Day 2, Short Track Junior Nationals, Bay City MI

As a father and as a fan (and having a ringside seat in the timer's box except when Liz skates) the first two days of Junior Nationals have been unforgettable.  On day one, while sharing timing duties with Saratoga friends Don Acker and Bill Ralston, it was a thrill to watch Katie Ralston of Saratoga break 01:43.500 in the 1000 meter time trials, to qualify for A group, while being torn up to see Liz miss the cut four the top sixteen by six thousandths of a second.  Day one was frustrating for Rochester skaters and also for two young  Salt Lake skaters I've been happy to befriend, Matt Ferguson and Andrea Dahnke.  Day two was a new day for Liz:  three races, three personal bests:  she went under 50 seconds for the first time in the 500 heat, and then beat her new best to win the A Final at 00:48.832.  What a great way to shake off the disappointment of day one!  But she was not done:  leading wire to wire in the 1000 meter heat, she met the A cutoff by nearly a second, scoring 01:42.736 (perspective:  she is consistently about twice as fast as her dad!!).  Meanwhile , strong performances from Mitch Connelly, Lily Swartz and Mikey Burdekin (who turned in the smoothest race I have ever seen from him) rounded out RSST the day.  Andrea and Lily were within thousandths of each other, while Matt's frustration continued with some falls and some bad luck that just defies explanation.  Matt has been a fine example of sportsmanship, however:  his frustration shows, but do does his class and determination.  Marty Medina noted that progress in speedskating tends to come in chunks, and that Liz was posting some times in the last couple of meets that demonstrate that. By the way the photo above is a copywrited photo taken in Minnesota this fall at American Cup I by Jerry Search, and is reproduced here with gratitude.  Anyone interested in a gallery of wonderful speedskating photo's should visit Jerry's site.

Ohio Invitational/American Cup II Nov. 1-2, 2008 at Cleveland Heights

There are certain advantages to being an older speedskater, such as when your times are converted to age groups, the group itself is small enough that on paper your performance looks decent.

The Ohio Invitational had all sorts of attractions as my third meet of the season.  First, it was run in tandem with American Cup II, which gave us our first chance to see our daughter Liz skate since she began training in Utah.  She had grown in confidence and skill, and looked stronger.  Injured in practice on Sunday, she nevertheless finished first in the B group, winning three of four events!!! 

Second, the meet presented my second chance to skate the event, and a chance to compare my effort with the prior effort last January.  Mixed bag...a couple times better, a couple worse, but a rollicking good time with a LOT of very good people.  What was clear, though, was that my ability to skate was much better, even if the times did not show it.  Cleveland Heights is a wonderful, wide rink.  For someone of my limited speed, that means moving to the outside really adds distance... oh well, maybe next year!  Tom Frank's crew runs a really smooth meet in Cleveland, and the officials were terrific....can't wait for next year.

Ohio also gave me my third meet of the year, and my third in three weeks (never bunched them like that before).  It was interesting, in a frustrating sort of way.  Apparently I packed a different skater for Cleveland than I had the weekend before for Rutland.  For reasons I could not absolutely define, my confidence and comfort on the ice was less, and the times were consistently worse than the prior week.  Perhaps a flu shot the day before the meet was a factor....perhaps I'd put pressure on myself because my daughter and her teammates were there...perhaps an equipment malfunction?????  I'd been experimenting....I'd moved my blades back a notch, and it had seemed to help during the Rochester and Rutland meets.  In the two weeks since, I had also realized that the old sharpening stone I'd inherited seemed to have seen better days...for my most recent practice, it took 90 minutes of steady work to sharpen well...Finally, I decided to move the blade a little bit to the right on my left boot.  Only one practice, and maybe its a head game, but it felt more comfortable, and my bucket drills actually resulted in crossovers (a minor miracle, that.).