Veritas
Whether you love her or hate her, Eva Rodansky is never boring, today she showed up at the rink with this new graffiti on her skates, is that her heart or someone else’s heart with that sword stuck through it?? Or both???
Veritas means “truth” in Latin, and is also the motto of Harvard University.
And it is getting closer to the moment of Veritas, Olympic trials are 10 days away. Oddly enough, it’s really only a moment of “Olympic” truth for about a 10 of the 50 athletes who will be skating Olympic trials.
Several of the top skaters have already qualified for the Olympics through placing top 5 in the world cup twice (an extraordinarily hard thing to do). And after a lot of racing this season, people have a pretty good idea of who is capable of what, and there are actually very few people who are legitimately in competition for those last few Olympic team spots.
In just my own personal example, almost every 500m I have skated since early November has been between 37.08 and 37.40. Some have been great, some terrible and stumbling. But the times don’t vary too much, and I am not likely to suddenly shoot rocket flames from my butt and skate the high 34-low 35 necessary to earn a spot on the 500m men’s team. And if rocket-ass action did occur, I bet some doping control people, and a few sports scientists, would like to have a long conversation with me.
I raced again today, 37.29 was my 500m time. After all this hard work, I just can’t seem to break into the 36’s!!! Damm!!! Am I reaching the limit of what my body can do? No, there are still mistakes visible here. A Kazakhstan coach got my backstretch on videotape (no sound), and I added that into the video jess shot. A rare look at a 500m from start to finish.
One scary thing about this 500m worth noting, I was paired with my training buddy Marco (him on the left, me on the right). Marco lost his footing about 100m into the race, and came extremely close to sliding into me blades first. Immediately after my 500m, someone asked me “were you scared!” and I replied “Of what?” Thinking the question was more about the normal fear factor of the final inner turn of a 500m. Then I saw the video, and understood! I heard something happen on my left, but I was really focused on what I was doing, and had no idea it was the close call the video shows.
Filed under: Audio/Video, sweat
glad you didn’t get taken out, andrew.
the downside to or sport is it takes place with samurai swords on our feet..well, besides turfing the wall/and or your pair at high speed.
hey, i just turned jim white onto your blog, he’d never been here, and he wanted to know if you minded if he posted your link at speedskating : speedskating@yahoogroups, so if you want those unwashed hourdes of danes and norge skate fanatics in here, he will!
Hi!
I have been skating 4 times in 3 days! Sigh, if only I had started skating at 15, or 20, or 30… My blades are now so sweet on the ice, the set down, glide and push are super smooth. I looked at my tracings on the snow dusted ice today and there were just smooth lines, no scuffing. And then I try a little bit faster and everything falls apart…
I used to do tai chi half seriously when I was younger. My teacher said “do this” for 5 years, and I never got it. One day she said a related “do that”. I tried it, and all of a sudden I understood what she had been saying for those five years.
My inlines instructors give me the same experience. They tell me what to do, and I try, but it just doesn’t sink in. I might see whatever working when they or others do it, but myself? No way.
Crossovers are like that, I listened to them for five years, did some dryland training and went in circles but it was just a lot of stress. And then all of a sudden this spring, just playing crossovers on the street near my flat, the left side clicked! Something felt ok, and now I work out from that.
The problem is it takes me five years each time to understand something really simple. I might fight and fight and fight and it just won’t loosen.
Take a break and concentrate on something else, or play a little to loosen up, then try later. Play is underrated, you might surprise yourself.
Basically this is supposed to cheer you up, Andrew! You worry about progress over a space of 5 weeks, it could be worse!
Maybe you should paint go-faster stripes on your skates, to complement Eva-with-nice-eyes’ design, if you ever race each other in training?