Zen and the Art of Speedskating

I skated my first 10k during Olympic trials in 1998, I was only 16. The race was really hard, and after I was done, the head referee, Ernie Crutchman, came over to me and said “congratulations, you’re a man now”.
-National team member Ron Macky

There are many different experiences one can claim as “the litmus test for manhood” and from my own perspective, skating 10,000 meters is not in the top five, even though Ron’s story made me bust a gut laughing.

The best way I can describe what the 25 laps of an ice speedskating 10k feels like to a non-skater is imagine going for a jog where you climb 100 flights of stairs, and every other flight (the 50 corners you skate) you have to bound up 2-3 steps at a time. This accurately simulates the aerobic & muscular fun involved. Even at the world cup level, they only race the 10,000 a few times a year since it’s so hard.

I will never forget my own 10k experience on a windy day in Lake Placid; through the pain-glazed lens of memory I recall being exhausted, broiling with lactic acid, looking up to the lapboard, and seeing 17 laps to go!!

Yesterday 5 people at the Utah Oval raced a 10k. For some of them it was their first time, others have skated them before. My hat is off to each one of them, especially Keith, who blasted 19 seconds off his former personal best set on crazy fast ice at Olympic trials! To improve by that much is a ton of hard work. Each one of these images is at the end of each of their pain.

I tried to do my part to be encouraging, I went to a party supply store, bought a pile of cheap plastic horns, and distributed it to our whole training group. It was pleasantly loud & goofy during these long races.

In my own racing, I am happy to report that I busted through the 37 second barrier for the 2nd time ever! 36.99!! Whooo! (I skated a 3k, too but the less said about that, the better).

Interesting pair of images grabbed from the video of my 500, one is from 50 meters into the race, and the other from 450 meters in.

Body & knee angles are THE SAME. I find it much harder to sit low in the last 100m than accelerating in the first 100, so this makes me happy.

Sure, a 36.99 is only .01 faster than a 37, but I’m happy anyway, as I have been burned by .01 before.

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Filed under: from home

US speedskating has just hired Olympic Gold/Silver medalist & world record holder Derek Parra to be an Inline-to-ice transition coach. He will be fantastic as a coach, as he is quite gifted in his understanding of skating mechanics.

Yesterday, he was at the Oval working on slideboard technique with North Carolina based inliner Amber Yrbor. They had already been working hard on the slideboard for over an hour when I walked over, camera in hand.

You have two options on how to view this, click here to view a 49 MB QUICKTIME FILE

It’s worth viewing if you have a fast connection… Derek has tremendous physical skills from his lifetime of hard work, so he can demonstrate exactly the technique he wants to develop in skaters he is coaching. This video shows some smoooooth slideboarding.

Option 2 is youtube. Click the play button to get it running.

If you watch all 8 1/2 minutes of this video, at the end Derek talks about what skaters he technically emulated when he was competing, and why.

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Filed under: Audio/Video, from the coffee shop

Last week Salt Lake had many days of absolutely beautiful fall weather. I took this picture of a jet contrail looking up through the brilliant fall yellow of a tree on my lawn,

Just a wonderful day, warm enough for shorts and soaking up the warm sun & blue sky.

12 hours later it was snowing, sleeting, and generally miserable. From flip-flops to parkas in one day, a true climatologic whiplash.

There are many odd things about Utah, one of them is that when the seasons turn, it’s not a gradual temperature shift, it’s like some celestial switch is thrown, the jet stream blusters down from Canada, and the weather changes violently.

Speaking of yellow, in Bruce’s workshop my feet have changed color again! The inner lining is in place, the yellow is aerospace/military grade Kevlar on top of that, and the eventual tongues of the boots laid into place.

I once stayed up all night, and watched a master welder turn a pile of titanium tubes into a bicycle I still ride that bike all the time.

Beginnings have always fascinated me, especially when the beginning looks so different than the final result. Many of us know skates, and can speak at length about the relative merits of this brand vs. that brand; but how many can picture the embryology of skates? Cool stuff, thanks Bruce….

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Filed under: from home

So wave your hands in the air
Bust through the moves
Run your fingers through your hair
This is it for a winner
Dance to this and you’re gonna get thinner!!!

-M.C. Hammer: Can’t Touch this.

Hovering in front of brilliant trees and blue sky on the corner next to my house, this graffiti cracks me up every time I pass.

A college student when “Can’t touch this” was a hit in 1990, I used to dance my brains out (badly) to this song.

Wikipedia contains many cultural references to “hammertime”. But they completely miss the bicyle racing useage; to most two-wheeled athletes, going really hard is “hammering”, and “hammertime” means the race is ON.

I can’t think of an equivalent speedskating expression. Years ago I heard Kip Carpenter once call going really fast “roasting your pair” (legs? or your opponent on the track?), but that does not have the same ring.

Don’t laugh at M.C. Hammer, he currently has a blog where he writes haiku like entries about his faith, and the things he sees all around him.

Looking at these lyrics, I never considered the weight-loss benefits surrounding “hammertime”, but think of how many calories have been lost during this song! Maybe America’s looming obesity nightmare can be solved through strong doses of “Hammertime” “Groove is in the Heart” and “Everybody Dance Now“. Maybe it’s our national lack of these qualities that contributes to the problem.

I am writing to you all on an off day from training, a truly needed off day too… The last two weeks have been craptastically hard. But walking to the coffee shop with my hands in my pockets against the chilly fall air, I can tell my hip flexors have much more size and definition than any other year of racing I have ever done.

This time of the year, it’s all about refining race fitness & taking speedskating specific musculature to new levels. I hope all this hard work, this circular roasting hammertime, will take me to the next step.

Meanwhile in Missouri, the artisan who built Apollo Anton Ohno’s skates continues working on my new boots. It looks like the molds of my feet have been sprayed with some magical, pink substance. Hmmm.. maybe liquid Hammertime???

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Filed under: from the coffee shop

There is some color now in Salt Lake, no true leaf piles to speak of, but underneath certain trees one can shuffle along ankle deep in the leaves, or relax in them and watch the squirrels overhead madly preparing for hibernation.

Hibernation would be a good idea if winter sports weren’t such a blast. Ever since I was a kid freezing my butt off at crack-o-dawn outdoor hockey practices, fall & winter has always meant sports.

Mom & Dad, thanks for driving me to all those pre-sunrise practices & games. As a kid, I selfishly expected nothing other than total parental devotion. As an adult, I realize how much that must have sucked. My brother and I agree you are some of the best parents ever…

I am still using many of my hockey skills on a daily basis, not the checking or the slapshots, but everything else, as for those skills–

Ya’know you are in for it, when the coach brings the trash can right out to the ice, opens the lid, and announces before the workout “some of you may need this today”. This created some nervous laughter in our group, because he was right…

That particular day was one of the hardest things I have ever done on skates, and although no one puked, many (myself included) were dazed & retching between sets.

Scott has promised our group some of the hardest weeks of training of our lives. Often as the “old fart” on a team of extremely talented young guns, I wonder how my body will recover on a daily/weekly basis from the volume & intensity we do. Even though I am older than the parents of some of my fellow skaters, so far, so good. In fact, I feel stronger than ever.

But all work and no play makes a man a dull, so this past weekend I went to see the Australian Pink Floyd show with some friends. Jannicke took these pictures, and gave me permission to re-print them.

I have seen the REAL Pink Floyd twice, and this is my second time seeing the Aussie Floyd Show, and they are just as good.

How good are they? I have never seen a 75 foot tall angry gyrating pink Kangaroo before, and I bet you haven’t either. There also was a giant floating pig with glowing eyes, the first time I saw Aussie Floyd, they had an airplane crash into the stage just like floyd does.

Over 8,000 people were there, most of us singing along with every word.

Why is it that some music just bypasses all your defenses, and resonates right with your guts? Floyd hit my soul like a bomb when I was 13, and even though 22 years have passed since, it still moves me like nothing else.

If you should go skating
On the thin ice of modern life
Dragging behind you the silent reproach
Of a million tear-stained eyes
Don’t be surprised when a crack in the ice
Appears under your feet.
You slip out of your depth and out of your mind
With your fear flowing out behind you
As you claw the thin ice.


The thin ice, from the Album “The Wall”

Pink Floyd’s music is not woven from the happiest stuff, but sometimes neither is real life.

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Filed under: from the coffee shop