Zen and the Art of Speedskating

Training monotony is something to be avoided like the plague, both in the body & the soul, as doing the same thing all the time leads to stagnation.

So just for giggles, I showed up at an “Alleycat” sprint race on my track bike. These are urban races that sprint the full length of a city block from a standing start. I was racing with the same bunch of biking neo-beatniks I filmed during the Salt City Sprints

Some of these urban riders are quite quick off the line, and there was a smattering of true bike racers as well, including fellow speedskater Inacio Lopez.

The bikes ranged from titanium & velodrome worthy rides, to things scrounged from dumpsters & rattle can painted.

I had good sprint legs this day, and ended up winning $30 for first place of the 30-ish riders, plus as much beer as I could drink at the after-party at the W Lounge (2 PBR’s was all I could down & still manage to bike home safely).

In addition to the sprints, they also had a fun event, called “foot down”, where the spectators form a ring, and the cyclists circle like sharks within the ring, and try to knock each other off their bikes.

The spectators slowly contract the ring during the event, and as I said, it’s low key fun, note the fellow drinking a beer during this-

My aluminum track bike is similar structurally to the beer can this fellow has in his hand, so I skipped this part of the competition.

However it got me thinking, imagine a short track event, maybe a relay, where the spectators are on the ice, creating an ever shrinking circle pad barrier. Contact would be natural!

It would eventually become just one long, endless corner pivot, punctuated by the thud of bodies into the pads.

If that does not attract the attention of ESPN, I am not sure what would (half naked, fur-wearing cheerleaders?)

It is one of the true mysteries in sports that short track is not all over American television, as it has EVERYTHING Americans love about sports….

Oh yeah, maybe if we did it in WWF masks, or in Speedos, or…..

P.S.SaltCycle blogger Blaue Reiter wrote about this event, and called me a “heap-big speedskater and general cool dude” in his post.. That made my day… Yeah!

Again, this was just a lot of low-key fun.

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The saying “it’s not over till the fat lady sings” is in common usage across many sports.

Maybe a good equivalent for speedskating would be:

“it’s not over till Alaska melts”

Peter Haeussler writes me:

The ice season isn’t quite over here in Alaska. Attached is a photo of skating of ice on Eklutna Lake last weekend. There was a few km of decent, but not great ice.

The lake is Anchorage’s main water supply. Very beautiful. Our outdoor oval even had skatable ice on Sunday.

Wow what a beautiful shot. It’s the desktop on my computer right now.

Peter continues-

On the right is Chet Fehrman. Chet, FWIW, was this year’s Susitna 100 winner. This is a 100 mile wilderness race in Alaska. You can enter as a skier, runner, or biker.

Chet skied and blew away the competition this year in wet heavy snow. Chet finished in about 20 hours and was 5 hours faster than the second place finisher.

The Jack Russel terrier is named Arbor and belongs to Chet’s girlfriend. What is missing from the photo is MY Jack Russell terrier, Mito, who was dashing about.

Here a picture Peter sent me of Mito-

I am back in the gym again, and starting to ride my track bike. If I can just bring Mito’s intensity & dogged optimism to my workouts, maybe someday I will feel truly fast again.

Chad Hedrick owns several Jack Russells along with his fiancé Lynsey.

Hmmm, I never thought there would be a connection from skaters to certain breeds of dogs.

Or maybe it’s that certain breeds of dogs very carefully choose speedskaters as the best possible human companions to match their own natures?

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Remember early in the year, when a heavy snowfall was exciting, pretty, and walking in it was calming & contemplative?

That is early season snow; however when it snows in late March/early April, it feels different.

This last freezing gasp of winter makes me feel like that slush-slimed garbage can on the side of the road.

Well… Ok, it’s still pretty…. Muddy, but pretty.

After several warm days, that were truly “shorts-worthy” this is just Mother Earth playing with us, making sure speedskaters rest more, before they can start cycling/inlining outdoors again.

Hey Father Sky…. Can you crank up the heat a bit?

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This coming weekend is the National Marathon Championships in Bemidji, MN. If I weren’t on my way to Germany, I’d consider doing this wonderful event.

Joe Von Drasek sent me some pictures of the course that has emerged from the lake ice.

They have the old Zamboni from the John Rose oval out there making some really nice ice. It looks like a pretty wide track.

Marathons are a lot of fun, even for sprinter-types like me. One always ends up in a pack of skaters with similar ability.

Looking at pictures of the course, my mind does that triangulation between “challenging”, “cold”, and “more fun”.

The race is being organized by Chantal Cermack (formerly Chantal Bailey of the 1992 US Olympic team).

This is her daughter. In the latter stages of a 42k, my expression is usually similar (but what are the words to properly describe this expression? any suggestions are appriciated)

I once did a calculation of race entry fee divided by total race distance, the best value I have ever had by that measure, was ice marathon nationals when I raced it in 2002.

This is the view of the track from the hill the race hotel is on.

People can register right up to race time, they are looking for a lot more skaters to help make the event a success. My close friend Carla will be there, going for her 3rd (or is it 4th?) women’s championship.

You can find the race entry form, wavier, and information form here.

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This is a heart rate monitor, but not the sporting kind-

My good friend Jamie Cowen just had open-heart surgery, and this is the monitor in his hospital room. He is recovering very nicely, but still… It’s heavy stuff to have your sternum cracked open & your aorta messed with.

Jamie is a board member of the Salt Lake City Bike Collective, and is a rockstar member of the inline skating community out here.

My Father had a vicious heart in 1993, I am so thankful he is still with us. But ever since then, going to hospitals really gets to me, especially since heart disease runs in my family like a wild stallion.

As human beings we are sometimes so fragile, sometimes so helpless in the face of our own crumbling mortality.

Yet the only answer to illness is appreciating your own health & using it. Feeling that amazing mechanism of the human machine, & what it can DO!

Jamie knows this; the bike & skates have literally saved his life from other health problems he has struggled with.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on the slideboard recently, doing long, evil intervals getting me ready for that 3k & 5k at masters world champs. I’m really bad at efforts like that, they hurt a lot, and are sometimes very discouraging.

After seeing Jamie, my attitude has changed, that slideboard sound-

THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!

as I hurtle across it, + the more rapid thwacking of my heart trying to supply blood to tired legs, now it feels more like a music of thankfulness since I saw Jamie.

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