tool.  To mark the spot in the skate, you put lipstick on the part of your foot that hurts, then carefully put your skate on so the lipstick transfers to the inside of the skate.  (This is really the only time in my life I use either lipstick or a hairdryer...).  Anyway, it's a fussy, time-consuming procedure that I suck at.  Coach TieGuy has a special clamp-type tool that works quite well and he's very skilled at the procedure; he heats the skate the right amount, applies sufficient but not too much pressure, and gets the job done.  I typically try several times in rather half-assed and ineffectual fashion and then give up, and Saturday night was no different.

So when I got to the oval Sunday morning, I wasn't sure I'd actually be able to tolerate wearing my skates.  But I really wanted to--here's the oval Sunday morning (with the aforementioned Screaming Yellow warmup lane), and note that there is only one person getting ready to get on the ice.  Unlike Saturday, no Olympians, no what I later discovered was the entire National Sprint team--who are awesomely fun to watch, but a bit intimidating to skate with...

No, there was just a beautiful (if aggressively yellow), almost deserted oval begging to be skated on.

And a very painful left skate.

After a couple of hesitant warmup laps I realized that I was simply not going to be able to skate without some sort of hair-dryer-and-lipstick intervention (anyone who is familiar with my usual lack of fashion and girly-ness will realize that I've left myself wide open for smart comments with that statement).  So I headed upstairs to the oval skate shop, where fortunately Renee was working.

Renee is a goddess of skate molding (or, as skaters in Milwaukee apparently says, "Where there's a will, there's Renee").  10 minutes and $5 later, my skate was comfortable and I was on the ice ready to start my workout.  (After I skated and was still riding the endorphin high, I went back to the skate shop to tell Renee that the intervention had been successful and had allowed me to have a fantastic workout.  Actually, what I said was "would it be inappropriate to say that I think I love you?" which Renee found quite funny but which I later regretted as it left me with a horrible Partridge Family earworm for most of the drive home...)

I had decided to do a 4x 400/400 rest, 600/400 rest, 600/600 rest, 400/400 rest interval workout.  I was going to try to do it at 80%, which (at this point, early in the season) would usually be about 40 to 41 second laps, maybe a 39 in there somewhere if I was lucky.  I told myself I was shooting for 41's and 42's, though, since my lap times have not been stellar lately and I didn't want to be disappointed with my performance on the first workout of the season.

So I set out on the first lap, trying to remember all the technical things I was working on in an attempt to see if I was finally ready to graduate from my bunny on crack skating style: bigger, more relaxed recovery, drive the knees, try for more weight shift and more lean in the corners.  It felt pretty good, if somewhat relaxed.  Then I looked at my watch.

39.3

Nice!  And it didn't feel like 80% effort...let's see if I can do another one.

And I did.  All of the first four 400's were 39's.  I had my heart rate monitor on just for giggles, and I took a look at my max after the first set (I typically don't have heart rate targets for my workouts).  Hmm, 194...guess I was actually working hard.  (Yes, despite the fact that I'll be 48 next month, my max heart rate is still 200; just a genetic oddity, I'm told).

And the rest of the sets went just as well--a lot of 39's, many 38's, even a 37!  My last four 400's were all 40's, but I was OK with that--I was pretty tired by then, and I know my top-end fitness isn't where it should be because of the thyroid issues most of the spring and summer.  The technique felt pretty good, too--unfortunately I can't see for myself because, although my friend Melissa taped some laps for me, I had put the camera in the wrong mode and nothing recorded.  Maybe just as well...I'm sure I look much better in my head than I did in reality...But I didn't care.  It was a fantastic workout, especially for the first ice of the season, and as I drove home I was already making plans for my next Milwaukee weekend.

And this time, I really didn't need any caffeine on the long drive home to Minnesota.

My smile did a great job of keeping me awake.

ICE!

I'm typing this post sitting on a motel bed in a Milwaukee suburb.  There's an NCIS marathon on the TV, a Marty's pizza on the table next to me (yes, I'm eating pizza in--or more accurately, on--bed...got a problem with that?), and my usual pile of skating gear is strewn all over the room.

The ice season has begun.

I usually come down to Milwaukee, to the Pettit National Ice Center, a few times each fall before my "home oval" has ice.  I've driven down with Hubster (and dog) or Coach TieGuy or a fellow Minnesota skater a few times, but most of my early fall Pettit trips are solo.  It's a long trip after a long week at work, but I always look forward to it, in my usual "I love my routines and rituals" way.  I leave school as soon as all the students are safely on the bus, caffeinate (last night's trip took 2 Diet Cokes and a 100 mg caffeine Espresso Clif Shot), put the iPod on Shuffle All, make sure there's plenty of junk food easily accessible on the passenger seat, and hit the road for a 6 hour drive.  Yesterday's trip began particularly auspiciously...out of the 1381 songs on my iPod, the one that was playing as I pulled out of the school parking lot was the one that most says "skating" to me...Guns 'n Roses "Sweet Child O' Mine."  This is the song that my friend and fellow masters skater Andrew Love chose to use in the video he made of the US Long Track Championships in 2007, the only year I was able to qualify for and skate in them.  (You can see the video here; I make an appearance towards the end--I'm the rather stiff, upright skater in black/silver/blue, being urged on by Coach TieGuy in full suit). That event was one of the high points of my skating career thus far, so I always figure that song is a good omen.

The trip went fine, and I got a pretty good night's sleep...but I was so excited to skate that I woke up an hour before my alarm went off and finally just gave up on sleeping in and got to the Pettit an hour before the ice session started. We had 3 hours of ice, but I figured I might need all of it since I had new skates that were pretty sure to need some spot-molding with the hair dryer, which takes some time.  Between that and needing to stretch out well before skating, I wasn't too unhappy to be there early.

One new thing at the Pettit this year is that they have apparently taken a highlighter to the warmup lane (I'd post a picture, but I forgot the cord for the camera).  Long track ovals are divided into 3 lanes: the inner lane is for warmup, and the outer two for racing.  The entire inner lane at the Pettit is now painted a bright, screaming yellow.  That ought to wake us up during those early-morning pre-race warmups!

Another new thing was that, in addition to the usual Milwaukee fast skaters, a contingent of Salt Lake skaters (National Team? I'm regrettably out of touch with who does what in the elite skating world...all I know is that these were FAST skaters) were in town for some "low altitude" training.  Due to the limited venues and the small number of people who skate, it's quite common for people like me to share the ice with National Team members and Olympians, but it still always makes me a little nervous...I REALLY don't want to get in anyone's way!  So between the fast skaters and my new skates, I was feeling a bit tentative and thus spent most of my time in the Screaming Yellow warmup lane.

I spent the next 3 hours alternating skating "technique laps" with trying to fix a painful spot in my left skate (unsuccessfully; I'll have to give it another try when I finish typing).  Usually when I come to the Pettit,  I have a specific workout to complete (or I'm racing).  It was a bit weird to not have a set number of laps to complete at a set pace, but between the fast skaters and the painful skate, I was glad I didn't.  I just tried to focus on a few technical improvements: get lower; relax my leg/hip during the "recovery" phase of each stroke to try to capitalize on momentum (and improve weight shift) rather than just "forcing" every part of the stroke; and try to improve my "lean" in the corners.  I'm not sure how successful I was, but it was fun trying, and a good way to get comfortable on the ice again after a season on wheels.

So now, it's time to call the Hubster (he's been doing yard cleanup at home; yesterday, while chainsawing, he cut into a bee's nest...he's allergic to bee stings, but fortunately didn't have a reaction.  Today he was planning to rent a chipper...I need to see how that went!), mold my skates again, watch a little more NCIS, and go to bed.  Tomorrow I skate again--if the skates don't hurt I'll try to do an actual workout--and then head back to Minnesota.

I'm thinking 2 more Diet Cokes and the remaining half of the pizza should get me there...

It's Been a Long Week...Luckily

School started on Tuesday.  I'm a special education teacher; I have a class for kids in grades K-5 who have cognitive disabilities.  I'm fortunate to work in a great school district; my students are wonderful and they have involved, supportive parents; and I'm blessed to be working with four of the best paraprofessionals ever to tread a classroom floor.  Still, there's a huge difference in the energy requirement for my typical summer day (get up at 7, go skating, then spend the rest of the day doing pretty much exactly what I feel like) versus a typical school day (get up at 5:30, race around getting ready, spend the school day racing around meeting students' needs, come home, collapse on the couch, go to bed at 9).  And it's even worse the first week of school, because I need to spend a lot of time figuring out where 7 kids and almost-but-not-quite-enough adults are going to be every minute of the day, and what they're going to be doing.  Scheduling is a huge nightmare, kind of like those GRE logic problems:  "so and so has to be at Music at 2:15, but so and so has to be in PE and these other two have to be doing reading but they can't be paired together and one of the paras doesn't even have a lunch break yet...so who will be doing what with who?"  I'd love to get it done before school starts, but a lot of the schedule hinges on when my students' mainstream classes are doing activities that my kids can participate in, and that isn't typically decided until the day or two before the kids start.  And then there are always changes that I need to make when I try an activity or student grouping and discover that it's one of those "what was I thinking" things.  So I have a bag full of the kids' and paras' and my schedules sitting next to the computer right now, waiting to be revised...


This year, though, I thought I'd be smart.  Normally I have 3 hard Oval skating workouts that I do during the week--which are REALLY tough to do the first week of school--and then a couple recovery workouts on the weekend.  This time, though, I realized that, with TieGuy out of state and thus not coming to the workouts, there was no particular reason to do the hard workouts after a full day of school.  So, I decided to do the one of the hard workouts on a weekday, and the other 2 on the weekends (which would also allow me to start early in the morning, thus avoiding the dreaded Skate Park Punks Patrons).  I would then do a recovery workout mid-week...which would also set me up nicely for my (if I'm not too tired for it) first trip to the Pettit Oval in Milwaukee next weekend.  Perfect plan.


And it worked fairly well...until I actually skated on Thursday.  I had a beyond-horrible workout--and it was all my own fault.  I'm still trying to figure out optimal thyroid med timing...I felt like it was optimized last fall and winter and I felt like my normal self on the ice, but since I've needed the med adjustments this spring and summer I just haven't felt like I've gotten the timing dialed in.  So I tried a new schedule...with disastrous results.  Remember when I said that too much thyroid hormone is just as bad as too little?  Well, I always knew that in the theoretical sense...but now I've experienced it in the practical realm, as well.  I definitely had too much before the workout, and felt like crap.  I quit after only the first of the prescribed 5x5K, and gave the workout a .5 on the old 1-10 scale.  Yes, that's a point 5; I considered going to negative numbers but figured that would be needlessly dramatic.


Then, since I had screwed up the week's workouts by essentially skipping one, I had to call TieGuy and ask how I should deal with having 3 workouts left to do--in 2 days. (He said to skip the endurance one I had quit).  And while I always enjoy talking to TieGuy, it's always a little depressing, too, because it reminds me of how good I used to have it when I had my coach there at the track for almost every workout.  (I had to wait 10 years after I started skating to find a coach who would work with a masters skater, and I was incredibly lucky to find a great one.  Most kids who start speedskating join a club and have coaching on the track at every practice; in some areas of the country there are clubs that will take masters skaters, but mine is not one of those areas.)


So anyway, I was already tired and a bit bummed (and I'm pretty sure I forgot to take my "let's not be a cranky peri-menopausal woman, now, shall we?" supplement that day, which was not helping matters).


And then I found the pictures.


A friend had posted pictures on Facebook from a masters competition last year.  Those of me were, shall we say, less than impressive (the skating, not the photography).


Here I am, coasting gingerly past a couple skaters.  I'm assuming I came skating around the corner, saw them, freaked, and started coasting (we're all in the warmup lane, so no one is racing).  Notice, too, how my right ankle is "flopping over."  Nice.

And here I am, giving a graphic visual of how not to skate:

There's so much wrong with my technique in this picture that I don't even know where to start.  Arms everywhere, hips and shoulders in the wrong place, right ankle "flop," probably just finished toe-flicking with the left foot...and, of course, I'm way too high.  I emailed the photo to TieGuy with the observation that pretty much every body part was doing the wrong thing...he replied with "GET ON THE BLOCKS"


Oh, yeah...that too.


Here's what it's supposed to look like:

This is Bruce Conner, who is literally the fastest over-50 man in the world in the 500 and 1000 meters.  Notice how you can draw straight lines through each of his arms and legs (and there's no chicken wing!)  That means the force he's exerting is getting to the ice, rather than going...somewhere else...as it does with me.  While I love looking at photos of skaters like Bruce, they always also make me a little sad, because despite how long and hard I (and coach TieGuy) have worked on it, my technique still seems to be worlds away from that.


And then I went out this morning to do my tempo workout, and it was slow...very, very slow.


So by this afternoon, I was feeling a bit down about my skating, about how much work I have to do, about how tired I am.  And then I read this article in our local paper http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/129568213.html about Mia, a 10 year old girl who was diagnosed last year with terminal brain cancer.  Here is her comment the day she was diagnosed: 


"I love life," Mia said. "I have no reason not to love life because I've had nine long years of life. Anything happens now is just extra. It's sprinkles on a cake. I've had such a wonderful life and I just love life."


Wow...this kid figures that, since she's had "nine long years," anything else is just extra.  I've had almost 48 "long years" (and very good ones), and I'd be feeling awfully cheated if I knew they were coming to an end soon.  She has a truly amazing attitude.


I'm usually pretty good at appreciating the moment, being grateful for what I have, and enjoying all that life has to offer.  Still, I do become bogged down in the daily fatigues and frustrations, and it never hurts to be reminded, when I think I'm having a long week, of how lucky I truly am.


So today I'm going to revise those schedules, and tomorrow I'm going to go do my interval workout.  And no matter how lengthy the work, or how slow the intervals, I'll be grateful for all the "sprinkles" I've had in my life...

I Got Punched Today

No, that's not some skating term you're not familiar with...I actually got punched on the arm today while out skating, by a twitchy little runner with anger management problems (hereinafter, she shall be referred to as "Something I've Never Called Anyone Before" (SINCAB)...but let me start at the beginning.

Today's recovery skate was going to be two, 10K loops of my favorite local trail.  My sister, Energizer Bunny, and her friends FastGuy and FastChick were planning a training skate for the upcoming North Shore Inline Marathon.  They were planning four fast laps and my schedule called for two easy ones, so I knew I wouldn't be skating with them.  Still, it was fun hanging out at the trailhead with them, listening to their good-natured (if somewhat profane) banter as I assembled all my gear.  Finally we were ready and we headed out down the trail; this was the last I'd see of the 3 while skating:

So I skated along by myself, enjoying the cool weather and sunshine.  The trail was a bit busier than usual, but this particular trail, since it's fairly hilly and rural, usually avoids the stroller-and-training-wheels crowd; most of the trail users are runners, bikers, and inline skaters.

In other words, people who know and follow the trail rules.

Halfway through my second lap, I was cruising along, listening to my iPod and composing a happy little blog post in my head...something about sticking to your workout plan even when the people you are with are doing a different workout...maybe I'd call it "To Thine Own Workout be True"...yeah, that would be good...

And suddenly, as I rounded a curve, there she was, SINCAB:  a middle-aged woman like myself, jogging towards me about a hundred feet away...in my lane.

Now, you'll notice, from the photo above, that this trail is striped like a road, which would seem to imply that, as on roads, we travel in the right lane.  Everyone else I encountered on the trail seemed to be in agreement with this.  The sign at the trailhead, when I looked later, stipulated "stay to the right unless passing."  And, just in case you need more convincing, I looked up the trail rules online when I got home.  Here they are:

The fourth rule is highly relevant...

However, SINCAB did not appear to have gotten the memo.  Now, given our relative speeds and the fact that we were moving towards each other, we probably had about 4 seconds before we would be occupying the same patch of asphalt (I knew those junior high math story problems about trains traveling towards each other would come in handy some day!).  Here was my basic thought process during those 4 seconds:

Second 1:  Hmm, she's in my lane.  She must not have been paying attention.  I'll stop skating and coast, and move to the right; when she realizes she's in the wrong lane she'll move over.

Second 2:  Damn.  Not moving over. Do I dare move over to the other lane, or will she change her mind and dart in front of me?  I'll go for it...NO!  She's going that way too!  Change directions!  Crap!  She changed too!   Now we're both going the other way!

Second 3:  If I just stay predictable and coast in my lane, she'll head for the grass.  She's only one step away from it...why hasn't she gone there already?  And what is she yelling?  That's not very nice!

Second 4:  She's still heading right for me!  And still yelling!  Collision imminent...Woop!  Woop! (That's the Hubster's patented "alarm sound" that he deploys whenever he thinks I'm being needlessly dramatic). Yikes!

At the last second she stepped off the trail onto the grass and punched me hard on the arm as I coasted by!

Well, that did not make me happy.  Nor did her yell of "why didn't you move over, bitch!?"  So I yelled back "I didn't know which way you were going to go."

And then I called her Something I've Never Called Anyone Before.  

No, I won't tell you what it was...feel free to use your imagination...

Then I continued back to the trailhead, hopped up on adrenaline and still fuming--and also replaying the incident in my head.  I know I tend to have not-so-helpful reactions to physical situations that I perceive as dangerous...this is why I'm more likely to yell at Skate Park Punks Patrons than are other skaters; I just don't trust my reactions as far as dodging, etc.  But still, in replaying it, I couldn't see what else I could have done.  By the time we saw each other we weren't very far apart, and I spent the first precious bit of time moving to my right and  assuming she'd be getting over into her lane--or onto the grass--as soon as she saw me. By the time it was glaringly apparent that she had staked out my lane as hers and wasn't budging, we were too close for me to try any evasive maneuvers.

When I got to the trailhead, I had planned to wait for Energizer Bunny and crew to finish their 4 laps.  This meant it was possible that, while I was waiting, SINCAB might come jogging by.  In the left lane, of course. And if she did, I wanted to be prepared.  I didn't know if she'd try to continue what she had started by slugging me, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to think out my options ahead of time. So I pulled the chemical spray off my Camelback strap and cautiously tested it (I pointed it downwind, of course.  I learned, many years ago when trying to pepper-spray an aggressive dog--with pepper spray provided by the dog's owner, I might add--that pepper-spraying upwind is a nasty proposition.).

Empty.  Great.  How the heck did that happen; I've never used it.

Oh, well...

After a few minutes, a couple of guys came running by.  I had passed them shortly after my altercation with SINCAB, and I thought they might have heard us.

"Did you hear me yelling back there?" I asked them, and told them that a runner running in the left lane had punched me.

"We didn't hear you," said one, " but she's been having conflicts with everyone out here today."

Nice. At least I'm not alone.

And then it hit me.  Conflicts with everyone.  Energizer Bunny is out there.  

Now, Energizer Bunny is petite, but she is feisty.  She also has the mouth of a sailor; even as kids there were times when, in the middle of a verbal altercation, I'd pause for a moment in sheer admiration of the novel string of cuss words she'd come up with.  And, unfortunately, EB has even more trouble than I do dealing with situations she perceives as dangerous; thus, many a fellow trail-user has had their vocabulary expanded when they encountered EB on the trail.  I figured something fairly epic must have happened.

Before EB and her friends reappeared, though, here came SINCAB, jogging down the trail in the left lane.  (I was reminded, when I saw her, of the studies done on the unreliability of eyewitnesses--I could have sworn she had on a white shirt, but she was wearing all black).

As she got closer, she stared intently at me.  I stared back...good--as I remembered, she's smaller than I am.  If necessary, I'm pretty sure I can take her...

"Were you rollerblading back there?" she barked.

"Yes," I said, and it was on--verbally only, thankfully.

I don't remember all of the first salvo, except that I explained that I wasn't trying to run her down, I just didn't know which way she was going and thus didn't know which way to dodge.  She countered, at fairly high volume and intensity, that she had been hit from behind by a biker on a trail and thus had decided that it's safer to run on the left.  She also didn't buy my explanation, and decided that she needed to resort to calling me "fat" to get her point across.

"You were taking up the whole trail," she said several times, "and you need to, you're so wide."

Really...are we in third grade?

I finally convinced her that I would have been fine with coasting past her, if I had known she would stay where she was, and was not at all unwilling to give up a few inches of trail to her...I just hadn't known which inches she needed.  Then I asked a seemingly logical question.

"If you're afraid of the wheeled vehicles, why don't you run on the grass?"

Well...apparently it's "none of my damn business" where she runs, and "the Wayzata police support me in running on the left."

That's fine, except the park is in the city of Maple Plain, not Wayzata, and none of the other trail users are privy to her little agreement with an unrelated city's police department.

So the discussion continued, and it became clear that the issue was that SINCAB adamantly refused to step onto the grass to avoid oncoming traffic; she felt that she was in the right, and had had numerous altercations with bikers and inliners as a consequence.  She had decided that, if a biker or inliner refused to yield to her, she would simply push them over.  Which is what she said she did to me; I countered with "no, you punched me, and don't ever effing touch me again."

And then, as the discussion continued, the real picture became clearer.

"I'm just so afraid of being hit by a bike again," she said, obviously distraught.  "I'm even afraid in the grocery store.  I've had someone hit my ankle with their cart..."

Well.  Afraid of carts in the grocery store.  Clearly, SINCAB's cheese had already slid at least halfway off her cracker, and I wasn't interested in seeing it finish the slide.  So I switched modes from "what the Hell is wrong with you bitch" to "yes, yes, I fully understand your position and you're right...but realistically, how are we going to keep you safe from those nasty people on wheels?"

With this change of tactics, I finally managed to get her to agree that it might be safest to simply step onto the grass when she saw wheels approaching.  I also found out that she had, indeed, encountered Energizer Bunny, and there had been words, but I was able to explain EB's judgement issues.  We ended up apologizing to each other for the issue and we were on decent terms by the time she jogged away--in the left lane, of course.

Five minutes later, EB and crew rolled into sight. EB was dancing on her skates to her iPod, and flashing the finger with both hands, kind of like a profane version of John Travolta's Saturday Night Fever disco-point.  I knew she wasn't flipping me off, just venting about her encounter with SINCAB.  When she stopped, I asked if they had had issues with a woman jogging in the left lane.

"Yes, that  @#$#@%^" Energizer Bunny began (interestingly enough, she chose the same words for SINCAB that I had--but EB, unlike me, has called someone that many times before), but I cut her off.

"At least she didn't punch you," I said.

Well, that got their attention, and I relayed my tale.  The best part, though, was that EB said that the last time they passed SINCAB--5 minutes after she and I finished talking--she had stepped onto the grass and they had skated past without incident.  So there's progress.

Now if we can just get the grocery cart pushers to behave...

Avoiding Failure

I read an interesting blog post yesterday.  It was written by a fellow named Jesse Kropelnicki, who is a triathlon coach.  (He  also developed the nutrition program that I received instruction in a couple months ago. The Core Diet has proven to be very helpful for me in losing weight while still working out hard and recovering well—although, admittedly, I take a few more liberties with my food selection than I should!.)  Anyway, although triathlon is the last thing I’d attempt, athletically, (I have a weird phobia about exhaling when my face is in water, which makes swimming interesting, and road biking frankly frightens me), Jesse’s articles are thought-provoking and often have wider application to other sports.  (I’ve referenced other information from him here).  Yesterday’s post was about mental conditioning for athletes, a subject near and dear to my heart.  In the article, he discussed two factors that motivate athletes, particularly in races—avoidance of failure, and achievement of success.

Athletes who are motivated by avoidance of failure, Jesse says, tend to perform best in competitions that are very easy (they will win easily), or very difficult (they have no chance of winning).  When competing with athletes of very similar ability, athletes motivated by avoidance of failure struggle. Conversely, athletes motivated by achievement of success tend to do poorly in very easy or very difficult competitions, and to shine when competing head-to-head with someone of very similar ability.  This “motivated by success” perfectly describes many athletes whose blogs I read, who are always describing intense battles they had with closely-matched competitors, and how much fun it was.

Now, of course, “avoidance of failure” and “achievement of success,” as motivators, are end points of a spectrum rather than two separate entities; athletes are rarely motivated by only one or the other, and in fact can move one way or the other on the spectrum during the course of their athletic career, and even from race to race.

I found this a very interesting concept because, while I haven’t thought of it in those terms, I have known for quite some time that I am a very “motivated by avoidance of failure” athlete.  And sometimes it frustrates the heck out of me.

I realized pretty quickly, back in my dirt bike racing days in the ‘90’s, that I hated racing head to head with my main competitors.  If there were other women in the race (which was actually fairly rare), I didn’t want to start on the same “minute” with them (in the racing I did, 4 riders start at a time on a mostly single-track trail through the woods.  Unless you start at the same time as someone, you may never see them in the race). I much preferred to simply ride my race, and then compare scorecards at the end.

When I started speedskating a few years later, I mostly raced pack-style races, both on ice and inline.  In pack-style races, you line up with your competition, someone says “go,” and the first one across the line wins.  At first, I was OK with this.  Nervous about being  in races where I toed the line with 10 or more just-fast-enough-to-be-dangerous guys on inlines, but mostly OK with it.  The more I skated, though, the more I began to be frustrated by, and then increasingly freaked out by, going head to head with my competition.

The frustrated part is logical for a data queen like me.  I want to know how fast I can skate—I don’t want anyone to get in my way and slow me down, and I don’t want anyone to give me a draft and speed me up.  I want no part of team tactics, cat-and-mouse strategies, or “I’ll just wheelsuck and then blow by them at the finish line.”  I have one main person I want to beat—and that is me.  I just want everyone else to get out of my way and let me skate against myself.

Still, the freaked out part…that goes beyond just wanting to skate my own race unimpeded. I get to do that in metric races (where each skater has their own lane and there is no drafting), and yet I still always hope that I won’t be paired with anyone close to my speed.  Once again, I want to skate my own race and then compare times afterwards rather than skating the whole race neck-and-neck with someone.  Mentally, I just have a very hard time with that.  (And a complicating factor is that in metric racing skaters switch lanes on the backstretch every lap, so each skater has the same number of inner lane and outer lane turns.  When skaters enter the lane-change zone at the same time, bad things can happen.  I’ve been DQ’ed at least once for screwing up the lane change.  So there’s that to worry about, too.) 

Anyway, I was forcibly reminded of this whole “freaked out and frustrated” thing Wednesday night, because I did the Summer Inline Series races again.

I used to do SIS races every week all summer long.  I liked the races best, of course, when I was either by far the best woman, or by far the worst. The years where I had close competition, though, became increasingly torturous for me.  TieGuy had the misfortune to be my coach for most of these years; he spent a lot of time, on Wednesday evenings, telling me to relax, it was just another tempo workout, worry about the lap times he was giving me and not about where the other women were.  Still, every Wednesday I would get butterflies in my stomach starting at about lunch time, and nothing I could say to myself would make them go away.  And they weren’t good “get you psyched for the race” butterflies; they were “I can’t stand this I feel like I’m gonna puke” butterflies.  I would get more nervous for an SIS race--that I was just using for pre-season training--than I would for my most important long track race of the winter, all because of the head-to-head aspect of the racing.

The first time I raced SIS this year, my friend Melissa was the only other woman there.  Since Mel can kick my butt with one leg tied behind her back, it was a very relaxed night of racing for me.  I still didn’t like the pack aspect (we were grouped with a men’s category, so there were about 6 skaters on the track and thus the drafting/getting boxed in issues were present), but I survived without freakout.

Last night, though, there was another woman there besides me and Mel; one who, in past years when I’ve been at the top of my game, I’ve typically beaten--but she’s gotten faster and I’ve gotten slower.  Big time freakout.

The first race was just a two-lapper, and despite my pre-race nerves it actually went pretty well, mostly because everyone else beat me and so I got to skate my own race, no draft or anything (and I skated a 38 second lap, the first of the summer!  Hellooo, snap—is that you returning?)  Still, the freaking out accelerated before the second race, a 6 lapper.  I tend to do better at longer races, and 6 laps is very close to my 3K distance. I really wanted a “clean” race, no drafting or being blocked or boxed in, so I could further assess how my “snap” was progressing. No matter how hard I try, I never skate as hard in “tempo” workouts as I do in real races, so I really wanted to get some race data.

Or at least, that’s what I told myself: that there was a nice, logical reason that I wanted to find a way out of going head-to-head with the other woman.  It certainly had nothing to do with my inability to push myself in close competitions; with my tendency to mentally “fold” when faced with going stride for stride with someone; with my intense, almost phobic dislike of the whole scenario.  Oh, no...those things weren't a factor at all...

So I made a plan: I was going to wait at the line until the other skaters took off, then start by myself and time all my laps. And, as soon as I made the decision, I felt relieved…and also disgusted with myself.

It’s dumb.  Nobody cares how I do.  Well, Hubster and TieGuy have somewhat of an interest, but in terms of the folks at the track….Nobody.  Really. Cares.  whether I  beat someone or not.  And honestly, I don’t either…I’d rather skate a fast time for me and get beaten than skate poorly and beat someone.  So why the panic?  “Avoidance of failure,” yes, but that’s too logical.  This is irrational, ever-growing—and very hard to fight.  And it's changing the kind of racing I'll do.

Over the years, I’ve modified my racing more and more based on my “avoidance of failure.”  I don’t skate any pack-style long track ice races anymore.  I rarely skate inline marathons or half-marathons anymore.  And I certainly don’t enjoy SIS races the way I used to.  I’m lucky that my chosen sport allows (most of the time) for my favorite form of competition: skate my own race, then compare scores afterwards.  Actually, I think it goes well beyond luck, and probably is one of the aspects of speedskating that makes it my chosen sport.

Still, I feel like there’s something wrong with “taking the easy way out;” with not going head to head with someone.  But why? I know myself, I know what I like, I have a sport that I love that almost always allows me to not do that which freaks me out.  So why do I feel like I need to try to make myself be more “success” motivated?  Actually, although I see where Jesse is coming from with those terms, I don’t really like them.  I’m not sure “failure” is what I’m avoiding and “success” is what others are seeking; I have no problem losing to someone when we compare scores, I just don’t want to be aware of our positions when I’m racing.  And really, is that something I should strive to change?  Can I even change it? (there’s an implicit “at my age” here).

The jury is still out, but for last night I decided to go with my wimpy self and do my “start after everyone else” plan.  And it went well; the lap times were pretty good, and I got to skate my own race. 

And I got a lot to think about, too...

On a lighter note, here are some pics of the racing.  And the best part of the night was that Mel won the series for the women, and got inline skates for the prize. Mel has been kicking butt in her old school boots, which are held together with duct tape and  have 5x80 wheels (5, 80 millimeter wheels—most people skate on 4 100’s or even 110’s)—which is much like winning a Nascar race in your Yugo.  The skates couldn’t  have gone to a more deserving person!

The pre-race scene.

Me and my mountain of gear.

Some of the Juniors heading for the finish.

The start of one of the Elite men's races.

My start of the 6 lap race.  Notice that no one else is in sight.

Just crusin' along, all by myself...

The 2011 Summer Inline Series season winners, in their yellow jerseys.