The Green Mountain Speed Skating Club hosted their first meet this weekend, and I am very glad I went over to Rutland, Vt. Fast moving, fun event and perfect for young skaters and us not so young ones! The ice conditions were near perfect, and the facility is comfortable, clean very pleasant. It's a non-profit operation, not a municipal one, and the pride of ownership shows. This one should be on the radar of everyone in the Northeast and eastern Ontario/western Quebec next year. One great feature: the Castleton State College men's hockey team served, in shifts, as the block chasers and squeegee guys all day. What a good volunteer service! Thanks guys!
Thank you first of all to my teammate Beth Burchill for outstanding moral support (and congrats on some very impressive personal records!!!!) Thanks, too, to many of the adults at the arena for their friendship and support (Don A., Rick T., Fred M., Chris & Ramona H., etc.) and to the other three members of my age group for the competition--Fred Cole of the Saratoga Winter Club and John Murphy and Paul Cantella of the Pittsfield (MA) Speed Skating Club. They are much stronger, faster skaters but once again proved what a friendly, supportive activity speed skating can be and usually is. It was a pleasure to kibbutz with them all day, and to try my best to keep up (and out of the way, once passed!!!). The good news for me is that two 500 meter races were both PBs, and I am beginning to hope that I'll be not quite so far behind soon. Moving the blades back a bit seems to have helped two weeks in a row! A 01:37.345 for 500 meters may not be all that impressive, but it's a full six seconds faster than my previous best, and is encouraging.
There was one little glitch for me early in the day. The races started with 1000 meter heats and finals. My heat time was objectively slow, but pretty good for me. In the final, I felt great and was sure that I was on a PR time. I was coming into my bell lap (I'd been counting carefully, after going a lap too far the prior week in Rochester, and my count matched that of a couple of officials as I passed), but unfortunately the chief up thought I was too slow and that I had more laps to go and called the race. The numbers got posted. It WAS going to be a personal best by a lot. To say that I was pretty fried was putting it mildly. Beth Burchill to the rescue on that score! No complaints though. The official and I wound up the day on the same page and all is good. I've been an official at enough events to know how hard those jobs are, anyway. Since the timers did report the time, I was able to figure the pace and see progress, which was my goal. And for as long as judgment is part of the sport, there are going to be days when I, or any other skater, will get a break we did not expect or perhaps deserve. Those cut both ways... sometimes the luck is good, too, and the judgment call goes your way.
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