Getting Ready, Getting Psyched

The ice is ready, the practices have begun, and the trick becomes getting focused and psyched. The goal for the year? Really modest...to get comfortable in the lean, to get a passable crossover. Good things will follow from each. Liz' qualifying for Olympic time trials was a MAJOR psyche for me, so I took her dream, and my mantra and came up with a new license plate as psyche #1 (as much of the mantra as fit the plate, anyway). By the way, Volkswagen of America, you can send your check for the free publicity any time.... Psyche#2 was finding some football padding that may protect my kidney, and if that is true I think that it will be more comfortable out there. Psyche #3 has been to just pick one technique issue to work on at a time. I'm starting with staying level in my bend, and not letting myself bounce much. Psyche #4 is tinkering with blades a bit and Psyche #5 was a refresher course in sharpening from Craig Pielchowski last Saturday after our RSST practice. We'll see. In the meantime, its off to Saratoga for the weekend for American Cup I, to watch the skaters with some real skill.

Lessons from Dara Torres

There is little to recommend the NYS Thruway, but it does provide long stretches of time to listen to audio books. I've been "reading" Dara Torres' book "Age is Just a Number" in which she describes the several times she's come out of retirement to train for the summer Olympics (12 medals so far). She has a LOT to say about training as an older athlete that is interesting quite aside from her personal story line. She says that being a much older swimmer [read: speed skater] is a lot like being a very young swimmer [read: speed skater]: no one expects very much, so you get to be a wild card again. Her key advice: understand your body, and the fact that you need to give yourself lots of recovery time (and she suggests amino acids to help); that you must be much more attentive to stretching than when young; and that you must fix what is failing (she describes a number of procedures she has needed on her shoulder and knee). She says to be very focused and serious about rest; about what, when and how much you eat; and you must carefully pick your training and stretching programs and remain dedicated to them. She says she has been very deliberate in picking coaches, but once committed trusts them. Her discussion of resistance stretching (where, like yoga, you extend and contract muscles simultaneously) is compelling. Most of all, though, she says that as older athletes we won't be able to maintain the longer training sessions of younger people, nor is it necessary. What is necessary, though, is to focus on perfect technique....never, she says, cheat on the practices....work hard to do every practice, every procedure perfectly...make it second nature. It is technique, more than anything else, that wins the day.

Getting Zinged

Looking at my daughter's Facebook page, I noticed that a mutual friend had told her that I started taking yoga.  My daughter's reaction, and I quote, was "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...my dad...yoga...lol"  Ouch.  Well, it's week two, and I just finished my third session at EastMeetsWest Yoga in Buffalo.  The instructors have been terrific

and I am learning quite a lot, and enjoying it more than I'd expected.  Its really interesting to see and feel how the stretches work, and to begin to related specific positions to speedskating protocols...things like eagle position, which closely parallel the balance points you seek on skates.

Skate the Bay, February 7-8, 2009

"Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth..." Proverbs 27:1   A biblical lesson was reinforced in Webster NY this weekend, at Skate the Bay: one should never miss the opportunity to skate on the FIRST day of the meet...carpe diem!

Robert & Karen Verrone,  and Eric Young and their other volunteers, reached into the waters of Lake Ontario and brought forth a natural ice long track for what turned out to be a wonderful, but truncated, speedskating adventure. Race director Tim Doherty was out there at 2AM the night before dealing with cracks, etc. in the ice....a LOT of work went into the creation. Thank you!!!!  Even ice sculpture speed skates decorated the shoreline (see photo, taken JUST before the heat wave finished its work).  An adventure,  because the weather gods, who had provided temperatures near zero for a week,  chose the weekend of the meet to send temperatures into the 50s F, and the that sent our blades--a motley combination of long-track, short-track, hockey and at least one pair of figure skate blades--into ever softening ice. Rochester, we must remember, sits on the SOUTHERN edge of the Canadian Shield! 

 Thanks, by the way to all the sponsors, and to Webster recreation, and to Bob Buono and the staff of the Bay Side pub (a very friendly little neighborhood  place right on the water or ice, depending on the moment you look, with great food, by the way).

Happily, it was possible to run three events, including the 50 meter race before weather conditions really got out of control, so the first full day of racing happened.  And what a memory!  There were lots of people around to watch our "niche sport" and that was a lot of fun by itself.  Skaters from as far as Western Canada and North Carolina as well as from the NY clubs and Quebec.  About thirty or so skated the 50K and almost all of them finished with Jim Cornell in the lead at least eight of our own Rochester Speed Skating adults (and Wes Rossborough, who should be very proud of his accomplishment) competing at that intimidating distance (a lot more of the RSST members did skate one or both of the shorter races and most of us were primed for today). For me the goal was to overcome some fear garnered in the prior week, and that much, at least,  I managed....without the slightest nod to style or skill, having my fourth fall just beyond the finish line in the shortest distance....oh, well.  I was registered for the 10K today and like to think I would have done it! Wait 'til next year!

And then there was snert.  Rochester Speedskating Team members who do a lot of long-track had shared with the people at Bay Side Pub three recipes for a traditional Dutch soup, called snert (or erwtensoep) that is apparently served at a lot of European long-track meets.   It's a pea soup with ham and onions etc. in it that really hit the spot...delicious!  Sort of fun to see a soup so thick the spoon stands up too!  The chef told me that he started out with about seven gallons, and that it cooked down to 4-5.  He also said it sold out!

I imagine that a lot of potential skaters waited for day two, the 10K and 25K races.  As Julia Roberts said to the shop clerk in "Pretty Woman":  "BIG mistake....HUGE!"  Nature gave us one good day this year, and anyone who missed it missed a wonderful day of skating and fun.  A couple of miles away, another group was having their polar bear dip in Lake Ontario today.  They may have needed SPF 40 sunscreen.

When teammates help the most

A week from the opening meet of my second season, the discouragement is palpable. It is so incredibly frustrating to feel that skills are no better, and some worse than at the end of last year, and to see the performance gap increasing. At one practice, Tina said "you're so tense...there is no smile and you don't look like you're enjoying it." The inner demons are at work: fear of speed, fear of falling, fear of embarassment. Still, my team mates keep encouraging me on: an idea to exaggerate the kick, to make more of a pendulum and to glide better... a suggestion to go back to one of Jim Cornell's dryland drills to finally get a crossover... a "thataway" from inside the circle at a practice... an invitation to stay on ice and help with the youngest kids....the invitation to sit with "Coach Sam Adams" after practice...I have been part of a lot of groups and organizations over a lifetime, but the men and women and girls and boys of the Rochester Speed Skating Team are the greatest. They meant it when they called it a team and not a club.
If I ever develop any real skills in this sport, it will be as much because of the support and the patience of my team, as it will be of effort on my part. But I will keep plugging until then...see the post from August 18th on the "late bloomer" at the Summer Olympics.