Dream Chaser On Wheels

End Of Training, Start Of Vacation

My training at Gerlev with coach Sooty, Sara, and the international crew has come to an end. Two nights ago, we drove over an hour to a road track for a session with the Sk8skool skaters. It was the first time I skated on an asymmetric road track. There were three left corners followed by a little chicane and another left corner with slight incline. What a fast surface and smooth surface!

Training intensity has really scaled back this week since most people are going to race this weekend. However, the accumulated fatigue in my muscles has finally made itself known. My shins locked up again when we began practice and it took a while before they relaxed enough for me to skate normally. It was too bad because it was such a fun track to skate on and we could build up some serious speed here.

Paceline warm up was followed by 2 sets of 10x half lap sprints with one and a half lap of rest in between. I focused on faster feet in the corners so I wouldn’t get gapped too much. Straightaway acceleration felt good and I could feel the difference driving the knees forward made. We then did 3 sets of second place race. For five laps, the pack skated like we were racing only that we had to fight for the second place in the pack. I tagged along at the back and took the chance to film a couple of laps. You can get an idea of the track from my video:

 

Yesterday skating was not on top of my priority because it was my long-awaited lunch at Noma. I have so much to share about this memorable meal but I’ll have to take time to write them down. I love how the food is full of creativity and playfulness. After JN and I returned to Gerlev, coach Sara took the three of us, including NCJ, for an easy roll near the school. It was mostly the stretch the legs before traveling to races. As for me, it was my last serious training in Denmark. I felt good on my skates and I think my cruising speed has increased a little since I came here. I look forward to training and racing when I return home so I can find out if I have really made some improvements.

I’ll be staying with a friend for the weekend. He promised me a whirlwind tour of Copenhagen but the piece de resistance will be a pastry showdown between us when we stop for sweets along the way. I only hope I don’t put on too much weight and will still be able to skate when I get on the plane on Sunday!

Rolling With The Vikings

Last night we attended Rolling Vikings’ training session at the Premier Outlets Center in Ringsted. For some reasons, I never associated outlet mall with Europe but there we were, big box mall with (slightly cheaper) apparel from most chain stores. Okay, so the photo above was not taken last night and the Viking in the shot was not at practice last night. Just play along, okay? It was a beautiful sunny Friday after skating 42km. Teammate NCJ and I even coordinated our outfits to proudly represent Asphalt Beach. Of course I need to work this photo in the blog somewhere.

Anyway, training last night. After enjoying a run of warm sunny days, the forecast finally turned against us. The ground was damp at the mall parking lot with the occasional puddles here and there. With the early closing hours, our little loop around the parking lot was quite deserted. Just perfect for the 500m repeats TB had in store for us. I was not too keen on skating since my shins quickly locked up during warm up. That usually happens when I’m tensed or nervous about the skating surface. I skated the warm up slowly at my own pace, trying hard to relax the body. With a bit of stretching, my shins loosened up just enough for me to get into skating position.

On Skates

I’ve been writing much about my experience here at Gerlev International Skate Camp with everything from training to living to eating to sightseeing. What I have not shared much is photos of me actually on skates. You would think I travel here to watch other people train hard! Thanks to fellow skaters and photographers, there are plenty of photos to remind us of great times we shared at Skate Camp. First thing first, a couple of photos dedicated to my teammate LW:

I was skating in the warm up or cool down paceline at Hemmeshøjvej on the day we practiced some straightaway drills. I was in the draft of sk8skool elite skaters. The Asphalt Beach skinsuit that NCJ and I sported received much admiration. Who wouldn’t like the backside of a skinsuit saying “Kickin’ Asphalt”?

Seven Days

After full seven days of intense training, I’m glad that my body is holding up surprisingly well. Sure there is fatigue in the legs and my waking heart rate has been creeping up a little, those are entirely expected. I am thankful that I do not have any foot pain nor is there much lactic acid build up in the muscles.

Yesterday was a relatively easy day with morning session on the road track and some easy skating at the Copenhagen Friday Night Skate. The focus of our workout was on more intense skating with a variety of windmill drill, attack & chase, and relay. After spending some time on the parabolic track at a previous session, returning to the road track brought back a rush of familiarity. The session felt a bit like a typical practice at Toronto Inline Skating Club except that I have people around my speed to train with. It was a productive morning for me.

We are offered to spend an afternoon at Gerlev Legepark to play some traditional games. I originally planned to go but with the bright afternoon sun and rising temperature, I much rather stayed indoor so I would not get too tired. When NCJ proposed a field trip to the local big box store Bilka (think Super Wal-Mart), I jumped at the chance. I adore browsing supermarkets! I came back with so much fun food stuff including local honey, fig fruit bars that is similar to the filling of Fig Newtons, cheeses, yogurt, mackerel salad, chocolate, marzipan, more Kinder cream bars, and wafers filled with caramel. Yum! I have already made some significant damage to my stash of goodies. Did I mention how hungry I’ve been since I arrived at the training camp? The body just craves carbs and protein much more than usual. I’ve been eating more according to SZ’s advice but I’m having a tough time gauging exactly how much more to eat. My hunger signal cannot really be trusted.

Back On The Road (Phew!)

Our program today brought us back to road skating with a morning session of technique drills performed on a quiet stretch of road not far from Gerlev and an afternoon tour to the beach. It may not sound like much but take my word that was plenty of skating for anyone with inclination.

I was training with the same group as I was yesterday on the track consisting of elite skaters at Sk8skool, masters skaters from Rolling Vikings, as well as our international contingent. Assistant coach Sarah went through a big selection of drills designed to tweak our technique for straightaway strides. We covered everything from 2-leg slaloms, single leg glide, 1-leg slalom, shoulder dip, outside edge set down with lean, dolphin kick, driving the knee forward at setdown, lightly click skates together after recovery, and skating with an extended glide phase focusing on traveling forward in a completely straight line. We concluded practice by skating in small packs bringing all the drills together into the best technique we could muster.

This Is A Parabolic Track

I skated on a parabolic track for the first time today. A couple of days ago, we visited the Slagelse track. What I did not mention was the parabolic track that is nestled inside the flat track. It is paved in concrete and not the most grippy surface. The wheels of choice is MPC Road War which I found out a few months ago from coach Sooty. Of course I placed my order with Asphalt Beach long ago and had my wheels ready for this trip. On a good day, I’m already uncomfortable skating on track. I don’t need the added stress of skating on slippery wheel on top of everything else.

While half of the camp participants worked on technique on the flat track, the other half skated on the parabolic track. We began with 10 minutes of paceline warm up and I had trouble learning when and how to go up the banking to make use of the track without losing balance. It felt awkward crossing over on a curved surface.

I have little expectations skating on a parabolic track. I mostly did the drills at my own pace far from the pack to stay out of people’s way. It was useful when coach Sooty walked us through the track explaining the lines. When to step up, when to crossover, where the apex ought to be, and how to drift back up the banking to make the most efficient use of the track. Skating only the corners was a useful drill to put this into practice.

We also went over the lines for skating at top speed, hugging the top of the banking. The pack gradually built up to top speed over three laps of skating. Crossing over with light feet is even more important than on a flat track.

We concluded practice with a couple sets of fighting for second place. It was mainly designed for comfort passing within the pack. I tagged along at the back just learning to relax, stay low, and don’t fight the track. By the end, despite the extra stress track skating put on the muscle, I did enjoy a few moments when I skated the right line and things seemed to fall into place. I doubt a parabolic track would make me fall in love with track skating but it was a good learning experience nonetheless.

 

Unfortunately, there were a number of crashes involving multiple skaters. It was difficult to have a mix of skaters with various experience skating on parabolic track. Some injuries are more serious than others. I hope it would be a speed recovery for all who took a fall.

Let The Training Begin

After an easy day 1 to get ourselves comfortably settled in Gerlev, we began day 2 with some earnest training. Our morning started with a trip to the local track in Slagelse, merely 6km from the school. The track is associated with the Slagelse skating club but we arranged for some training time at the facility. It is a beautiful 270m flat track with slightly wide corners. Rather than me describing the track, here is a (shaky) video of me skating a couple of laps to give you a tour.

 

Track skating has never been my forte but I do it anyway because it is simply a part of training. We began with some paceline warm up so coach Sooty got a better idea of our track skating technique. His evaluation of my weaknesses are in agreement with feedbacks I received in the past. We did technique drills both for the straightaway and corner. For straightaway, we concentrated on single-leg glide, push with extended glide phase going forward instead of weaving, and a weight transfer drill that I had not done before. For the weight transfer, we kept both skates on the ground pretty close to each other and propel ourselves forward by only transferring our centre of gravity but without bobbing. It was similar to two-legged slalom but the emphasis was not so much on feeling the edges but in transferring the body weight. For the corners, coach Sooty stressed the importance of the underpush. He said that rather than calling it crossover, it is more fitting to call it pushunder.

Letters From Denmark

I’ve been excited about my trip to Gerlev International Skate Camp at Sk8SKOOL for quite a few months. Imagine spending two weeks at a sports academy in the company of skaters and living out the “sleep, eat, skate, repeat” motto! With a bit of lucky coincidence, my teammate NCJ and I flew out of Toronto Pearson International Airport yesterday on the same flight. The 8 hours flight felt short in the company of good friend and I barely caught a bit of shuteye before landing in Copenhagen early Sunday morning.

Sk8SKOOL is located just a short train ride from Copenhagen. You see that uneasy smile on our faces? We really weren’t sure we boarded the right train. I was a little disoriented from the unfamiliar language and lack of sleep. I sure was thankful to travel with NCJ since she already came here once last year. We did not fork out extra money to get reserved seats thinking it would be trivial to move from seat to seat when the rightful owner comes along. With our bulky and heavy luggage, it was not so trivial after all! I was glad when we finally set foot at Gerlev by noon.

Thanks to the helpful and friendly staff at Gerlev, I made myself comfortable quickly in my dorm room and a nice lunch at the cafeteria. I’ll tell you all about the food in the next few days. It’s the most awesome menu I can imagine for feeding a school of hungry athletes! I was exhausted from traveling and jetlag so the afternoon nap was a much-welcome item on my agenda.

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.

 

Is That A Monkey I See On Your Back?

I love the expression "monkey on my back" primarily because the imagery amuses me to no end. Come to think of it though, I do have one to call my own and it is track skating. The majority of our club practices are conducted on a track. In winter, it's indoor 100m NIRA style. For the last couple of summers, it was an outdoor 200m flat track. We are currently hosting practices on a 400m flat track in 2010. Bottom line is, to make the most out of practice, cornering is key. That's exactly where I falter.

Although I consistently make small improvement on my crossover technique, it's just not good enough. Combined with my fear of corners, I have yet to successfully skate in the pack that I otherwise would on road. It is frustrating but I have adopted an attitude adjustment. I measure the quality of my workout at club practices by effort rather than by speed.

The longer straightaway of a 400m track seems to play to my strength. At the same time, the very wide corners highlight the lack of power of my crossovers. Gain some, lose some. We had our first outdoor practice of the 2010 season on Tuesday. That was the first time I skated on this track since last summer. Ooooo boy. All the cornering improvements I thought I made in the winter were nowhere to be seen. My left leg kept popping up when I crossovered (why wouldn't it stay low?!). Instead of pushing to the side, my underpush kept going back. Wrong direction! I thought for sure I would do a face plant. It was a pretty discouraging practice.

Last night, things improved slightly. Despite a beautifully warm morning, the temperature dropped drastically by the time practice began. All I wanted to do was to stay home and sip hot cocoa. All of us toughed it out of course. Once I warmed up, I was actually skating well. Crossover push direction was decent and I finally sat comfortably when I took a different line in the corners. There were plenty of steady pace skating punctuated by faster laps. For once, I actually felt strong on the track instead of just dying to get the whole thing over with. Coach SZ's training program has me doing plenty of solo skating recently and I am starting to reap the benefit. I don't mind pulling the pack nor skating on my own anymore. The mental aspect is important because I do not let myself slack off even, heck, make that "especially", when skating solo.