Race Weekend Report

No, not the 10K report.  Yes, that had been scheduled for yesterday, but it got rescheduled to Feb. 8, giving me the opportunity to do a full weekend of metric racing at Roseville yesterday and today--and also giving me an opportunity to train hard-ish for an extra week before starting my 10K taper.

My legs did not appreciate this opportunity.

So my week went like this:  CrossFit Monday because that's when I usually do it; CrossFit Tuesday because the oval was closed due to cold (that was the previously-written-about "pullup and dub" Tuesday); Wednesday was a short but fast tempo workout; Thursday was a short "pre-race warmup" workout plus a few extra laps; and then Friday was, thankfully, a rest day.  My legs have suddenly remembered that they are 50 and that they've recently been subjected to a rather intense ramping-up of the number of workouts they're required to participate in per week, and they're currently just short of mutiny.

So I went into the weekend's racing with a bit less than full enthusiasm.  I had initially signed up for the full women's short all around program: 500 and 1500 on Saturday, 1000 and 3000 on Sunday.  The weather forecast Friday night inspired me to switch my 3K from Sunday to Saturday--Saturday was supposed to be a bit windier, but I figured that the 20 degree high would beat Sunday's 4 degrees in the "which would I rather skate 7.5 laps in?" contest.

The 500, usually my nemesis, actually went pretty well.  Thanks to my attempts to incorporate my new knee-drive technique into my starts, my opener (the first 100 meters of the 500) was actually my fastest ever outdoors, and my fourth fastest of all time--which led to my overall time in the 500, 49.68, being my third fastest outdoor time ever (see why I keep all my skating stats?  How else would I know such things?).

I had hoped to use my new technique to keep my speed up with less effort in the 3K, and I was successful--for the first 700 meters.  After that I hit a very large wall and the remaining laps were extremely painful and increasingly slow, although my final time of 5:24.43 was in the top third of my outdoor 3K's which is actually amazing given how awful I felt. This 3K was one of those races that almost make me wish I were a sprinter.

Given all that, I approached Sunday's races with even less enthusiasm than Saturday's.  And the 1000 did not disappoint--at 1:43.27 it was one of my slower outdoor 1K's, and felt just about as bad as the 3K had, although mercifully a lot shorter.  I had died pretty extensively between the first and second laps, so I decided that my goal for the 1500 would be to try for fairly even splits for the three laps, however slow they might be.  And I actually succeeded--my laps after the opener were 39 something, 41 something, and 41 a little less something (no official lap times yet).  I was quite pleased with my final time of 2:35.65, and Sprinter Boy and Hawkeye Boy said my technique looked a lot better throughout the race.

Still, happy as I was with the 1500, I'm very glad that the races are done and that I have minimal skating planned for this week.  I can't imagine skating 25 laps on legs that feel the way mine felt this week, so bring on the couch time, foam rolling, and short taper workouts!