Hello World! (again)
Who would have thought that racing 2 500m races, a bit over a minute of total work, could make a person “stuck to the floor tired”! But that is how I feel this morning (where is my coffee?? ugh!).
In racing yesterday, I was paired with good guy & Milwaukee skater Kirk Olson. He is a former division I hockey player, and dragsters the first 100m of a 500m race in a world class 9.9. I had a good start, but Kirk just crushed me off the line, and was a loooong way ahead exiting the first turn, but in my backstretch (pictured here) I began to catch him, and my final inner turn was super solid.
I exited the final turn half a step ahead, and we raced shoulder to shoulder all the way to the finish, and I arrived first by .01!! (roughly 1.3cm difference)!! I have now skated about 6 500m races that are all under 37.2, but I have not cracked into 36!! The results of this weekends races are here.
This race was another tiny improvement in my personal best, by .02 of a second, 37.06, and that makes me happy, even if that 36 barrier continues to dance just out of reach. I feel as prepared as I can be for trials, I am skating well technically and physically, in practice a few days ago I skated my fastest lap ever, 26.14.
The work I need to do between now and Olympic trials is all psychological & making sure that I am relaxed as possible (a tense sprinter is a slow sprinter).
In other news, I want to specifically welcome the members of the Yahoo groups speed skating mailing lists. Jim White mentioned this blog to the international readership over there, and suddenly the next day I have 328 visitors! Again, I am drinking a huge cup of “whoa”!
One of the exceptionally cool things about this international discussion list, is that there is a Dutch fellow who transfers the Dutch TV coverage of the world cup races to realplayer format, and posts it online, he announces it on this yahoo list. Here is the page he posts things on (these clips change every world cup). This last weeks races looked particularly epic, as it was blizzarding in Inzell, the women’s 1000m races reminded me of skating in Lake Placid! I once raced a 5k in conditions like this.
Peter, if you are ever in Salt Lake, I think there are a ton of us who would buy you dinner at the best restaurant in town, your hard work posting these clips is INCREDIBLY VALUED by those of us who would never otherwise get to see all of this world cup coverage.
After yesterday’s races, Bart Schouten’s team got on the ice for a workout, and I did some taping for both Chad Hedrick’s Journal, as well as for another website, offthepodium.com, that is doing a video feature on Chad. This morning Chad is appearing on the ESPN morning show “cold pizza” and last night I had a studio guy stop by my house and pick up a burned CD of some of the video I have taped of Chad. Studio guy was wearing a “saskatoon speed skating club” T-Shirt, and immediately we recognized each other as members of the “skate gypsy” subculture.
Here are some images of Bart’s whole gaggle of speedy folks zipping by. Gold Medalist Derek Parra is in the lead. Pretty much every single athlete in these images is going to be competing in Olympic trials that are now only 6 DAYS AWAY!! When a group this size goes by, it can give you windburn!
Filed under: from home
Hey, are you gonna be able to post the interview from Cold Pizza on Chad’s site? Someone told me the wrong time, and I missed it. I did, however, get to see the guys chopping wood and the one without a toe, but it didn’t make up for missing Chad.
Hey Andrew. Great Pics. Get ready for zillions of hits on your site and Chad’s. He was the feature article in U.S.A. Today and his web site was mentioned at the end.
Good luck at trials and Happy Holidays!
JD
Hi Andrew,
Love your website, visit it daily. My gratitude also to Peter’s World Cup videoclip site for North American media-starved speed skating fans, and my thanks to you for linking me to it.
I’m looking at your 37 sec 500’s and thinking about how far you’ve come in such a short time - thinking back to your early days including our “clash-of-the-titans” 5000m in Ottawa a very few years back and those lactate-clogged cool-down laps over in Lake Placid. Thinking also about your IMSSC world record for the 500m set in Inzell less than 2 years ago which you would easily smash today. It’s an amazing journey and one that will continue.
Good luck at the trials, enjoy the ride.