Zen and the Art of Speedskating

Posted on 05 Jul 01:30 pm

Ghostbusters Short Track

I try not to re-publish other videos here, because I want to FORCE myself be in create-create-create mode.

But occasionally I come across something so well done or astonishing, my resistance breaks down & I pass it along.

Check out this YouTube of some Austrian Short Trackers goofing around. Nice camera work & editing, a nice rink, cool lighting, a great/terrible late 80’s soundtrack, break dancing, plus guys doing pivots on their heads and leaping pads.

I bet this video is creating chaos worldwide, as short trackers try some of this stuff.

I can’t pivot to save my life, but I bet I could leap a pad! or at least channel my inner hockey player and crash through it quite entertainingly.

Short track sometimes has a playful aspect to it. The same way downhill mountain bikers can be playful while displaying tremendous skills.

Long trackers can be sometimes over-serious, intense & inwardly focused like triathletes.

These observations open up the can of worms question: “as a group are short trackers temperamentally different than long trackers because of the specific demands of the sport?”

The most interesting answer I ever got was from a coach in Calgary, who said:

“nope, they are not different, but on average the short trackers do have a lot more tattoos!”

Writing from the perspective of a non-tattooed, over-serious long tracker, I think he is only looking skin-deep.

Thanks goes out to Liz, who posted this video on her Rochester skate-tribe blog: the unstoppable left turn. Somewhere between my coffee and her Nutella, the truth lies (or is that just another short-track long-track difference too?)

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Skating down a dream

I had an idea to do a video of all the great places there are to inline skate in Salt Lake City.

If you do a bit of looking, you can find many bike paths, neighborhoods, and skate friendly city parks, (Liberty Park & Sugarhouse park especially).

Of course, creative notions deform with their impact upon reality, and I only got to a handful of the places I like to skate with video camera in hand. .

Then the clips took on a life of their own, especially since it’s been REALLY HOT recently, and HYDRATE OR DIE has been an essential habit to practice.

As a lifelong winter sports athlete, I used to hate summer heat, but this year I’ve been “rolling” in it pretty well.

Click here for a high quality quicktime, or start the youtube below.

Enjoy!!

The music to this is Tom Petty’s rock anthem “Running down a dream“, its lyrics have always moved me, especially the chorus:

Yeah running down a dream
That never would come to me
Workin on a mystery, going wherever it leads
I’m running down a dream

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Posted on 27 Jun 10:23 am

From Spring, Texas

Another inline skater from the Spring, Texas inline club is in Salt Lake to make the transition from Inline to Ice.

Stephanie Combs certainly has the power, coordination, & raw aerobic firepower to do very well. She holds the junior women’s 42k USA record, won the Texas road rash marathon at 15, and has been on the Junior World marathon team.

But as many inliners who dream of success on the ice have found, being good on wheels is only a part of what you need.

You need to have another quality, an odd meticulous fury that kicks in when you find something that you ARE REALLY BAD AT.

Instead of being discouraged, you identify what you need to technically or physically change, and then obsessively work at it.

What you can’t see from these static images, is that Steph is now skating inline with “ice” style technique.

No more double push, its just glide & power, glide & power, glide & power.

She has a very challenging road ahead of her. Inline to ice is hard. But I think she’ll do just fine.

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Night Skating International

Often serious athletes turn skating into a monastic, excruciating, solitary activity; just you & whirring of wheels or hiss of blade.

Maybe the only company being a workout plan, HR monitor, stopwatch, and the hum of heart, breathing & ambition (if you are lucky, you can find a group to suffer with)!

This is a kind of skating I honestly do enjoy; however—

Skating can also be a rolling goofball party on wheels with a bunch of buddies, with no real destination but company & exploring.

For example:

This was the crowd at a Salt Lake City Friday night skate last month. We skated all over town, with the final destination being a local bakery with excellent cookies!! My friends Kim & Eric are the architects of this.

This past Friday, I took my nice camera along, and got these images of urban fun.

After a 100 degree day bakes Salt Lake, it’s wonderful to wander in the cool breeze, gliding above bands of heat rising from sun-baked asphalt, chatting with folks from diverse backgrounds about everything & nothing.

Oh yeah, the cookies at the end are wonderful too, (why have I published so many pictures of food recently?)

I talk about the “skate-tribe” every now and then; often I’m referring to the usually friendly/sometimes carnivorous tiny fishbowl of the ice racing world.

But if you open the definition slightly, and do a bit of internet-trekking, one sees an INCREDIBLE worldwide gathering of skaters for fun night inline skates.

This is when I see the international skate-tribe really in evidence.

For example:

Amsterdam
(they have “flying nurses” & blockers)

London (here is a good article about it)

Los Angeles

The famous San Francisco Skate

Toronto

Paris

Torino

Helsinki (due to the “midnight sun” they don’t call it night skating).

Tokyo

St Petersburg (here is a report in English, warning, Beautiful Russian skaters!! This skate seems amazing)

Sydney

5,000 People every Monday in Geneva, Switzerland!
(they even have a skate game, but you can play only in French & German, I couldn’t figure it out).
here is an image they grant useage for, wow, that’s amazing numbers of people.

my gosh, some German guy even put up the NIGHT SKATE SEARCH ENGINE!!

Do I sense a huge underground movement, a cross-cultural phenomenon? Something so media-reclusive, it thrives on the internet & in the smiles of the folks who do it?

Almost all of these websites very creative photos attached, of happy people skating through canyons of concrete & neon. Group hugs full of grins, Russians greeting the morning (they skate midnight to 5am) Japanese skating with light sabers in their hands, every kind of skate equipment & skater imaginable…

Makes me want to hop on a random plane with skates in my carry on, & find like minded (or is it wheeled?) souls.

Different languages, unique cultures, different cities, but all gliding along….

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Posted on 26 May 09:49 am

Mountains

Despite my east coast roots, I love the mountain west for many reasons. I’m very happy my wife & I are settling here.

One of the reasons is the mountains themselves. They are metaphors for experience & actualities, daring you to climb them; or even just to glance up from a morning commute & appreciate something beautiful.

Climbing Emigration canyon on my bicycle a few days ago, I came across this sign near some construction; Hey, the road crews care about cyclists!

Actually, quite a few riders have been killed recently in Utah, in canyons & elsewhere. So this is a practical safety note.

Sometimes it’s careless drivers running the cyclists over, sometimes it’s the cyclists making mistakes & paying horrible consequences.

Either way, it reminds me of how the Sergeant of the Hill Street Blues police force used to end his morning briefing: “Hey, lets be careful out there!”.

This goes for both cyclists and the pilots of those 2,000+ lb chunks of gas-powered steel that constantly pass us.

As I was climbing the canyon, I thought I saw Chris Witty whipping down the roads in the opposite direction, a big grin on her face. The effort of the climb always brings the reward of the descent.

I will try to keep up the blogging, but the main mountains I am moving/climbing right now are these mountains of boxes.

Why is it that writers always have so many books & cats & general crapola?

We officially take possession of our new house this weekend! I am enlisting the help of many in the local skate tribe to help us move.

Speedskaters always need more back, core, & upper body cross training. This should be perfect.

Thanks to all who have written their congrats! Again, BIG party soon….

I finish this post with a picture I took some years ago on the top of Mt Wachusett, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts.

Speedskating & Cycling have always been part of the mountain for so many. Click on it for desktop friendly version.

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Doucet Heart

My buddy Peter Doucet raced the Canadian Pan-Am games trials this past weekend.

This was a major goal for him, on his website speedskateworld.com Peter wrote:

Last November I put up a picture near my computer of 3 of the guys I thought I would have to beat to make the team- the picture was of Olivier Jean, Steve Robillard, and Brian Jalbert on the podium at last year’s Canadian championships.

On Saturday, I took the picture to the trials with me and buried it at the CITC. This might seem weird to you. The thing is that I’m not normally superstitious or anything, however burying the picture that I had been staring at for months and months signified burying my fears, accepting the outcome of the races, putting my training and sacrifices behind me since I was where I was and everyone else was there too; at the trials.

It was time to race. Burying the picture meant burying my competitors…

This really struck me, as it clearly shows the connection of mind-body, internal & external competitiveness, and the role that ritual & totemics play for athletes. I do understand this, as all I wanted from nationals last year was a T-Shirt.

Glancing through photos of the racing (kindly posted by Shannon Hegarty) I was blown away, and can clearly see Peter has worked himself into the best shape of his life. He is leaner than I have ever seen him, and has muscles growing out of his muscles!

This morning I got an email from a scientist whose email signature was this quote:

“Exercise and sport scientists historically have attempted to describe, explain, and predict maximal physical performance in biologic terms, whereas sport psychologists have usually employed psychologic models.

It is only possible, of course, to separate mind and body for purposes of discussion.“

- William P. Morgan”

I immediately thought of Pete, and although one might be tempted to look at his body & natural talent as the reason he did eventually qualify for the Pan-Am games at these races, there is also sacrifice, determination, ritual, diet!! (a huge factor for both Pete & I) coaching, friends/family support networks-

and that word that has physical, emotional, and psychological shades of meaning:

HEART

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Posted on 19 May 05:56 am

Welcome to the Club

Thankfully this is not my collarbone, it’s Jim Cornell’s

Ouch!!!!! He hurt it crashing during the bike leg of a triathlon.

I remember reading a study once that said if you have raced bicycles for 4 years or more, there is a 50% chance you have broken your collarbone.

Welcome to the club Jim!

I am “almost” a member, but instead of my collarbone breaking, the rotator cuff in my shoulder shredded, crashing on a Velodrome during a race.

At least Jim is in good spirits about it, and that definitely helps.

I always thought that after they have healed, broken collarbones look like someone has implanted hot wheels cars under the skin.

It would be possible to live life completely safely; wearing a suit of armor & never leaving a concrete bunker that has TV running 24/7.

That is a valid choice for some, but for many others, that would not be a life. It’s the taste of sweat & flight & effort & possibility & risk, which makes life, life…

and there are many ways to find this, not just sports, and frankly on the grand scale of things, most sports are small risk compared to the rewards…

How does that Ani Defranco song go?

I am looking for the holes
the holes in your jeans
because I want to know
are they worn out in the seat
or are they worn out in the knees?

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1973 in Missouri

This is the Jefferson City Speedskating Club, circa 1973

Bruce Kohen sent me this. He asked “can you pick me out?” If you know what the adult Bruce looks like, examine all the faces, make your guess, and then see the answer here.

I thought he was the blond kid in the front row in the funky hat, but that’s not Bruce. That must be Tanner from the Bad News Bears, speedskating during the baseball off-season.

There are so many wonderful things in this photo, the coach, the several skaters wearing ancient leather bicycle racing “hairnet” helmets. The myriad clues of the early 70’s

One would never think that MISSOURI is a place that creates winter Olympians, but look at this list, they have produced an Olympic ice speedskater every year since 1968!!!

Wisconsin, Michigan, New England and New York think of themselves as the hotbeds, but MISSOURI has some speedskating chops! (California does too).

Why Missouri? In addition to the Jefferson City Club I give you 2 more reasons,

The Gateway Speedskating Club

The Metros Speedskating Club

Clubs are the heart of the sport. As important as producing Olympians, think of the friendships, the stories, the maturing of people that happens when they experience the thrill of victory & agony of defeat (mostly defeat, but I think losing & screwing up makes us who we are more than winning). NONE of this occurs without clubs.

Go hug your local club volunteer today, no matter where you are.

And don’t laugh too hard at the photo. In 34 years, any team photo taken today will create a similar reaction from both a fashion & equipment standpoint. I wonder what a team photo taken in 2041 will look like?

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Posted on 04 May 11:32 am

Thanks!

Thanks to the folks at the Inline Planet, who posted my Veloway video on their homepage!!

Thanks to the forum mentions at racereports.net, Schaatsforum.nl, (and thanks Peter Doucet, as always) who are sending folks to view my rock-n-roll inline fun.

Here are a few images from clips that never made it into the final (and that is Bryan on the top right, the commenter here & fellow with the cool Texas flag skates).

Between YouTube & the high quality Quicktime version, that video has been watched roughly 900 times in 4 days!

In absolute YouTube terms, that’s nothing compared the 47 million who have watched the evolution of dance, or that goofy rock band dancing on treadmills, or even Hammerhead attacks Tarpon!

here is the link to the all time most watched list, a fascinating snapshot of “democratic media in action”, if you just like sports, here is that list.

But in terms of the VERY SMALL number of speedskaters in this world, maybe this number is something. I’ve done 51 audio & video clips over the past 2 years for a number of websites (the vast majority of this is not on youtube), and the total of everything is now something like 60,000. This website is now on track for a half-million page views per year!!!

When I figured these numbers out, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I don’t want to sell ads, but money is a nice thing..

For example: Someday I’d like get myself a really good helmet cam, like the Garmen Blackeye 2 pictured to the right, or even better something like the microscopic Canon Powershot TXI & embed it into a helmet. You could race wearing that Canon.

I would be nice to go REALLY fast & record video hands free. (or put the helmetcam on the head of the world-class fast at the Utah Oval, imagine the short track images!).

It’s truly hard to skate with a camera in both hands, I throw away about 75% of everything I film just because of camera shake.

A regular commenter here, Jamie Cowen, is a professional cameraman. I ran into him at a bike shop yesterday. We started chatting about mobile cameras & his ideas. Jamie, I need to know more about what you know!

And all the comments in the discussion of the last post are wonderful! Yes Tim, 27+ comments is a record. Much of the internet’s technological whiz-bang is just about connecting people (the quality of that connection is certainly up for debate, but it is a connection).

In so many ways, modern society has an awful habit of disconnecting people from each other in myriad ways.

Maybe that’s why speedskating lures so many of us into “irrational devotion”. The sport itself is certainly a liberating sensation of flight, but the community of skaters is what keeps us hooked.

Oh, and if you are ever visiting the Veloway in Austin, to see community in action, I think the local skaters train together Wednesdays & Fridays at 6:30pm.

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Liam and John

Two friends of mine who I have written about here, Liam Ortega and John Loquai, have recently been in the media.

Here is the article on Liam in the Fairbanks Daily News

And this is the article on John in the Evangelical Covenant Church website

It’s worth noting in these interviews that both of them talk about what they need to do, more than what they already do well (and these two rockstars do MANY things very well).

Liam & John talk about focus, preparation, analysis & attitude. There are plenty of talented people on the ice, but this sport can crush your heart in some very unfunny ways, so these attributes become as important as sharp skates.

As athletes we spend so much time on equipment, & sharpening our skates, how much time do we worry about sharpening our attitude & work ethic?

The better you get, the more central it becomes. Liam once kept a food journal for a year, and noted how what he ate affected recovering from workouts. How much faster is he because he understands this about himself? It’s an example I have always told myself I should follow.

These two were connected in that Liam missed the world cup team last year by a tiny amount of time in the 5,000m, less than .3 separated him from John in the standings.

John was thrilled to make his first team, and learned a lot racing the world cup circuit. I interviewed John in November when he got back, but the death of my old laptop ate most of the video I shot.

One thing John talks about in the article linked about is how speedskaters, even national team skaters like him, have to struggle financially to survive. It’s a reality of many sports that demand total dedication, especially the small ones, and is a topic worth a wheelbarrow of blog posts on its own.

But John did get a job working at the Utah oval, and he now drives the Zamboni! I love this picture of him, and I’ll be cheering for both of these good guys this upcoming season.