Zen and the Art of Speedskating

I have not been posting at my usual bloggy pace this last week. My soul feels worn out, I am more emotionally tired than physically. Artificial infusions of testosterone create depression & what is popularly called ‘roid rage (here is some scary abusers talking about it). But I bring up the idea: for those of us who train hard/clean & without laboratory/illegal help; if artificial testosterone makes one a touchy & moody, what happens to your moods when you reach your biological maximum of natural testosterone production? When I have a brutal hard day, I sometimes get a zit or two the next morning, why? Well, it’s all-natural, but none the less real. I am not overtrained, I am certain of that, but I am pretty certain my body is getting close to the limits of training it can absorb. I trained for bike racing for 11 years (usually racing 50-90 times a year), then have skate trained for the next 5 years, 2 of those full time. Someone told me recently I am “living my dream” and I should be just sooooo happy. Why aren’t I? Why do I sometimes feel like a huge waste of human protoplasm?

Thankfully coffee is a medically proven antidepressant!

I should not ruminate so publicly on what Churchill called his “black dog”. Probably what I experience has nothing to do with how I spend my days, internally I have always been a brooding fella, it’s probably linked to the reason I gravitated towards a liberal arts undergraduate and graduate degree! If I was still working in cubicle land, I would be moping there too.

On a lighter note, a funny thing that happened at practice a few days ago; When a skater has Olympic medals in their pocket, people notice when they are around & what they are doing. When my teammate Kirk said “hey, Derek’s here”. I looked around for gold medalist and former 1500m world record holder Derek Parra, and when I did not see him anywhere, I said, “where?” Kirk said, “look over there, a weight vest, turncable, jump benches, and four dry T-Shirts!!!”

I usually have one dry t-shirt with me during my jump practices, how much harder does Derek work than I work? At least 3 T-shirts worth! His book, Reflections in the Ice, is an excellent chronicle of the intense emotions, depressions, & general physical/psychic roller coaster of being on the full-time athlete path.

Derek works terrifically hard, you can see it in his physical presence, he is one of the few speedskaters I know who has the ripped look & deep muscle strength of the pro bicycle racer. When I met him at an inline race, eons ago, long before either of us had ever touched a long track, he was very warm and friendly to me. He still is, although I can’t say I know him through anything other than that dozen friendly conversation kind of way.

I remember once at the Pettit center, I went in to the training room, to spin on one of the bikes, the lights were off, and I left them off, it was pleasantly dim. After about 15 minutes of me making noise & thrashing around on the bike, I heard a noise/groan from the corner, in his dark blue US national team loungewear, I had completely missed that Derek was crashed out in the shadows. Emerging from his training induced coma, he could have been pissed, but wasn’t, it was probably another 4 t-shirt day.

p.s. I asked Derek about the spare shirts in the weight room today, actually, that’s FIVE T-shirts he has there!

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I have not posted in a few days, partially because I am “stuck to the floor” tired, partially because in my couch-bound-exaustion, I have just read the seminal book on the Watergate scandal, All the Presidents Men.

Skating is going VERY well. On Tuesday, for the first time in my life, I negative-split an 800m. What does that mean? well, you crank it up to almost racing speed for the first 400m, and then try to go FASTER for the second 400m. I usually can really fly for about 600m, and then I catch on fire like a blown dragster, and crawl the last 200m trailing parts, flames and smoke, usualy dropping several seconds. This Tuesday, for my first 800m, I was almost removed from myself, there was no pain, and I did not slow down at all. It was a sensation like I had borrowed someone else’s body. For the skate geeks out there, I was in the low 29’s for both laps, with low tempo straightaways, like 4-5 steps, I still had lots more speed in reserve. I happily informed a satisfied Boris that my fast splits were “all his fault”.

Maybe I did not feel anything because training now is just deferring the pain, like a credit card “charge now & pay later” and the pain that is usually concentrated during the 800 itself is spread around the day, as I stagger around my home, or can’t sleep because my legs are still stinging from the effort (maybe its also the 400+ lbs I am slinging around on the squat rack too, or the long hill runs, or the.. ..well you get the picture..).

As for the intellectual side of things, re-reading the account of Watergate, shortly after finishing the most recent Harry Potter Novel, and also the excellent read The Darth Side, Memories of a Monster (the best way to experience this is actually to download the .pdf, of the whole blog, its an amazing read, a whole new perspective on Vader). These reads fill my heart with the conviction that extreme danger exists in society when the desire for order & control outweigh respect/love for fellow human beings.

Now of course, 2 out of these 3 things I am reading are fiction, and fiction simplifies things; Watergate itself was incredibly complicated. But the essential truths behind why Nixon & “The Plumbers” “The CREEP’s”& the “Ratfuckers” acted the way they did is as simple/complicated as Voldemort & Vader’s own reasons. Fear, power, paranoia & loyalty lead people into believing that nasty wrongs are necessary to maintain a control/good/wealth/ etc. Destroy Alderaan, but save the universe!

This is not a blog about current politics; you can draw your own inferrences about current events & current crimes & scandals from these thoughts, but as I drive to & from the oval, pursuing my insular, selfish goals, the world is revolving in frightening ways. Maybe I find such peace in this drive for internal perfection & pain, because it is something I can feel hope about, and can say “yes, today was empirically better”.

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Rest weeks are wonderful things. How many jobs are there where you truly improve your skills by moping on the couch! As I have stated before, one of the most important truths of training for performance is that your hard work merely creates a climate for improvement, actual improvement and strength gains are biomechanical processes occurring while resting, processes that, like a garden, need careful water, nourishment, and sun/sleep before they bear fruit.

But really, here is what my coach has assigned for today! This is a direct cut and paste from our training plan.

Th: rest, nap, rest, TV.

I can do that, and at least in this effort, I am sure I have excellent technique!

Since I have made a choice to be without TV (why? This is extremely well stated said by a blogger I admire, in his post Filtered) I will be doing busy work around the house, and reading a lot.

Reading is an amazing thing, really. Its easy to forget about books sometimes, they don’t beg for attention the way that TV does, or chime at you like incoming email, yet they create such astonishing landscapes within your mind!

I finally unpacked all my books yesterday, and instead of them glaring at me that I have failed at my multi-decade plated aspirations of being a “serious” writer, they welcomed me like old friends. I rooted through them with relish, every one I opened contained some nugget of essential truth: Norman Mailer, Ted Hughes, Gilgamesh, Collected essays from 125 years of the Atlantic Monthly, Haiku anthologies, minor novels by Jack Kerouac, Paperbacks published during WWII wondering what the hell will happen to the world.

But I then I picked up “Stephen King, On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft,” my brother gave it to me long ago, and the inscription within read:

To Andrew, Christmas 2000, NEVER FORGET YOUR ART! -David

Usually I avoid these kinds of tomes, they often remind me of a football wide receiver trying to describe how to throw the perfect pass. But this is a brilliant book, and it’s fueling the fires.

Reading Stephen’s own experience, I am more convinced than ever that writers are not quarterbacks! Writers are scrambling downfield ready to catch what the world throws their way, running & dodging, eyes skyward, waiting to leap up and catch that awkward shape of an idea whizzing through the air. There are always defenses/life elements in the way, and when you feel like you have caught something, then it gets really dangerous, life will tackle you brutally & pin you to the ground, so you have to run & drive towards the goal like its all you have ever done.

I recently started musing how much time I have spent on this blog, and on this website, what would my bank account look like if I had spent that time working instead? Money is quite terrifying right now. I sat down to write this post an hour ago, what am I doing?

Yet, I feel like I have caught the pass, both here in these words and in my life in general, and there is open field ahead, if someone runs me down, catches me from behind, its my own stupid fault, right now, this year, I have to run with this life, this idea, as hard as I can.

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At the beginning of the amazingly (insert your own descriptive here) movie “Conan The Barbarian” there is a moment at the start of the film that sticks in the minds of many who have seen it. A gaggle of war-captured children are shackled to a massive wheel, the “Wheel of Pain” (a grain grinder, actually). They pass through puberty pushing this monstrosity, wearing grooves into the ground with their feet. One by one, they die from the effort, till finally, only one of them is left, turning this massive wheel. And now he is adult with biceps like cannonballs, legs like howitzers, and very thirsty for revenge, its Conan!

This cinematic image came into my mind during dryland earlier this week. We were doing repeated skate position jumps, with running/minimal recovery between the jumps (that’s me & Eric Krann doing them on the right). We are finishing up a hard training cycle, and the fatigue has really built up in me. 2 hours into the 3 hour workout (and I did 5 hard hours the day before), after hitting my maximum heart rate over and over, after endless efforts at 100%, my brain shut off completely. I had no idea what set we were on, what rep, I could not count, speak, think, I completely had submerged into suffering and effort. There was no moment but now, nothing but the mechanical motions and trying to make each jump big and technically correct. Kirk was worried about me, I was working so hard, I was COMPLETELY SILENT & GRIM for most of the workout…. Imagine that! Andrew quiet!

Weirdly enough, I was still able to fly pretty far each jump. During a brief break, as I was vacantly staring at the ground, with my heart thudding along like a jackhammer, Boris put his arm around my shoulders and said “Yes, its hard, I know, but your muscles are strong enough to do this, they are strong enough to do anything, keep the mind focused, and it will be ok, it’s the mind.” Some spark ignited in the flammable debris of my brain, and I think my last set was even better than my first, as I began to relax into bigger and bigger jumps (max HR for the last set was waaay over 200+ in case you care). This is when that memory from the Conan movie occurred to me.

Lest Mom worry (and she reads this blog) dear Mom, let me clarify that what I am experiencing is common, and actually is probably an essential part of breaking into another level of fitness. Masters cycling world champion Glenn Swan once said “Yeah, you can get to about 90% of your potential with 2 years of hard work, its that last 10% you just have to break your heart to get”. I think he was talking about the wheel of pain, that last 10%. Glenn has been there.

Football players talk in awe and horror about their fall 2-a-day practices, Cadel Evans, during a recent Tour De France breakaway, said he had a moment when he simply could not recall his middle name, no matter how hard he tried, Sprinter Robert Förster even said that he simply blacked out the last 100k of a tough mountain stage, had no memory of it whatsoever. It’s all that last 10%

Everyone builds their own wheel, their own chains of sacrifice, and that is the crucial difference between myself, football players, Tour de France bicycle racers and the mythical Conan (who had no choice). Modern athletes create ourselves anew -wearing grooves into ground of our own choosing; how hard we work combined with that careful equipment choice of picking our parents right (I did! genetically and otherwise) creates who we are. If reaching that last 10% of your ability was not so hard, it would not be worth so much, or be as fulfilling as when you feel that whoosh of sweet velocity & move faster than you have ever gone before.

Of course, this is all just Friday afternoon philosophizing; I exhausted because of this 10% obsession that I have, and I think I will turn my computer off now, and go sleep for most of next week (a rest week!! yay!). oh, wait, I need to go lift weights tonight! and I am already fried from 3 hours today! soooooo…. back to the wheel!!

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I just got back from New York City this past weekend, celebrating my father-in-law’s 75th birthday, pictured to the right here are some of the most precious of natural resources that New York City produces. I am bringing them to feed to everyone on my speedskating team after practice today. Why? Well, cause they are my friends, and also here is a story to explain why food after practice is an absolute necessity:

The athletes are moving powerfully, there is pop to every motion and the technique is excellent. In the turns, on the straights, snap and power, they are uncomplainingly doing everything the coach is asking, putting 100% concentration & sweat into the practice, it’s a thing of beauty. The sport they are doing does not matter, it could be anything, the following is what matters;

Halfway through the practice, the coach calls the team over, and says: “ok, each of you describe what you will be doing in the 30 minutes after we are done here.” The athletes describe a whole range of things. Stretching, chatting, getting changed out of sweaty gear, talking on cel phones, driving home to be with family/getting back to work. Etc, etc, etc, etc.

The coach listens patiently, and then announces “ok, those of you who did not mention that they are properly eating within 30 minutes, you are not allowed to finish the workout today: get off the ice/field/track/etc, you might work hard here, but the workout does not make you faster, what makes you faster is the RECOVERY following the workout. By not refueling properly, and missing the carbohydrate window, you are ROBBING yourself of the benefit of all the excellent work you are putting in right here, right now. I am just making it 100% explicit that those who have bad recovery habits are not completing this workout, because what you have done to your own body, practice after practice, is skipped gaining some of the benefit from what we are doing here. Its just as if you were goofing & being disrespectful while everyone else is working hard, but you are disrespecting yourself, and that is almost worse.”

The athletes who are forced to leave complain, are ticked off, but the coach is firm, and they leave with a very important lesson learned.

This is an allegorical story, Boris & Rex did not do this, but I have always wanted to see a coach actually have the balls to sacrifice part of one workout to make a really strong point to their athletes (especially young athletes) who have horrible recovery habits. Years ago I went to a lecture by the nutritionist of the Denver Broncos, and she described how changing eating lifelong bad eating habits (both timing and content) made a huge difference for many football players who were simply used to hitting McDonalds about an hour and a half after getting off the field. This is why many pro and college teams now feed their athletes on a daily basis, US speedskating does, it lays out a whole spread for the National team. Nutrition is as important as ice time & coaching.

People might see me going fast, or tossing about big weight in the gym, but its really true that what MADE me fast, is bio-chemical recovery events taking place after the workout (repeated thousands of times through my lifetime). The workout creates the possibility to become something; proper recovery habits make it an actuality. Sleep, massage, a balance of food that matches your own needs, it is all part of the jigsaw puzzle that makes up someday having a race that fully reaches your potential. Working hard, focusing, having good technique, proper equipment, and wanting it bad are certainly undeniable pieces of the equation. But food is the most powerful drug available to any athlete, both in what you eat, and the timing involved. Check out the research you can find online, its all there. Its not rocket science, but most athletes don’t have a clue.

If your “workout” is not really over until you have recovered from it, and you are in serious training for a competitive event, then you are “always” working out in some respect. What a thought! Frightening, but true, this is probably why control freaks tends to do VERY well at grueling individual sports.

I am lucky enough that my body will often physically put me to sleep very rapidly following a workout if I don’t get food immediately, so I have no choice but to eat right away, or I might not make it home.

Nutrition is also highly personal, I don’t necessarily recommend bagels post workout, that’s a ton of pure carbs. It’s all about what works best for you individually & what kind of workout you are doing. I almost always drink a sports drink during the workout, and like clockwork, I step off the ice/bike, and I immediately drink an ensure + usually something else, banana, sandwich, I often have a pile of things like canned pineapple, Gatorades, & ensures in the trunk of my car, and munch through them when necessary. Research says you shouldn’t eat a huge meal immediately, just something, but that something really has to be fairly immediate & proper, or your body suffers.

Lest I sound “holier than thou” I certainly have weaknesses when it comes to food, as I never really analyzed the total ratios of what I eat in terms of protein/carbs/fat. Anecdotally I feel healthier eating a very carnivorous diet, but that is just my impression, not backed up by any facts, If I really care about every .1 of a second in my races, its time for me to do that. Also instead of just having a “sweet tooth” or two, I have inherited my mom’s “sweet tusks”

So I am publicly declaring here & today that I am swearing off refined sugar & starting my nutriton journal until I drop a few more pounds. Ah, beloved mountain dew, sweet orange scones & lovely krispy kremes, I shall meet you again someday, but no time soon…..

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