Davos Days –Racing!
The ice in Davos is a unique surface. It gets incredibly cold at night, so it’s really hard, yet once the mountain sun hits it in the morning, the top softens over a hard bottom layer, so combines grip and excellent glide. The air is also 5,000 feet thin… Combine this with some pretty decent ice techs, and this can be an awfully fast place to race.
During training, it felt like the top speeds were higher than Hamar, but its still outdoors, and so you don’t coast as well, and even slight winds can slow times dramatically. So I was unsure what to expect.
There were several records I had shots at during this race weekend, the two I set in Hamar last week, 37.93 in the 500m, and 1:16.11 in the 1000m. Dutch Skater Ledo Beeksma has the 1500m record at 1:58.9, and he also has the small allaround samalong record
Translation for non-speedskaters: a
Since Hamar I have been changing some of the mechanics of my arm swing, and I am very happy with the slight timing changes I feel. You don’t skate with your arms, & you don’t need arm strength to be a good speedskater, but the path your arms travel impacts how your legs transfer power into the ice, and more importantly for me, it affects your timing of how fast you step from foot to foot.
So I go to the 500m start line happy, confident. There were a few Swiss national team skaters before me, in addition to the masters racing. One of the Swiss skates a 38.12 500m, supposedly a new Swiss national record (he was very happy), hmmm, cool. I roughly expect a 38.4 from myself, as I have never gone faster than 39.01 outdoors. Soon it’s my turn to be called to the line.
I bust off my best technical & physical start in weeks, 10.44, I have a minor slip in the first corner. I hit a very high top speed in the backstretch, you can see that I have picked up some jedi skills and briefly turned my skate blades into a light sabre! (it’s just the sun, but quite cool looking!).
Finally I skate a clean final outer turn! I focus on the new arm swing in the last 100m, and I feel excellent pressure every step of the way.
I cross the line and see 37.81 !!!!! FASTER THAN HAMAR! AND A NEW RECORD!
I do a little celebrating of my own, as I was quite surprised. I don’t hide my emotions too much when I am on the ice. Jessica gives me some good natured kidding afterwards “Too bad you are not Swiss!”. As an added bonus, my time is .2 faster than my lake placid Yoda, Pat Kelly’s time of 38 flat. Pat said he slipped awfully at the start. He still opened in 10.31 though! I wish I went that fast when I slip.
The less that is said about the 1500m I raced later that afternoon, the better. I really have not trained for that distance at all, and have not raced one this year. My plan was to start slow and work the corners after 800m. What happened was I went very fast for 700m and built up a lethal dose of lactic acid, and was utterly shattered with 500m still to go. I faded by 5 seconds in the final lap, only slightly faster than if I had simply coasted along, and finished in 2:02, well outside the record. Pat skated a great looking, controlled race to just nose under the 2 minute mark. 1:59 something, a new age group record for him.
In the overall classification for all the masters racing in Davos, Pat and I were #1 and #2 in the standings, even though we are in different age groups, as I am 35 and he is 42. So we would definitely be paired together on the next day. I must admit to being a little intimidated. After all, the 1000m tomorrow is Pat’s specialty, he finished 6th in the 1994 Olympics the year Jansen won his gold.
Tomorrow seemed like it arrived in no time (even though Jessica, Becky and I had a fantastic party with our new Italian friends, they deserve a whole blog post of their own one of these days).
Sure enough, on the start list, there are Pat and I set together for the 1000m. The ice is still good, not quite as fast as yesterday, but smoother. By the time the 1000m came along, the sun was quite hot & beginning to soften things up a bit.
Pat has his game face on, they call us to the line, Him on the inner, me on the outer. BANG! I shoot off the line very well, but part way through the first turn, Pat comes sailing by me with a world-class sub 17 start. Grrrrr! I hit the first straightaway absolutely raging, in dramatic contrast to Pat’s control & smooth tempo. He is faster than me to 200m, but I pass him before the second turn, and accelerate the turn crazy hard.
A huge thank you goes out to my italian buddy Paolo Gemme for this fantastic shot of this moment. You can see Pat’s hips really in the turn, and I am not so precise.
Coming into the backstretch, I see the perfect draft! Starting on the outer in the 1000m often sucks, except when you manage to get that perfect draft at that perfect moment, like right now.
I am able to pick up a ton of speed as I get a beautiful draft. You can see here the subtle contrast in body position between his top speed relaxed groove and the intense effort of my style. I shoot through Pat’s draft, pass him, hit the fast inner turn and can barely hold the corner I am going so fast. Even though I can toss 450lbs around on the squat rack, it’s hard to extend my legs against the intense pressures of this speed. I get the bell for the final lap 15 meters ahead, I feel good today, and hit the crucial second to last turn pretty well.
My legs begin to lock up in the backstretch in the same old spot, in the final outer turn, I slow down dramatically, exiting the turn, I can hear the clap-clap-clap of the Pat Kelly tractor beam chasing me down. I drive with everything I have over the last 50 meters, my mouth hanging open in a desperate attempt to suck oxygen to my screaming legs.
I barely beat Pat to the line by a few meters, Again I am faster than Hamar, 1:15.95!! Pat right behind at 1:16.52. Our splits were a contrast in style I skated like a 17.14, 27.0, then a 31.81! an ouchy 4.8 second fade! Gotta love racing outdoors! Pat was something like 16.97, 29.3, 30.12.! Totally different approaches to a 1000. I am always faster when I just burn everything I have in the first 600m, as much as it looks bad on paper.
Later that day, we are paired together again for the 3k. Pat is already thinking ahead to Masters world allaround champs in Finland later this year, and needs to test himself by skating a fast 3k, as that will be the make or break distance for him. I just want to survive the 7.5 laps without puking on myself!! As this is a distance I REALLY don’t train for! Distance racing is its own unique beast. I can hear allarounders & marathon skaters laughing at me for fearing a 3k, and this fast-twitch fella deserves every bit of it!
Pat takes off hard from the gun. With Jessica yelling lap times and encouragement to me, I skate my own, much slower race, and manage consistent 36.9 second laps. That was as fast as I am capable of going. I tried to build the corners hard on the last 2 laps, but the legs started locking and I slowed down to 38’s. Final time of 4:44, and I was satisfied, as that is 18 seconds faster than the last 3,000 meter I raced over 2 years ago.
Pat beat me by quite a bit in the 3k, and won the overall masters’ samalong. We are in separate age categories though, and both set new samalong records in the 500-1000-1500-3000 combinations in our age groups. Yay for us!
Ugh, its late, I need to go to sleep. Thanks for reading.
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Filed under: on the road, sweat
We arrived in Davos, and the next morning, after Jess and Becky left for some downhill skiing, I walked the 800 meters to the rink for a warm-up skate. A large crowd of skaters is here from all over Europe. Here is a Norwegian and a Dutch Skater chatting about equipment. For you equipment-obsessed skaters, I see the Euro-Masters skating overwhelmingly on Vikings, with a smattering of Raps. The Germans are the only ones I see using custom molded carbon fiber boots like most US skaters. Especially a brand called SEUSS. I don’t think I have seen a single skater on the maple aluminum tube blades that are so common in the USA & Canada.
Pat is a great guy, and a technically outstanding skater. Here he is enjoying the sun during a textbook Davos day. He has some really great memories of competing here during his time on the world cup circuit. His wife was an Olympic figure skater, and as Pat and I were zipping around the track, Karen was doing jumps and spins on the inside. Skating is such an addictive sport.
I write this from the train from Hamar to Oslo, looking out the windows at a new, but quite familiar landscape. The rolling glacier cut hills, farms, evergreens, steeply roofed houses (a sure sign of heavy snowfall areas), farm equipment, lakes and rivers, are identical to the green and hilly parts of upstate New York that are my ancestral stomping grounds (both personally, and for many generations of Loves). 
1. Cell phone quiet areas
3. Cigarettes=Death
Very common on the streets of Hamar, I saw many 50+ year olds gliding about commuting on these. On uphills you just push it like a shopping cart, on downhills, you stand with your feet on the runners and coast, and on the flats, one foot is on the runner, and you kick it along like a skateboard. Two kicks, switch runner, two kicks, switch runner. 
10. 
Off the line well! The first 1000m turn is only 60 meters from the start, so its tricky, but I hit it and then the first straightaway with EVERYTHING. Second turn went great too, I thought I heard the announcer say “Andrew Love, 200m 17.09” Wow! That is fastest ever if I heard that right! Third turn also was great, Drive the straightaway and I hear the bell for the final lap. It’s hurting now, I accelerate the fourth turn much better than yesterday. I am on a good race. I dive into the last 200m and my skating begins to rip apart like a meteor entering the earth’s atmosphere. 
When the gun goes off, I get off the line well, hit the tricky first corner and snap through it perfectly. Two arms till 250 meters, then one arm and drive, second corner goes well. I am at maximum speed in the backstretch, in the third corner it starts to hurt. The picture here is from my fastest 1000m at Olympic trials, but at basically the same moment.
Top Norwegian Speedskater & 3k world record holder 
