Dream Chaser On Wheels

Not Taken For Granted

The stars must have aligned last weekend because somehow I managed the impossible: waking up at 6am both days to arrive on time for the 8am Hamilton group skates. Early mornings do not agree with me. It is amplified by the fact that I had to forgo my morning tea or coffee because that's too much liquid for the body to hold in the absence of washroom facilities. Hurray for TMI!

A change of focus in my training program this season means I haven't participated much in these group skates. I miss pack skating with fellow skaters outside of races. Last weekend, I ditched my regular program of hill repeats and solo race pace repeats for back-to-back days of group skates which energized me in more ways than one. A few days ago, I was lamenting on a bad race and how I wanted an opportunity to know that my skating is still alright. With more favourable weather and better rest, I received the reassurance I needed.

Both Saturday and Sunday unfolded in similar manners. We started with 7.5km of warm up, gradually picking up speed to race pace yet keeping the pack together. The remaining 22.5km was free-for-all, initiating attacks, maintaining breakaways, chasing down attacks, etc. I made a point to be active in the pack. Coach SZ taught me that I don't have to be the most qualified skater to attack. This is especially true for training sessions when there is nothing on the line. I learn something regardless of the success of my attacks. I get a good workout by increasing the intensity and throwing in a few hard accelerations. Only a couple of years ago, it was already an accomplishment for me to stay with the pack. Nowadays, it is no longer a good measure of a quality training session. I focus now on how long I can maintain a breakaway and whether I can rejoin the pack after being caught. One of my most successful attempts happened on Sunday. The timing of my attack was not entirely ideal but I was getting restless at the back of the pack. I did not get too far ahead of the pack when D caught me and subsequently coached me through our two-man break. Sure the guys caught us eventually but I pushed myself as hard as any real race situations. This kind of competitive motivation comes by so much easier when I find myself skating in a group.

Another thing that I appreciate about group training is adapting to the different skating styles of my friends. I was forced to lengthen my strides, deepen my knee bend, follow through with my push, and add more power while skating in a pack. These are all technical pointers that will lead me to higher speed and better efficiencies. Yet while I train alone, I often tend to increase my cadence instead. In previous years, group skates were a regular part of my routine and I never really noticed. I basically had a technique tune-up at least once a week. It's a good thing that I am now aware of this oversight and can adapt my training accordingly.

Support

I'm thankful to be surrounded by supportive coach, training partners, teammates, and friends. I've been hard on myself after last Sunday's race in Montreal. Despite an outpouring of encouragement from everyone, I had trouble differentiating reasonable rationalizing of my performance versus simply making excuses for myself. It is a fine line seperating those two.

I had a long talk with coach SZ. One of the first questions she asked me was why is more than one good races not enough to be convinced in my capability yet a single bad race is sufficient to shake my confidence to the core? Good question. In fact, it is something I already asked myself. In March, I won a field sprint for the first time at Squiggy and held my own during training camp with my teammates. Only two weeks ago, I skated strong at Texas Road Rash and sustained a breakaway from the pack. Not to mention weeks of good practices with Toronto Inline Skating Club. All of these are positive signs that my training is working the way it should. Last weekend, when my body was not recovering between hard efforts and when I could not respond to attacks, I became very concerned. Why? Because those are supposedly my strengths and they failed me. Nevermind that I overlooked the fact that I was sick three days before the race. Nor that I had trouble staying upright because my stablizing muscles gave up in the cold condition. My focus was solely on not delivering when it counted and outskated by my competitors.

I told SZ that it comes down to a fragile confidence. I see good performances as exceptionally lucky flukes and bad performances as the norm. This is a skewed assessment of my ability stemming from years of being the slowest skater at TISC with aspiration to race competitively. In short, a poser. SZ and I agree that we need to work on my confidence in skating. Half the battle is believing in myself. Confidence will come as I accumulate more solid performances.

SZ related a few stories of her own recent race experiences and they really help me to see things in a new perspective. When I think back on all my best races, they are the ones that I approached with very specific goals and race plans to accomplish. "Hang on to such and such for as long as I can" is NOT a race plan. Racing with a purpose is being in control of my own race. Taken to an extreme, it's about not just reacting to whatever the pack does but taking an active role so the pack reacts to me. More than anything, this realization lifts me away from the depth of self-doubt.

I had a trail skating session with long-time training partner JaS yesterday. It has been far too long since we skated together and I really miss it. I can always count on him for giving me unbiased feedback on all things skating-related. We chased some bikes and just skated for the fun of it. He made a few observations on my technique, both positive and negative. The Good: deeper outside edge setdown and more pronounced weight transfer. The Bad: high cadence. The Ugly: small recovery and lack of power in my push. His observations reflect exactly what I focus on and the training condition since the season began. When we first skated outdoor, I was fresh off a rigourous winter of weight training. There was good power from my push but video showed upper body was not over my supporting leg. I made a conscious effort to adjust and is now too far the other way. As for the high cadence, I'm very aware of it due to weeks of training in very windy condition. I must make a mental note to slow down my cadence so I can skate with a bigger recovery.

Despite being an individual sport, a skater is never alone. They believe in me. Now is my turn to believe in myself.

In The Face Of Adversity

The one word summary of my race yesterday in Montreal was disastrous. If you care to read on, here is my post-race analysis of my performance with plenty of excuses thrown in for good measure. Writing this is not dissmilar to cleaning one's own open wound. It's gross, it's unpleasant, but it's good for the healing to begin. If you haven't guessed already, my mind frame remains in the woe-be-me phase.

Let's set the stage. Early May morning in Montreal F1 race track and the temperature hovered at a chilling 3C. Windy as usual with steady wet flurries and rain. I felt healthy despite an unexpected bout of sickness three days ago which resulted in reduced food intake. I had a long warm up involving 20 minutes of jogging, dynamic stretches, and 20 minutes on-skate. Body was sufficiently warmed but the delayed start time combined with a cold temperature meant I was colder than I would like at the start.

The start was tame and I settled into the second pack consisting of teammate SL, MG from Ottawa Inline, JB and BH from Toronto Inline, PG and NM from Roller Montreal, among a few others I did not recognize. As for girls, JR from Montreal was in our pack and we soon picked up Cado Motus' AS who was dropped from the lead pack. The pack was jittery for lack of a better word. Skaters at the back were often impatient with the pace and launched attacks. I distinctly remember hearing someone commented "C'mon stop being so lazy" before attacking from the back. We were only on the second lap of a ten lap race and the general feeling was that the pack would not be coorperative. I was curious of this dynamic given the inhospitable weather condition.

As for myself, I was not reacting well to the cold. My core was warm but the stablizing muscles in my left ankle gradually stopped responding due to the plunge in temperature. I started losing balance when I glided on my left skate so I had to compensate with other muscle groups and loss of efficiency. On the bright side, my rain set up of front & back Storm Surge with Streetfights in the middle was great. But then again, what's the use of a set up that allows me to push full strides when my own body refused to?

In lap 3, our pack picked up two guys from Cado Motus who fell off the lead pack and I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. The bits and pieces of conversation I picked up confirmed my suspicion. AS was at risk of getting dropped and her teammates made sure she stayed in. The pack skated together grudgingly with the Cado Motus guys controlling the pace every so often. At the start of the fourth lap, the Cado Motus team attacked from the back as we approached the climb. I thought the attack wouldn't have gone anywhere if it was just the three skaters on their team. Unfortunatly, I read it wrong. Other skaters in our pack reacted to the attack and went with it so it essentially split the pack in two. At this point, MG, PG, SL, JB, and JR were still in my pack. MG worked hard to bridge and JR went with him. I tried to stay with them but I just didn't have it. By now, my pack was completely blew apart and I was with teammate SL. PG and JB were somewhere behind. I skated briefly with SL and made a stupid mistake. I was not recovering and basically got dropped before SL knew that I was no longer behind him. Mental note: he's my teammate. Don't stop communicating! Stupid stupid stupid me.

I rolled to join JB and PG. At this time, I knew that my body was shutting down. I was not recovering at all. At the end of the fourth lap as we entered the paddock area, I was between PG and JB. I noticed that PG's waterbottle was about to fall out from his pocket so I tucked it in. Next thing I knew, my left foot went under me and I landed heavily on my left side. The bony part of my left hip took the most impact along with left elbow and both of my wrists. PG and JB stood up to wait for me so I climbed back without knowing exactly how bad the damages were. We skated for another lap but my left ankle started buckling and I wasn't sure it was safe for me to skate in a pack anymore. I left the two of them at the end of lap 5 and I thought for sure that I would call it a day. I saw in the distance that PG veered off to the side as he crossed the line so I guess he had the same idea. I was a miserable mess. When it was my turn to cross the paddock area, I saw familiar faces and heard familar voices encouraging me to keep skating. I yelled out to them that I crashed and was hurting yet I did exactly what they told me to do. I kept skating.

There really wasn't much to tell after this point. I kept getting colder yet my feet kept moving. I did not want a DNF. I already paid for the trip, my bearings were already wet, my clothes were rain- and mud-soaked, and I already crashed. It couldn't get any worse so might as well finish the race and collect whatever NROC points I could. Finished it I did and I made a beeline to my car like a zombie. I was shivering violently and I couldn't take my gloves off without help. When B peeled my gloves off, a large part of my hands were blue. I wondered how the bruises could surface so quickly from my crash but only now did I realize they were blue because I had a minor case of hypothermia.

I woke up this morning with swollen left hip and elbow from the fall. The muscles on my left ankle were unusually sore. There are other minor aches and pains but nothing major. It's never a good feeling to have a disastrous race but I'm trying to glean what I can to learn from it. With an upcoming trip to Hong Kong, I will not have any race opportunity until mid June. During the long drive home from Montreal, self-doubt inevitably set in and I can't help but wonder what I need to do to for my next race to prevent another disaster. If only I have a race next weekend. I'm in desperate need of some positive proof that I am still on the right path.

Warm But Not For Long

Talk about traveling in style! I'm chilling at a very posh hotel room (ahem, Le Meridien) the night before a race. For my pre-race dinner, I had a delicious warm salad of grilled eggplants, zucchinis, portobello mushrooms, red onions, goat cheese fondant, and salmon filet at a cozy little neighbourhood bistro. I even found time to visit an artisanal candymaker out in Laval and tried on some dresses while shopping on Rue Sainte-Catherine (girls, the dresses at Boutique Razberry are adorable and affordable!). Am I really here in Montreal for a race?

I am not feeling terribly stressed out the race tomorrow. The weather forecast is calling for temperature of 4C with windchill of -1C. It will be windy with wind coming NW at 30km/h. High chance of mixed precipitation...that's weatherman's talk for rain with snow thrown in for good measure. I stopped fretting about the weather a few days ago because it really couldn't get any worse! I am feeling an odd sense of calm because I have no choice but to trust my training. All spring I've been training in cold and windy condition. When I step up to the start line tomorrow, it will not be comfortable. However, I only need to hate it a bit less than my competitors do and that will already give me a small advantage. This race will be as much about mental toughness as fitness. Coach SZ specifically trains me to have oodles of both.

I expect to doubt myself during the race when it will be at its coldest and windiest. I know that I will be driven by the promise of a hot shower and a visit to Marche Jean Talon. I get my motivation from all the fun I will enjoy in Montreal when the skating is done! An unusual priority perhaps but I suspect tomorrow will be an unusual race.

See you at the start line.

Race Kit Essentials

Having travel regularly to out of town skate races, I have developed my own kit of essentials that I always pack with me. There are the obivous items such as skates, helmets, and skinsuits which I'm not going to discuss. Rather, I'll share with you what I can't go without food-wise. Being prepared is key to eliminate unnecessary stress (I am not a fan of looking for grocery stores night before a race).

During the race, I like to eat CLIF Shot Bloks and I carry a small bottle of water in a squeeze bottle. See the faces of Sponge Bob Square Pants and his pal Patrick on the bottle? These bottles are catered to kids but the smaller size is perfect for me. Who wants to carry extra weight anyway? I also have a CLIF bar in my kit just in case I get hungry during the trip without convenient access to my preferred snacks.

Everything else in the picture are related to pre-race breakfast. Most North American races are held in early morning and looking around for breakfast options at that hour is not always the most enjoyable task. I just want to get ready to race in the most efficient manner possible. Therefore, I pack my breakfast with a few considerations in mind.

1. Nutritious and filling, providing steady release of energy for the next three hours.
2. No refrigeration required.
3. I can prepare everything in a hotel room.
4. Portable for both traveling by plane or car.

I start my meal with a banana smeared with peanut butter. This is a good balance of carbs and protein. However, the sugar in the banana will be digested pretty quickly so I need something else with more fiber to slowly release energy. I make a fresh muesli with unsweetened instant multigrain cereal, unsweetened apple sauce (conveniently packaged in a squeegee bag with a cap so I only use as much as I need), unsweetened soy milk, raw almonds, and dried cranberries. To make sure that I am 100% self-sufficient, I pack along a plastic bowl and cutlery.

This power breakfast has proven to work well for me whether I am preparing for a full day of multiple races such as nationals or marathons or longer endurance events such as Montreal 24r relay and New York 100k. What is in your race survival kit?

Training Hard & Hard Training

Training has been rather uneventful in the last couple of weeks. We got the occasional warm spells but there were still plenty of windy cold sessions to grin and bear. It has almost been a month since Toronto Inline Skating Club started the outdoor season. I've been skating strong on the 400m track for some inexplicable reasons. My discomfort with the corners remains but there are also times when I can manage to crossover the entire corner continuously. That is something I was not able to do last season.

Speaking of strong, we did a team time trial last week at practice in teams of three. I was teamed with ShH and JaB. It was a 5K time trial for a total of 12.5 laps on the track. Our team clocked in at 10:32 and I could have gone faster. Doing team time trial brought back good memories of Tampa training camp with my Asphalt Beach teammates. Because of this recent experience, I was very comfortable with the drill and our team communicated well throughout the entire duration.

I thought I was well on my way to carry this positive momentum to Marathon Roller de Montréal this Sunday. Unfortunately, life has a way of throwing me curve balls and now I'm not feeling quite so positive. I woke up this morning with an unexpectedly high waking heartrate and a general sense of malaise all over. I have completely lost my appetite and the thought of eating makes me queasy. Right now, I'm feeling very weak from hunger yet I just cannot bring myself to eat anything. I'm still working through a mug of tea and a mug of coffee from earlier today. Perhaps a piece of ginger candy would help. This is bad news to say the least.

It's not all doom and gloom as I do have something rather exciting to share. Last Friday was the deadline for registration at 24h Roller Montreal before a price jump of another $100. Some of you may know that I decided to put Team WOW on hiatus in 2010 because of schedule conflict with the Minnesota Half Marathon. Since then, I've been undecided about that weekend. Flying to St Paul is an expensive option yet skating in Montreal was shaping up to be just a fun skate weekend. I want to race and last week I finally came up with a way to be able to race competitively at the 24h relay. This year, I am captaining a fitness team for Toronto Inline Skating Club. Our club has plenty of skaters who train hard and are just getting into the racing scene. This will be a wonderful opportunity for us to race as a team. I do have a goal or two and a few fights to pick (haha). Suffice to say, I am now very excited about the event. Don't expect to see us in the traditional TISC blue/orange/black. We are getting a new uniform and I will make sure that colour combination is banished from our team.

Here's a clip of my recent skating at the TISC practice venue 400m track. JaS followed me for a lap and the video is a bit shaky. Not much to say here except that I'm still working through a laundry list of technical weaknesses.