Zen and the Art of Speedskating

I get into my down start position, and begin my long steady exhale waiting for the gun to go off. I use the down start. A down start differs significantly from the traditional skating start.

In this picture here from a race last January in Milwaukee, you can see me using the down start, and my ol’ Lake Placid buddy Donald Stewart using the more traditional speedskating start position. One of the tricks to the down start is to put a lot of your weight on the hand resting on the ice. When the gun goes off, you remove your hand, and your body falls forward, so gravity becomes an additional force you can add to the power your legs generate driving off the line. Also in practice, both feet push, even though skaters concentrate on that front leg. The only thing original about my own usage of the down start is I rest my left hand on my left knee, it helps me avoid false starts, as when I am really amped up & nervous I have a hard time keeping that left hand still.

Many top skaters use the traditional start, as they have spent a lifetime perfecting that technique. Yet the down start is being used more and more, even though most coaches are wary of it. With my clean slate, I practiced a lot & became moderately proficient at both, and found I was more consistent with the down start.

So anyway, there I was, about to start the first real race of the season, waiting for the gun to go off, focused, relaxed, and with all my weight on my right hand, my thumb suddenly pops out of joint!!!

I have done the down start for years, and never had this happen, I crumpled to the ice in quite an inglorious false start. And then quickly try to re-focus myself to go to the line again. (the thumb went right back in, it’s fine, just hurts).

After awkwardly setting myself back on the line, palm flat on the ice, I was extremely rushed & not set in my technique, and stumbled my way to a 38.44 500m. I was pretty pissed, as I did not execute what I train my heart out to do. The thumb was certainly a distraction, but I should be faster. Isn’t that what metric skater always say? Its just frustrating after my training tests tell me I should be around 37, to skate that much slower, the training load has been very high recently, and because of it, Boris advised me not to race this weekend, but I am stubborn.

Mentioning my story of my dislocating thumb to the pioneer of the down start, KC Boutiette, he laughed and said “yeah, that happened to me in Berlin once, and they fired the gun anyway!”

By the way, Casey Fitzrandolph skated a 34.9 in his 500m race! Wow! It was completely astonishing to watch, and he is the first man in the world to skate sub 35 this year! I have never seen a first outer skated like Casey threw down in his race, even with all the talent on the US sprint squad, Casey just skates different,.

For skaters like Casey, they will face their moment of truth in Torino, not really at Olympic trials, so it’s worth mentioning when normal folks qualify for trials, as they are our “games”. My friend Kirk Fogdall raced a 1500m. He was nervous, tense, got cold before the start in his spraypaint thin skinsuit, stumbled twice in the first 100m, but still cranked out scary fast laps & dove head first into the searing last lap of pain like his son goes for a hug. He skated a 2:00:4 and qualified!! Go Kirk! He claims that now that he has accomplished his main goal, he is just gonna rest from now till trials in December. His 1500m PB is now faster than mine by about a second, I think we are going to have to have a grudge match 1500 sometime, with something significant as the bet, waddya think Kirk? I don’t know who will win, but I am pretty sure that I will be ahead with one lap to go, puking on myself from the effort & suffering rigor mortis from lactic acid poisoning, if Kirk can skate around the puke, he just might pass me!!!

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