Zen and the Art of Speedskating

My coach from last year used to say:

When you skate indoors all the time, you become this exotic indoor bird, excellent at skating indoors, but eventually it becomes very hard to skate outdoors.

Boris was sooooo right. I’d like to think of myself as a rough & tough alumni of Lake Placid, but omigosh, it’s freaking COLD!

I have turned into a lightly feathered indoor bird.… I even forgot my hat my first day skating there.

You can forget your hat at the Salt Lake indoor oval and not endanger your health/suffer permanent damage. Lake Placid is different. Thanks to long time speedskater Mike Miller for loaning me his red one.

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All of these images are from the past 2 weeks:

This is the podium for the 2nd day women’s 1000m. An interesting trio graces the podium: 5-time Olympian Chris Witty, 2 time Olympian Elli Ochowicz, and “young gun” Mia Manganello. The overall for the women’s sprint champs was Ochowicz, Witty, and Jessica Smith (click here for that photo)

Kip Carpenter & Tucker Fredericks finished 1-2 in the sprint championships Here is Kip taking a “drink” out of the very cool vase awarded for winning the sprint national championship. 3rd place was Shani Davis, but I think he was stuck downstairs in drug testing during the presentation.

Elli Ochowicz with her vase from winning the overall US sprint national championship. I asked her if she was going to put jelly beans, a plant, or something odd like exotic tropical fish in this vase. She gave me the kind of look I deserved for an idea like that, and graciously smiled for the picture.

(insert mental 956.92 mile jump here, from the heart of cheese-land to the Adirondacks)

Here is the Lake Placid track, with the mountains in the distance. For the evening sessions, speedskaters get the inside half of the track, and hockey-figure skaters the outside.

Of course, Lake Placid being what it is, the very next day it was pouring snow. Luckily extensive snow inhalation is not fatal, just character building.

However racing outdoors in the snow does make you STRONG, Pictured here is a member of the Al & Dave (or is that the Dave & Al??) Connecticut speedskating camp muscling through a 1500m. I am not sure who this is, anyone know?

Speaking of the Al & Dave long track camp, it is one of the wonderful fixtures of the east coast skating scene, and if you ever have attended it, or one of the short track camps in Placid, you know this picture. This is early morning stretching in the warm-up room right next to the 1980 Olympic hockey rink.

Visible in the grey Jacket is 2-time short track Olympian (and NBC commentator) Dan Weinstein. This is his 10th year at the camp, first as a skater, now giving back to the sport as a coach. He is a really good guy, and recently engaged! Congrats Dan!

I also got to race in the blizzards, I skated a 500m, opened in 10.2 and finished with a 39.7 (and it felt like a very technically sound race!). Jim Cornell was showing me this cool software program he uses for coaching that helps technical analysis.

The below images is me about 40m into the 500m. Drawing the angles like this, it was interesting that the knee angle did not change, but my back got flatter as the race went on, eventually messing up my push direction in the last 100m when it reached horizontal.

This is the pile of speedskate rentals at Dimon Sports after a busy day.

This photo was taken as they were returned at 7pm, and they need to be sharpened & ready to go by tomorrow morning! Aaaarrgggh!!

I have actually tried these skates, and these recreational Zandstras are warm, comfy, and can even be clap or fixed with the turn of a lever.

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The Paul McCartney song “blackbird” has always gotten to me. It’s one of those rare songs that’s depressive and uplifting at the same time. I have always felt it applied well to folks who throw themselves fully into the fires of their passions. People like artists, social activists, graduate students, & of course -speedskaters.

The song fits well with video clips I shot at US national speedskating championships.

Click here for the high quality quicktime, or just press the YouTube play button below. I’ve been posting video on the web for over a year now, and am always playing around with options.

Here are the folks in this, & what they were doing when I shot each clip.

Matt Plummer & Chad Hedrick, starting a 1500.
Maria Lamb & Catherine Raney, 700m into a 1500.
April Medley, 2 laps to go.
Donald Stewart & Michael Stein Stewart, 300m into a 1500.
Same two guys again, Donald skated the race of his life here, earning a World Cup spot.
A crowd of curious kids with noisemakers cheering on 2 skaters.
Justin “CoonPup” Stelly, in the final lap of his 1500.
John Loquai, midway through a 5k.
Kreg Greer giving the camera a grin in the first few laps of what became an outstanding 10k race.
Chris Witty & Beckah Bradford, starting a 500m.
Coach Mike Witty and a 2022 winter Olympic hopeful
Tucker Fredericks and Kip Carpenter, ripping out an amazing 500m start.
April Medley & Leah Lambert, 500m.
Danny Frederick & Matt Shannahan, halfway through a 1000m.
Jessica Smith (& that’s April Medley lying on the ground, she’s ok).
Shani Davis Passing John Loquai, & creating some SERIOUS 1500m corner pressure.
Anna Ringsred & Andrey Zhuikov.
Anthony Lobello & Andrew Love, 500m start & finish.

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Filed under: Audio/Video, on the road

Back on the east coast, the ice Marathon season is in full swing with the well attended Dimon Sports Marathon in Lake Placid. You can see the full results here, and can find out more about Marathon speedskating and their points series at the tri-lingual marathonskating.org website.

There were many interesting names on the start list from both the inline and ice worlds, is that Olympic short track medal winner Cathy Turner I see in the results?

Here are some images from both Saturday & Sunday:

The start line:

Go!!!

The lead pack

My good friend Jim Cornell broke away in the final 9 laps of the 40k, and soloed in for the win. How hard do you have to work to be able to do this? Jim did an Ironman Triathlon this summer, as well as coaching and working a full time job! (he also uses Powercranks, one of my sponsors).

Here he is, leading the pack:

Pat Kelly won Saturday’s 10k, and inliner Sergio Almeralla the 25k. On the women’s side, Danielle Grey won the 10k, Sarah Kruger the 25k, and Suzanne Dionne the 40k.

-Winners are nice, and deserve applause, but if you race & finish an ice marathon in a blizzard/sleet storm/etc, you are also a winner in my eyes-

Thanks to Michigan skate tribe member Tom Cole & upstate NY-er Marty Haire for these pictures, seeing these images makes me miss racing marathons in the snow… Really, I have some fond memories of racing one on a beautifully foggy morning in Lake Placid (and having Bob Tysen rip my legs off via endless FAST laps).

Tom sent this final image to me with the caption “how do you intimidate a sprinter? Have them look at a lap card with 100 to go on it!”. As a sprinter, I can say that IS intimidating!!! To the right of that are some of the good folks who put on this race, John Dimon and Mike Miller.

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I shot a video of Olu playing the National anthem, and had the idea of blending some of the videos I shot with his playing.

As I was working on this late last night, I looped Olu’s playing 3 times, so really you are hearing 3 Olu’s playing over the top of each other in unique harmonies. Some folks get offended when they hear the national anthem played in semi-arty ways, but as I look at the dedication of these Olympic hopefuls & the challenges they face, somehow lonely, atonal, patriotic music oddly fits.

Here it is in an easily accessible flash video. If you want to see a much nicer high quality Quicktime version, Click here.

The skaters pictured in this video are

Danny Frederick (fastest man in the world with 3+ kids)
Paul Dyrud
Matt Plummer
Liam Ortega (in white)
Jessica Smith
Nate Defranco (in red)
Mia Manganello’s feet
Catherine Raney
Mia Manganello
Anna Ringsred & Maria Lamb
Shani Davis & Chad Hedrick (in the last 500m of a crazy-fast 5k)

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Filed under: RACE DAY, Audio/Video, on the road