Zen and the Art of Speedskating

(minimal time to write, am SLAMMED with so much to do, it’s stupid-silly)

Last march Brett Arnason (the Canadian Rep) & I realized that the momentum from master’s worlds needed to be followed up with IMSSC metric races for the newly energized North American masters community.

In April & June, I made a lot of phone calls to see if an American race was possible.

In August, at the IMSSC summer meeting in Krefeld, Germany, I proposed a new race, and everyone was supportive.

Then in October-November, I worked really hard getting the entry form together. In December, a great bunch of people helped tremendously on the organizational details of actually making a race happen (in fact, they did most of it).

This past weekend, January 5th & 6th, 33 Masters Speedskaters arrived in Milwaukee, and we all had a great time at the first Master’s International American sprint. The Masters International Canadian Open, will happen February 9th-10th in Calgary.

Here is about 75% of us in a group photo from this Past weekend.

Skaters traveled from Washington, Michigan, Maryland, Calgary, Toronto, Utah, Illinois and Minnesota for the event.

Ross Hanham was part of the Canadian contingent that traveled to compete, and he wrote a very kind post about this event on his Masters Newsblog, you can see it here.

Here are a couple of images of the racing. On the top you have Jan Zurcher, who traveled down from Seattle to put some of her sprint power to good use.

Olusegun Sijuwade was the meet registrar, or “meet head” as we affectionately dubbed him. He also skated some really nice races on Saturday. Check out how far back his weight is in this photo!

Interestingly enough, he is skating on a pair of Corey Carpenter’s old Viking blades, with a clap mech welded on

Tom Cole has worked really hard to get ready for his upcoming trip to Germany and Master’s worlds. He is not a sprinter, but has worked himself into great shape, and his form in the last 200m of a 1k looks great.

Ken Anderson, also styling his way through a 1k. Ken is a very talented runner, blogger, and is working hard on his ice technique. Like Tom, he’s riding a nice flat edge here.

Julie Hough was one of the Canadians who made the trip to Milwaulkee. She is in the cool-looking Canadian masters skinsuit.

I’ve always thought in long track metric racing, improving vs yourself is what it’s all about. So I’ve created an award that reflects this. The Most Improved Personal Best award.

Myron Yencha has improved A LOT since I first met him, and skated an excellent PB here in a 1000m. He took about a second off his previous time, and that was good enough for 2nd place in the most improved PB contest won by Bill Armstrong, who knocked 1.46 off his 500m.

There is improving vs yourself, and then there is improving the record books. Canadian Brett Arnason came to speedskating late in life, and along with about 5 other skaters, had a real shot at the sprint samalong record.

However the weather did not provide the right conditions for fast times. It was foggy, humid, warm, rainy, & high air pressure outdoors, so although the ice at the Pettit was good, the air was like skating through a soggy mitten.

I carried my peak over well from US nationals last week, felt snappy, and the times I skated were 1.6 seconds slower than my 500m sea-level PB, and 2.4 slower for my 1000. Ouch… That is some slow air…

Overall, the meet felt like a success, and the Saturday night party at Olu’s was a wonderful gathering of like-minded souls.

A few people deserve huge thank-yous for helping make this happen

Suzy Osum did incredible work getting us meet sponsors Shorewest realty, Barbara A. Smith Home Interiors & Gift and the Wisconsin Athletic Club.

Olu did an amazing job organizing the meet registrations

Carla Langethal was an excellent proofreader of my terrible spelling/grammar, a realistic sounding board, and helped me with the million little things.

Cindy Yomantas at the Pettit was awesome & encouraging in too many ways to mention (and she helped us out with cool Pettit Ice center wear as prizes!). Jeff Edwards & Jeff Brand took care of officials, volunteers, & timing.

In the last second, Jen Kraynick, Mike Anderson & Steve Desotell stepped in and helped calculate the awards and final samalong points, as our masters categores made the official computerized results unhappy.

And even though he was not here, thanks must go to Dr. Volker Serini, in Germany, for starting the IMSSC

Filed under: RACE DAY