Zen and the Art of Speedskating

I have not been posting at my usual bloggy pace this last week. My soul feels worn out, I am more emotionally tired than physically. Artificial infusions of testosterone create depression & what is popularly called ‘roid rage (here is some scary abusers talking about it). But I bring up the idea: for those of us who train hard/clean & without laboratory/illegal help; if artificial testosterone makes one a touchy & moody, what happens to your moods when you reach your biological maximum of natural testosterone production? When I have a brutal hard day, I sometimes get a zit or two the next morning, why? Well, it’s all-natural, but none the less real. I am not overtrained, I am certain of that, but I am pretty certain my body is getting close to the limits of training it can absorb. I trained for bike racing for 11 years (usually racing 50-90 times a year), then have skate trained for the next 5 years, 2 of those full time. Someone told me recently I am “living my dream” and I should be just sooooo happy. Why aren’t I? Why do I sometimes feel like a huge waste of human protoplasm?

Thankfully coffee is a medically proven antidepressant!

I should not ruminate so publicly on what Churchill called his “black dog”. Probably what I experience has nothing to do with how I spend my days, internally I have always been a brooding fella, it’s probably linked to the reason I gravitated towards a liberal arts undergraduate and graduate degree! If I was still working in cubicle land, I would be moping there too.

On a lighter note, a funny thing that happened at practice a few days ago; When a skater has Olympic medals in their pocket, people notice when they are around & what they are doing. When my teammate Kirk said “hey, Derek’s here”. I looked around for gold medalist and former 1500m world record holder Derek Parra, and when I did not see him anywhere, I said, “where?” Kirk said, “look over there, a weight vest, turncable, jump benches, and four dry T-Shirts!!!”

I usually have one dry t-shirt with me during my jump practices, how much harder does Derek work than I work? At least 3 T-shirts worth! His book, Reflections in the Ice, is an excellent chronicle of the intense emotions, depressions, & general physical/psychic roller coaster of being on the full-time athlete path.

Derek works terrifically hard, you can see it in his physical presence, he is one of the few speedskaters I know who has the ripped look & deep muscle strength of the pro bicycle racer. When I met him at an inline race, eons ago, long before either of us had ever touched a long track, he was very warm and friendly to me. He still is, although I can’t say I know him through anything other than that dozen friendly conversation kind of way.

I remember once at the Pettit center, I went in to the training room, to spin on one of the bikes, the lights were off, and I left them off, it was pleasantly dim. After about 15 minutes of me making noise & thrashing around on the bike, I heard a noise/groan from the corner, in his dark blue US national team loungewear, I had completely missed that Derek was crashed out in the shadows. Emerging from his training induced coma, he could have been pissed, but wasn’t, it was probably another 4 t-shirt day.

p.s. I asked Derek about the spare shirts in the weight room today, actually, that’s FIVE T-shirts he has there!

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