First race of the year!
Yesterday was the first long-track race of the season at the Utah Olympic Oval, and the atmosphere was very much like a spring training baseball game. The races really didn’t matter, and the coaches were urging their athletes to skate technically well at a controlled effort level.
However, put a bunch of truly competitive athletes on the starting line, turn the electronic timing system on, and people tend to try hard.
I have fast enough qualifying times, that often when I line up for races, there is a fellow wearing a USA in the lane next to me.
It always gets my adrenalin going to be racing one of those guys, and I have a ton of respect for every single one of them. Someday, if I keep working very hard, maybe I can earn those three letters too.
For this first race of the season, in the 500m I was paired with national sprint team member Tyler Goff. I am an uncannily consistent skater, and Tyler is absolutely a big-race skater, who can pull off huge races when it counts.
(Tyler is in the red & blue USA skinsuit, and that’s me in my deep navy).
We were paired together last year at the fall world cup competition, and he squashed me on that day by over a second in the 500. But today, since nothing was on the line, after 500m I crossed the line first.
However, as a two time Olympian once told me:
“You must race in your own lane, and I mean that mentally as well as physically”.
Even from within my own lane, I am really happy with how this first race went. My opening 100m was ugly & spastic, but the snap and power was there. Even my own personal technical demons of relaxation, knees together, absolute top speed, and handing that scary final inner turn, all seem improved.
My final time was a 37.77, A good deal faster than the 38.44 I skated at this race last year. I say I am scary consistent, for example; on Friday I skated a 400m tempo at 27.1 seconds. I always seem to do a Saturday race very close to my Friday pre-race tempo time, in the race I skated a 27.2!!!
Here is another example of scary consistency in 500m racing:
2003-04 season
First Race 40.1
Season PB, 38.69
Improvement 1.41
2004-2005
First Race 39.08
Season PB 37.41
Improvement 1.67
2005-2006
First Race 38.44
Season PB 36.72
Improvement 1.72
This year, 2006-07
First race 37.77
I have a goal to skate sub-36 this year, so my spirits are lifted by hard numbers showing that I am on the right track.
I also raced a 1500m as well, but the less said about that race, the better, as it was mostly “an exercise in relaxation“, like relaxedly wading into a pool of molten lava, How people enjoy this distance is as far beyond my comprehension as what it must be like to walk on the moon.
Afterwards, I went over to my coach and said: “OOUUUCCCHH!!” and Scott deadpanned “You are welcome”.
Filed under: RACE DAY
Wow! Congrats on an excellent start to the season–and I am deeply, deeply envious! Here in Minnesota, we not only will not have ice for another 2 months, but the Oval (concrete version) will close at the end of September, thus depriving me of my favorite workout location (yeah, I know–I should be doing dryland, not inline, but inline is so much FUN! And, of course, it’s a way to work on my in-need-of-so-much-improvement technique…stil, I suspect there’s some dryland heading my way in October and early November…). Keep up the good work–I expect to see some spectacular times from you when I run into you at the races!
Nice Job Andrew!
Skate Like A Cat…Uwe Jens Mey..Have you seen any video of Mey in the early 90’s. Truely Amazing!!!
Looking at your #s pattern over 3 seasons, I really can see you breaking 36 this season. When you say your opener felt ugly & spastic, I just think when you “polish” your technique and eliminate every mistake, with all that Power you have…..Wow even faster than you believe possable
polish your technique
Blecchh…WHY are you people racing 500s, in skinsuits, in EARLY SEPTEMBER?
Don’t even get me started on TRAINING in skinsuits. You probably wore your prom tux to math class too, didn’t you?
What you really need is some wooly tights and a thick jersey with your club patch sewn onto the chest…
ha ha ha…
Fred let me introduce you to the modern era.. ice in the late summer, technical & precise speed all the time, sports science informing patterns of training, the clap skate, bent blades, precise rockering, better nutritional support…
now nostalgia has its place, true, but is a typewriter superior to the computer just cause “its what we used in the good ol days”???? why not just go back to basics, a chisel & stone, good enough for the greeks & romans? why not us!!!
why not just skate on bones strapped to our feet, on frozen ponds!! The good ol days!!!
I am just giving you a hard time, I appriciate the spirit of what you wrote… Honestly, like calgary, in wooly tights and a thick jersey, one would swelter to death inside the utah oval… A skinsuit alone, is frankly, simply VERY comfortable..
I’ve tried to cut myself off from commenting on speedskating sites, but this time I couldn’t resist! Why go back to the Bone Age when you can have the latest technology instead? Remember last year’s “Storm Trooper Underwear” drag suits that Nike developed for the U.S. National Team because the regular suits were just too fast for training? I’m sure those suits were tested in a wind tunnel to provide maximum drag.
I remember feeling so sad that all the cool people(even the ones slower than me) got storm trooper underwear and I didn’t, so one day I went out on the ice wearing a pair of boxer shorts over my training suit. It had the same effect.
…and I do love the 1500 meter event, by the way. Did I mention how much I love the 1500 meters? It’s my favorite race.
Ugly and spastic? I don’t know how I’m refraining from commenting more….The Urge…to type….becoming….overwhelming….help me….computer….being turned….off…..
sub 36? really we’ll see.
[…] ght translate into new outdoor improvements. I recalled a post by Andrew Love from the beginning of his 2006-7 racing season, wherein he lists the season […]