Laps

After all the whining that's been going on here the past couple weeks, I'm thrilled to say that I've got a happy post for a change.  I went skating today for the first time in two weeks...and I managed to do five sets of one complete lap of "speedskating!"  The laps were slow--so slow that I had to throw a few straightaway strokes into my "into the wind" corners--and still quite painful; but I was surprised and very pleased that I even felt like attempting full laps, and even more surprised at how well they went.

Prior to this, I've done mostly single straightaways in "speedskating" position; every time I've tried crossing over in corners I've regretted it, so I've stuck with "skate the straights and coast the corners."  But today, although the pain was still there, my mobility and strength felt up to the task of trying corners, and when I did try, my crossovers felt more like real crossovers than the lurching-and-wobbling attempts I'd previously made.  So I tried a continuous lap...and I could do it!  And I even was breathing a little hard after the lap--so there's hope for getting a good cardio workout sometime soon.  So then I did four more laps, with one lap of rest between each--and then my hamstring felt pretty tired and it seemed like a good time to stop, so I just did upright "rest laps" for the rest of the ice session.  With a huge smile on my face.

Maybe the improvement in skating ability was due to having run a mile (a blazing 10:20, but a significant improvement over my previous 11:40 mile) immediately before hitting the ice and thus being completely warmed up before I tried skating; maybe it was due to just general improvements in strength and flexibility; maybe the dry needling or the ARP wave or the massage had an effect; or maybe I was just better at ignoring the pain and getting on with it this time.  Whatever the reason, I'm delighted, and I'm already planning this week's skating workouts.  Let's see, maybe I could skate Tuesday and Thursday after CrossFit (yes, I'll be well warmed up to skate!)...maybe try a short "pyramid" workout on Tuesday of 1-2-3-2-1 "real skating" laps, with one lap of rest between each set of real laps.  And then maybe on Thursday I could time a lap...

It's so much fun to finally be able to start thinking about real speedskating workouts!