Dream Chaser On Wheels

Unlucky Tights

I went for a light skate today at St Robert's Catholic School's 400m track. The track was in repair over the summer so it's good to finally see it in good shape. I was messing around, trying this and that to get myself to skate on the outside edge. I guess I put my weight too far out and lost my balance. I fell in an awkward way that ended up scratching the inside of both my boots. Sigh, my boots already look pretty beaten up now and it has only been two months since I bought them brand new.

This is the third time that I went skating in this pair of tights and for some unlucky coincidence, I fell every time I had them on. The first time was at the Support Your World Team Clinic, the second time was last Thursday's practice, and now this. I try not to be superstitious but it's getting hard to ignore the pattern...

Outdoor Practice: 09/28/2006

Okay, so I lied last time. The weather was chilly but definitely dry so practice proceeded as usual at West Toronto Collegiate. However, the wind and chill in the air were unmistakable and they make a convincing argument when official club practice should end by September. We did a little bit of pack skating which I enjoyed very much. Hard to imagine that not too long ago pack skating was one of my least favourite part of practice (because I always struggled to keep up).

After the long warm up, we practiced crossover in the adjacent tennis court. First, coach EG had AH demonstrated single sculling around a small circle. Key points included pushing to the side, bending the gliding leg, skating on a deep outside edge on the gliding leg, locking the knee of the pushing leg to indicate end of the push, and squaring off the shoulders so that body does not turn into the circle. This was one tough exercise that caused me lots of grief. First off, I couldn't glide on the outside edge. Exactly how bad was it? EG told me to forget about the rest of the key points and just concentrate on the outside edge but yet I still couldn't do it [sigh]. My left knee simply refuses to point out. To add insult to injury (actually, it's adding injury to insult), I tripped on a half-munched pinecone and bruised both of my knees. I was moving at snail's pace but a fall on the concrete floor is still a fall. Out of sheer frustration, I picked up the pinecone and threw it hard at the imaginery squirrel who left it on the court. Squirrel, be gone!

After what seemed like an eternity of skating round and round, EG grouped us into two groups to skate around a circle. I simply couldn't keep up and it was just absolutely frustrating. SZ demonstrated doing the crossover in a circle with very fluid movements. When it was our turn to practice, EG noticed that some of us were not comfortable with the leg crossing motion so he assigned a different drill instead.

We practiced crossing over the leg from basic position from one end of the tennis court to the other. In track racing, we always skate counter clockwise so we only did the right leg over left leg exercise. The tennis court was just a little slanted and I struggled not to roll backwards.

It was dark very early so we had to end our practice at this point. I wish that I could have a better session for the last practice of the season but from a different perspective, this gave me good reasons to practice with the indoor club comes November.

Outdoor Practice: 09/26/2006

According to the weather forcast, Thursday will rain for sure so I figured today is probably the last official club practice of the season. Every once in a while, I get silly ideas that I'm determined to carry out. This time around, my silly idea du jour is to test the wind resistance of skating with a cape. What better way to do so than to don a super hero costume? I got a Supergirl costume last weekend and worn it with glee to practice. I skated around the track before practice began and wow, the drag was bad. I had to work that much harder just to get moving! EG said that if capes are good for aerodynamic purposes, wouldn't everybody be wearing capes at the World Championship? [LOL] I guess there's nothing wrong with being curious. After all that's said and done, I must admit the cape flapping in the wind was so cool. GC said that she saw me all sparkly flying around the track as she walked from the parking lot. For that image alone, all the wind resistance is worth it. I did the flying pose and it totally threw me off balance...Supergirl almost did a face plant in the corner. (video coming soon)

Over the whole season, we had not have a chance to learn crossovers because having two big groups on the track was a little too congested for safety reasons. Since there are fewer skaters at practice today, we first did some dryland drill on the lawn. In basic position, we lift one leg starting from the hip joint and cross it over the other foot. The legs must be bent and the knees should ideally be very close together after the crossover. The shoulders should square off to be in line with the hips. We catepillared our way from left to right and then back to the left. Next, we tried to do the crossover in the corners of the track while skating. I had lots of trouble with skating on the outside edge of the gliding leg. Also, it was hard to keep my legs bent while doing the crossover. This will take lots and lots of practice.

Stranger Things Have Happened, I Suppose

I checked the current RSO Outdoor Series standing and was totally surprised to discover that on paper, I'm actually in contention for the third place in the senior women category. I'm currently tied for fourth place with ME and SZ is 3 points ahead of me.

Mind you though, SZ only raced one race in the series this season so of course she can kick everyone's butt by racing in the upcoming two races. I think ME goes to school in Quebec so I'm not sure if she'll be at the next two races in Harriston. I already have two races under my belt this season. I intend to be there this Sunday for my third race and my points will be highly dependent on the number of skaters who show up but it's a safe bet to say I'll land in the bottom five. This means if all the stars line up, I actually have a shot of moving up to third place.

Witness the power of participation.

The truth is, my goal has nothing to do with the standings. Although I'm racing in the same group as PP this season, I'm sure she'll get much faster in the next few years. I figure that this is probably my last chance to try and not get lapped by her. Yup, this is what I aim for.

Big Head, Big Dream

This thought has been brewing at the back of my mind for some time. Now that my first outdoor inline season is coming to a close, I want to put this thought down in black and white to make it official.

I want to be in contention for the nationals masters podium once I'm eligible in five years.

You may dismiss me as having delusions of grandeur because after all, I am still a slowpoke. However, five years is a very long time and I believe that it is a realistic goal.

SZ and I talked about this a little after practice on Thursday and she encouraged me to compete in nationals and provincials next season in the novice level. Competition experience is one thing that I need to accumulate.

When I set out to learn figure skating in 2002, my goal was to be able to do a spin and a jump. I started from the bottom of the CanSkate program. As of last season, I was able to do a backspin, waltz jump, toe loop, and salcow. Having concrete goals is my driving force to continue with an activity. I believe that my goal for the nationals podium will keep me focus and I'm looking forward to years of competing.

Eventually, you'll not call me slowpoke.

Duluth Race Pictures

The official pictures from the Duluth marathon are now available to order online. For the first time this whole season, I don't look like a dork in the racing pictures. You cannot imagine how pleased I am right now...I've been showing off these pictures to everyone I know.

Check them out and see if you agree with me.

Outdoor Practice: 09/21/2006

Practice today consisted of 10 minutes of warm-up, working on whatever technique we felt necessary, two laps of single sculling, two laps of double sculling, two laps of falling drill, a pyramid drill, and loads of pack skating. Bad news is I still cannot skate on outside edge if my life depends on it. Good news is I improved a lot in terms of my timing for dropping back and rejoining the pack.

My problem with skating on the inside edge is possibly related to the setting of my frames. The frames on both of my skate are currently set to the furthest setting away from the center of the body. I need to play around with the frames and hopefully the situation will improve.

For the longest time, I had trouble with timing my dropback. I would slow down too much and not accelerate early enough. That meant I always needed to skate hard to close the gap. According to coach EG, I should start picking up speed as soon as I find myself beside the second or third last skater. SZ also mentioned that during the drop back, I should match strides with the pack. This would allow me to skate closer to the pack safely. Another useful tip from SZ was that when I decide to drop back, I should make one big decisive stride to the side. This would be a clear cue to the skater behind me that I am not steering the pack. Pack skating takes lots of practice and these tiny details make a big difference to how well I skate in a pack.

Outdoor Practice: 09/19/2006

Air Canada returned my bag late last night. I tried to clean my bearings at 3am this morning only to discover that over half of them already seized up. Oh my beautiful mini-bearings....[sniff]

Of course, this means I am still bearing-less for the practice today until I realized that I have my crappy bearings on my rec skates. So, as soon as I arrived at CTK, I sat myself down and did some serious bearings musical chair. I took off the bearings from my rec skate and put them on my new Hyper Mach 2 wheels. Soft wheels (82A) and crappy bearings are better than no wheels and no bearings in my books.

We did a little pack skating for warm up. The exercise was to skate close enough to place your bent arm on the back of the skater in front. We dropped back on every lap. Since it was a rather small group that we have today, I skated with ML, JS, MF, and PM. It was a faster pace than I'm used to but I was glad that I kept up. We did loads of interval training today with coach EG keeping track of the on-off intervals. I lost count quickly and just skated hard on every other blow of the whistle.

I drove to Brampton Speedskating Club immediately after practice for their open house. Unfortunately, open house wrapped up at 20:30 and I was just a litte too late. I chatted with the people at the club and got some updated information on their adult learn to speedskate program. Looks like I'll be skating there on Tuesdays. Gotta come back on the first Tuesday of October for registration and skate fitting.

Post-Race Overeating

I realized today that post-race overeating is a bit of a problem for me, especially when I travel out-of-town for competitions with friends in the club. After the marathon in Duluth, we had a big Tex-Mex lunch at Little Angies (oh the fat) followed by an encore barbeque dinner at Famous Dave's (yet more fat). Breakfast on the next morning for an all-you-can-eat brunch buffet at the revolving restaurant in the Radisson Hotel. A little excessive, don't you think? We really didn't exercise all that much to justify burning off all these food...

ML and I drove to the Thunder Bay airport for our flights back home immediately after brunch. The weather was not great and we were running late with merely minutes to spare before last call for boarding. I didn't want to be delayed by another 10 minutes of security check by my cargo pants so I came up with the bright idea that I would wear my skating tights under my cargo pants and start stripping at the security check. Of course, that also meant I had to change at the back seat of the car while ML continued to drive. I don't know if it was intentional but ML decided to make a sharp turn while I was fumbling with my clothes. I slid across the back seat from one end to the other and slammed my head against the door. OUCH!!!! Nobody ever told me that I need my bike helmet here of all the situations...

As soon as we arrived at the airport, I took off to the check-in counter while ML returned the rental car. Just like contestants in Amazing Race, he came back just as I finished checking-in. Unfortunately, since we were so late for the check-in, we were told that our seats were given away so worst case scenario was we need to board the next flight instead. No big deal. We breezed through security (my little tactic worked well) only to discover that ML left one of his bags in the rental! He ran back to pick up his bag while I waited anxiously at the gate. As soon as he left, Air Canada told me that they had seats for us on our original flight. Luckily, ML made his way back on time and we returned to Toronto as planned.

Unfortunately, our luggage did not arrive. Air Canada apparently did not load our bags so we have to rely on their luggage track service. Sigh, I am now left with no bearings. Practice on Tuesday ought to be interesting.

Northshore Inline Marathon

My little prayer for good weather was not answered as we woke up to a dark and drizzling morning. GC told me that this is the first time in many years which we have rain for the NSIM. My record for rain at marathon now stands 2-0.

According to the race kit, wave 6 skaters are not suppose to board the shuttle bus until after 6:30. However, since all the rest of the club members are seeded for much earlier waves, I was not about to stay behind by myself. The bus ride felt like an eternity as the humidity added much chill to the air.

As soon as we arrived at the start area, we found a spot and fumbled to get our rain gears on. Some people swapped rain wheels and bearings while others tried to stay dry with shower cap or plastic raincoats. The only shelter from the rain was the endless rows of port-a-potty. I was going to skate with my windbreaker on but thought better of it and decided that base layer, tights, and skinsuit ought to be enough. CS and I skated (more accurately, wandered) up and down the start area for warm up while carefully weaving in and out of the crowds. I was very careful because 1)it's a slope 2)it was raining 3)I still cannot reliably stop. We squeezed our way to the front row of wave 6 skaters. I tried to make it less conspicuous by chatting up with the skater beside me but the important thing was I was not about to give up my spot at the front. There certainly was a lot of waiting and it was a long time before our wave approached the start line. I got into the position and listened for the start signal as excitement pumped through my body. More than once, I pondered the fact that they wouldn't call a false start anyway and considered to just start without waiting for the signal. For better or for worse, I kept my nerves in check and dashed away from the crowd AFTER the signal went off. The only thing on my mind was to win the start (that's what we practiced on Thursday). I don't remember much what happened except that I did not trip on the timing mat (yay for me!) and it was at least 500m in before I noticed that there were only two other skaters from wave 6 in my field of vision.

For much of the first half of the race, I was skating by myself, passing many wave 5 and wave 4 skaters. There were a few skaters from wave 6 who caught up to me but there really weren't lots of drafting candidates to choose from. I kept an eye on my watch and had a powergel about 45 minutes into the race. It was absolutely the most disgusting thing to ever pass my lips. The gel just glued my teeth together and gave me trouble to even breath properly. There must be a better option. Regardless, it did its job and gave me a boost of energy. I skated some more but the pain in my ankle was a sign that my laces were loosening up. Since I wasn't in a pack anyway, I stopped at the side of the road and tightened up the laces. I felt much better after that.

As good luck goes, the rain had stopped at this point and I found a guy to draft who skates at a good speed with slow strides! It was exactly what I needed because I got to take a break. I drafted him for more than a kilometer before it dawned on me that he didn't know I was behind him. If I'm not much mistaken, he must be at least 55 years old. My conscience kicked me in the butt so I introduced myself (he's Tom, btw) and offered to do some work. Apparently he never drafted another one before so I gave him a few pointers. He was pleasantly surprised to discover the joy of drafting so the two of us took turns pulling. Turned out that was a good move because if I continued to draft him, he would eventually slow down anyway and I would have to find someone else to draft. As it was, we worked nicely together and flew past so many people.

I guess people recognize a good thing when they see it because eventually, our pack of two slowly grew to about a dozen. I chatted with the skaters in the pack and one girl commented that I have the best technique she's seen from any one in wave 6. That was such a nice compliment! I have always been the slowest skater in our club so pack skating always means challenging myself to keep up the pace and not get gapped. For the first time, I found myself skating in a pack with a few much slower skaters. At one point, I was dropping back and tried to hop back into the pack. I waited and waited and I was still only about two skaters from the front! I realized that it would not make sense for me to join the pack so I skated beside Tom and asked him to follow me as I accelerated. Unfortunately, he could not keep up and took the whole pack with him instead. Oh well, I was hoping that we could make a successful attack.

The pack eventually broke up when we came to a highway on ramp. It was quite a climb and when I finally got to the top, the only visible pack in sight was four rollergirls. I chased up to them and hung behind for a break. They did not take turn pulling so I was happy to stay at the back. The rough pavement on the highway lasted forever and my feet went numb pretty quickly. When we came to the off ramp, there was a fallen skater who took up half of the road so we swerved to the right to avoid him. Unfortunately, the two rollergirls in front of me tripped and slammed into the concrete barriers to the side. I was busy keeping myself out of trouble but I saw out of the corner of my eye that one girl was scraping along the barrier before she fell to the ground. It looked like a really terribly fall. The other two rollergirls slowed down to check on their friends.

By now, I was coming to the final stretch of the race and the finish line was in sight. I paid close attention to the mile signs and started to sprint when I saw the 300 mark. Now that I think about it, I should start the sprint later because the 300 is not in metric units!!! No matter, I reminded myself outloud to bend my knees, swing my arms, and "sprint! sprint! sprint!". I heard JS's voice cheering me on just before I crossed the line.

My time was 1:57:25. Just as I promised myself at the beginning of the season, I finished the marathon at Duluth in under two hours, despite the rain. My feet were in pain and I couldn't wait to pull my skates off.