Monthly Archive
Posted on 10 Feb 02:26 pm

Short Track Eruption!

World Cup short track… ohmigosh!!!

There is a triumph of human determination in distance racing, and I truly admire it.

But I am in soul & body, a sprinter, and nothing gets my brain steaming like watching the fastest human beings on the planet rip it like dragsters…

In the men’s 500m final, Canada’s Charles Hamelin & Korea’s Si-Bak Sung had an incredible battle full of intensity; technical precision, & razor thin margins exploding with TNT-loaded fast twitch fibers.

This is a clinic on skating tight vs. building speed by skating wide. Amazing. An outside pass during a 500m? Wow!!

I only know of one piece of music worthy of this- Eruption by Van Halen! This race was so fast & so close, I give you the slo-mo first to notice the myriad little things these guys do… then the actual event at normal speed.

Enjoy- Click here for the quicktime, or press play below for the YouTube.

I ‘ve got a ton more of short track stuff percolating, but right now I am off to watch more!!!

I will end this with an observation about sprinters I read recently on a cycling forum.

Q: If an aggressive dog charges a pack of cyclists, how can you tell the pure sprinters from the endurance cyclists?

A: The sprinter is the one who charges at the dog headfirst, looking for a fight!!

5 Comments »
Filed under: Audio/Video

Posted on 07 Feb 04:12 pm

Tony’s Art

Trying to become a national caliber speedskater is a tremendous challenge. I tend to write a lot about the physical, technical, mental, & emotional challenges in this blog.

But there is a a 5th challenge, financial. Sometimes that is the one that can prove the hardest. It certainly hurts in a way that feels worse to me than normal training pain.

Athletes who make the commitment to optimizing their athletic potential often need to become VERY creative (+ incredibly hardworking) in how they also earn a living in addition to full-time training.

One of the “new faces” at the Utah oval this year, Tony Sargent, has one of the most interesting ways of earning a living I have ever heard of.

Here is Mike Kooreman, holding the result of Tony’s unique skills. (click the image for a larger version):

Yes, Tony is an artist, and does commissioned portraits of athletes/families/etc.

Notable clients include pro golfers (Charles Howell III), pro football players (Barry Sanders) & pro basketball players. I’ve seen several examples of his work, this guy is really amazing.

I asked him how he got started in this, here was his response:

First of all, my dad has worked for the Oklahoma State Athletic Dept. for like 25 some years, so I have always known alot of the OSU athletes. In the summer of 2005, one of our players died in a car crash. I knew him pretty well, he was a great guy, but all I could think about was his dad and his family.

So I found some pics, locked myself in my room and started drawing, not really sure what the final picture was going to look like. After about 4 months and about 50 hours I finished it, and I wanted to give it to his father. I showed it to the coach and he came up with the idea of reproducing it and presenting the original to his dad at the opening game.

We made 1000 copies to sell at multiple stores in Oklahoma, with all the proceeds going to his scholarship fund. I presented it to his dad the first game of the year, and let’s just say that when the game was over we had made about $10,000 for the Vernon Grant scholarship fund.

I couldn’t believe the lines in the store with everyone buying my art. The drawing got pretty good publicity, It got in all the Oklahoma papers, news stations, and even was on sportscenter.

I am working on building a web page for my art, but probably won’t have one till summer. You can contact me at theartofchampions@yahoo.com

Since leaving Oklahoma and moving to Utah, throwing himself headfirst into elite training commitments, Tony has improved dramatically.

I wish him all the best, and success in skating & his art.

5 Comments »
Filed under: from the coffee shop

Posted on 03 Feb 02:37 pm

Right Now in Lake Placid-

Right now in Lake Placid, the final races of the 2008 age-class nationals are happening.

This image on the right is from the ORDA cam, it’s refreshed every hour, and conditions look challenging. At the start line, or maybe in full throttle 3000m final sprint, is a group of skaters.

Gotta love outdoor skating! I could not make it to this race, and it hurts to miss pack nationals on my “home track”.

But an athlete must pick his battles; I’m focused like a bullet in flight on master’s worlds, in Germany, 4 weeks from now.

There have been several comments this week on a post I made almost exactly 1 year ago, discussing the Rink at Petosky, Michigan.

There is power in that primal spot where a curious athlete first feels that amazing, addictive feeling of skating. It can almost be as powerful a memory as recalling the moment where you gave/received your first truly intense soul-burning high-school kiss.

Sigh…. (sound of memories rushing past)

I sent my camera to Lake Placid along with my friend Brian Boudreau, and so although I might not be there, my “electronic eye” is in Lake Placid. In a few days I hope to have pictures.

Till then, here are a few more “Desktop Friendly” images I have taken of this rink.

This is a view snapped December 22nd, 2002. The clouds, the Adirondacks, the steely colors of winter, yeah!

The skater is marathoner Bob Tysen, who was scary strong at this time. Bob recently had surgery on his left knee, and he can’t crossover anymore. It sucks…

Looking in the other direction, this is Jessica on classic Vikings, skating down the finishing straight.

The building on the left is the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” hockey rink, just behind it to the right are the rinks from the 1932 games.

I asked Jessica what she remembered about this day:

I hadn’t been to Lake Placid before, but I had heard of how horrible the weather usually is in the winter.

The oval was a pleasure to skate on, and though I hadn’t skated on a long track before, I remember thinking- this isn’t so bad. All these people are exaggerating.

I grew up messing around on figure skates on frozen New Jersey Lakes, skating with friends in Wollman rink in Central Park, and inlining in Liberty State Park. I have a slight clue about how to skate.

At Lake Placid, I remember feeling my legs burn and feeling kind of foolish for bending my knees so much and sticking my bum out. But then that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re speedskating, so I figured, whatever.

Then I saw the picture, and I was shocked. It looks like I’m barely bending my knees at all.

The people I met on that trip were lovely and very friendly. I’ve made enough trips to Placid since that I can’t remember who I met on that particular one, but I’m sure John Dimon was part of the group, and possibly Peter Doucet and Eric Gee.

Good people, good times.

1 Comment »
Filed under: from the coffee shop

Posted on 03 Feb 02:00 pm

Groundhog Day??

Some fat rodent in Pennsylvania who sleeps too much just announced that we will have 6 more weeks of winter.

There are roughly 43 groundhogs, woodchucks & one Llama out there who also offer their opinions.

Screw them, I have a far more reliable measure of the nearness of spring from an animal who plays outdoors every day.

Lilly has just started blowing out her winter coat, Jess doubled this pile by the time she was done brushing the dog.

Note the fur flying through the air in the photo & the cat messing around in it. So it’s official; Lilly predicts an early spring this year!

Cyclists & Inliners rejoice!

4 Comments »
Filed under: from home

Posted on 02 Feb 04:42 pm

Heart Pounding

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.

6 Comments »
Filed under: from home

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