How hot?
June, July, August & September are vitally important months for training; it’s during these months an ice speedskater builds the foundation that is refined into race day speed during the winter.
This will now be my 6th year focusing on ice speedskating, and I spent 13 years in bicycle racing before that. If a handful of lessons have seeped their way into my stubborn soul, one that has proven true over and over in the past 19 years is that a solid pre-season is ESSENTIAL.
However July & August can be uniquely HOT, as my melted water bottle on the right here can attest.
It’s been over 100f / 38c recently in Salt Lake, and as the whole USA is currently melting in the heat, I wanted to send some happy vibes to everyone who is “enjoying” the outdoors. Somehow it feels like the sun is a little closer than the “official” 92,900,000 miles / 149,476,000 kilometers away.
Be careful! its possible to end up like this box of crayons.
I ended up as a similar colorful smear doing dryland last week, although I finished the workout strongly, it was several days until I recovered. When cycling, it is worth it to acclimate to the heat, as sometimes races happen when the celestial oven is set to “Bake”. But as an ice skater, it’s not as necessary.
So instead of setting up my 10 foot slideboard in the backyard for my lunch hour sprint interval workout, I brought it inside.
Since I am currently without a coach or training group, (It’s a mess out here in Salt Lake, many skaters are at loose ends) I use video to see if I am doing things “right” or not. Interestingly enough, many of my technical flaws are visible here. Recovery foot is too high, my shoulders are too low, I have a cyclist’s “flat back” and not a skater arched “cat back”.
However, on the plus side, I am happy, absorbing the intense training load well, and am much physically stronger & snappier than I have ever been before (I took some risks in the gym over the past two months, and it’s paid off) now if I can just find a coach & some fast skaters to turn this foundation into a true house ‘O velocity….
P.S. old used crappy hockey socks make GREAT slideboard booties!
Filed under: sweat
Awww, I hate to see that “Nationals” water bottle in such a sorry state! Mine has thus far survived the Minnesota heat (93 degrees when I started my inline workout at 9:00 am yesterday…). Let’s hope all this sweating pays off this winter! (By the way, I love the dog bone in the foreground of the picture…is that a secret training weapon?)
Honestly, I only noticed the dog bone when I was posting the image!
in all seriousness, I have come to believe that there rarely ever are true “training secret weapons”. What exists are the basics, applied consistently over and over…. Slideboarding is about as basic as it gets to prepare for skating…. (I am turncabling a hell of a lot too…)
It does make sense to try to keep cool for your workouts, but for me, no amout of discipline could keep me from being happy about being hot
One of my friends in grad school lived in Arizona for a while, and she said that she had to remember to never leave a pen in her car because it would melt and she’d end up with plastic and ink stuck to wherever the pen had been.
Y’all are welcome to the heat. It’s barely been in the 90s here, but sticky, soggy, HUMID; a season of fleas and flies, mosquitoes and sweat, and I hate it. I also hate what it does to me - makes me stupid, inert, almost depressed. I grew up in Baltimore, which is like this for months at a time - without (i might even say “before” air conditioning - and I wonder that i ever came up from the basement in the summer.
Fortunately, it’s not as bad as elsewhere, my house stays cool, and we only (usually!) get the worst of it for a week or two a year.
Did you really melt those crayons on the sidewalk? youch!
Love the melted crayons that says it all. Man is it HOT. From a fellow Salt Laker.
Hi Andrew
Nice to see you dedicated as always.
There is also a nice little heatwave here in Norway but nothing in comparison to Salt lake.
Jannicke tells me that it is 30 degrees in her room at night! I think that it is tough enough with 27 during daylight hours.
I hope you get ice in the oval soon, do you know when ? Take care and stay positive as always.
Carolyn
You might try a Lister Bag in your TeePee
Hey andrew I haven’ talked to you in a while. How’ve you been? Haha My water bottle did the same thing except someone in my family put it in the dishwasher. But now it is actualy beter because it perfectly conforms to my hand. Talk to you soon I hope.