Part 3
What rocks about lake placid? What sucks? What is the single most incredible thing Chris has ever seen a human being do on skates? How does the emotional challenge of being a coach differ from what athletes go through?
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Short questions & fun answers! Thanks Chris, and I hope you and your skaters have an excellent year!
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In the final part of this 3 part interview, Chad talks about how tired he was after last season, about his trip through the talk show circuit, the question he is never asked during interviews, and what superstitions he has before races.
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Chad talks about speedskating, whose technique he would like to borrow, what golf taught him about speedskating, and where he thinks the next generation of champions will come from.
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The first part of a 3-part video interview with Chad Hedrick.
Chad talks about what he has been up to since the Olympics, what his most powerful personal memories of the games are, how his life has changed since the medals, and what is motivating him now.
I produced this video for Chad’s website, and asked his permission to post it here as well.
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The violent thunderstorm hammering on the roof of the Utah Olympic Oval, sounded like a jet plane roaring down an endless runway, stuck in that moment before liftoff. The rain has finally broken the scorching Utah heat, and as if in sync, inside the oval the staff is LAYING DOWN THE ICE!!!
Ice is better if it’s applied in repeated thin sheets, instead of flooding all at once, so it takes days & days of work. Folks were also painting in the lines with a precision that required surveying equipment, blueprints, laptops, plumb lines, repeated measurements, and a ghostbusters backpack.
I am glad to see this happening. On the running track, myself and several other skaters were preparing ourselves with equal effort, although instead of using precision measuring instruments, we are trying to become precision instruments of technique & strength.
Ice speedskating is, fundamentally, a simple sport.
1. Start
2. Go straight
3. Turn left
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 until the finish line (dodging around other skaters if you are a short tracker).
One of the best ways to get better at step 3 is with a turncable. Swimmers actually first used a version of this medieval torture device for arm workouts, then some speedskater got it into their sick minds to practice turns with it!
I seem to have the same relationship with the turncable that I do with the squat rack in the gym. They hurt, but I keep coming back for more, after all, isn’t “pain just weakness leaving the body?”
I really don’t agree with that, but it’s fun to imagine when your legs start buckling underneath you.
Its easier to see a turncable in operation than it is to describe how one works. So here is Nick, thrashing through 80 steps (he had done a lot of one legged stuff before I started taping).
What does this feel like? Get into the skate position, and try to push a big couch around, or maybe a small car, with your shoulder…
Press the play button right here to start.
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This is something I am putting in Chad's site that is worth republishing here as well.
It's a good interview, he talks quite candidly about his Olympic experience. This interview was taped just before a Houston Aeros minor league playoff hockey game where Chad dropped the puck to start the action, and also where Chad headlined a fundraiser for special olympics.
You can still find news articles talking about the Chad-Shani feud during the Olympics, but nothing about the $70,000 Chad has helped raise for Special Olympics…
friggin media!!!
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I have gotten to know quite a few of the world class speedskaters who train at the Utah Olympic oval, but probably none as well as I have gotten to know Kip Carpenter. This is because we share intense interests outside of skating, Kip is a very talented digital graphic artist & flash developer, and his interests dovetail with my professional web design experience.
Kip is an interesting fellow, and if some of my questions have more of a psychological tint to them than some of my other Zen 10 interviews, it is because of our friendship. I greatly enjoy his company, and I feel like I will still know Kip for years after we have both recovered from our membership in the skating cult (that is, if we ever recover!).
First of all, Kip, thanks for appearing on my blog! I emailed these questions to Kip, and he has called in his answers from Holland, a few days after the Olympics finished, where he was racing in the World Cup Final.
Technical note, several folks said this interview made it hard to load the blog (the audio files were quite large) So I built a separate web page just for this interview
if you want to listen to Kip’s voice, check it out at the above link.
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As I have said several times, the Masters International race this last weekend’s exemplifies the best that there is in speedskating.
I had a post that focused on the race, and now here is one that is about the faces & vibe. I should have posted this earlier this week, but better late than never!
First of all, a recording of the national anthem, as played by Olu. I think every time a race director asks him to play, they should wave his entry fee as a thank you. You can hear a hockey game going on in the background, and the buzz of the massive fluorescent lights at the Pettit. But it’s still Olu, and he can REALLY play.
Every time I hear the anthem, I think of our armed forces in the Middle East. It’s easy to forget that there is a war going on right now. Much of America has effectively closed its eyes to the men & women in uniform who are serving & sometimes dying in Iraq. It’s important to remember that for every death we hear about, there are also roughly 4-5 catastrophic injuries where the soldier lives, but loses arms/legs/eyes/hands/mobility. How many souls & families have been scarred by this war? There are people now on their 4th & 5th combat tours!! (also there are possibly 100,000 Iraqi civilian dead, mostly from US firepower).
Agree or disagree with our current foreign policies, it’s important to remember what is happening in the world right now, and to live life in context, not as a “head in the sand” Ostrich.
Ok, enough politics, back to skating (see, I too am guilty of exactly what I just complained about above).
Here are a bunch of folks, lacing up for warmup, at a scary early hour of the morning.
The inline to ice movement does not just happen at the Elite Level; Glenn Corso is a member of the NYC area Empire speed inline team, and came out from Long Island to race. He does short track ice, and has a handful of days on the long track clap blades. He was right in the mix in the toughest category, the 40-44’s, had a blast, and says next year he will bring a pile of folks from that very talented club. Fantastic! There also was a skater from the very active Team Caravan/Capitol racing group in Virginia, but I did not get a chance to chat with him.
One of the growing traditions of The Masters International is the Saturday night party at Olu’s. This year was it’s biggest and best ever. 40 of the 70+ competitors showed up for a huge dish-to-pass buffet, and Olympics watching. I wish I had a tape of the ‘hollerin during Apollo Ohno’s gold medal short track race, and shortly thereafter, the relay.
The fire was nice, also in fine form was Mary O’Donnell, The US rep to the governing body of International Masters skating, the IMSSC. Here she is, making some noise during the women’s Olympic 5k, wearing a crazy Dutch hat she bought during a world cup at Herenveen. The little spikes & bells are like a dragon tail, and hang all the way down her back. I hear Mary’s other sporting passion is rowing! Now that is quite the doubleshot of summer and wintertime lactic acid fun!
You can always tell when the Indy speedskating team has arrived at a race. Their towels, chairs, luggage, and full skinsuits are all Cheetah print!
I asked them about this, and they said at one of their earliest races as a club, they showed up to the meet with each member having 2 suits, they wore cheetah print on Saturday, and american-design motif suits on Sunday. Everyone asked them on Sunday “hey, were are your cool cheetah suits!”. Since that positive feedback, the theme has grown and taken over.
Indyspeed skates inline all summer, short and long track ice in the winter. They are excellent examples of “allskaters” who participate in every kind of speed skating there is. I strongly believe in the “allskater” concept as an individual & club philosophy. It is a path for all-skaters to follow except for a tiny number of people trying to specialize in elite ice sprinting (I really miss being an allskater).
Check out the Indy speed website, their skating technique & annual peridodization plans are quite interesting. Also I LOVE THIS PHOTO, of several of them at the start line of the world team time trial championships (cycling).
I can see why their Coach, Cindi Hart, just won US speedskating volunteer coach of the year! I want to do a ZEN 10 interview with Cindy, as the first interview I ever did was with last year’s volunteer Coach of the year, Jim Cornell. Hmmm, maybe this blog has been around long enough, I can start “traditions”!
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Chad Hedrick talks with KPRC in Houston about:
In the middle of the interview, note that Derek Parra passes by, on his way out for a night of fun, and “The Exception” is staying in, resting before he faces the 25 grueling laps of the 10k. Press the play button to listen.
Sometimes when you see an athlete being interviewed, you can tell that they are in “professional media mode”. To me, this interview sounds like Chad simply being himself. He is intensely confident, and when he loses, he blames himself for not skating to his potential.
Some call that approach cocky or brash, but if your life experience included 50 inline world championships and multiple ice championships, you could internally be a dour pessimist and come to the same conclusions & approach. This is how Chad looks at the world, and for his whole life the world has confirmed this view.
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