<- Left Turns Only!

Where to begin… time to play catch-up….

The first weekend of the month brought us a brand new Masters Sprint event that was held at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee.  It was the dubbed the “1st American Masters Sprint” - a new event that will hopefully continue to be held on an annual basis.  The event was held in the same fashion as any other sprint event, with two race distances - 500m and 1000m - being skated both days.  There were 33 skaters that represented the various male and female age groups, sectioned off in 5 year increments. 

A good percentage of the skaters at the event were also at the Masters International Games that were held in Calgary last February.  That meet created such a great atmosphere, you really got the sense that the Masters events are going to continue to grow in the years to come…. which is encouraging since I’m “of age.” 

Anyway, the races were a huge success.  The Pettit did a great job of getting things coordinated so that regular time trials could also be held that weekend.  Andrew Love, and several others, did a great job putting together the results and making sure all participants had a great time.  Everyone that attended the annual party at Olu’s house enjoyed the food, drink (in moderation of course), and the annual speed skating viewing.  If there’s race footage out there, Olu has figured out a way to download it and make it viewable on his big screen.  Makes for a good time, especially when you can hook up a camcorder and watch footage our races that morning.  On a personal note, my 500s were nothing special that weekend, but I did manage to set personal bests on both days in my 1000m - lowering my PB by 1.3 seconds

Over the next two weekends I skated pack meets at the Pettit.  I don’t keep track of my pack times.  I have an excel spreadsheet of all of my metric races (yes, I know, some of you are not surprised by that!) but I don’t tend to worry about my pack times - too many variables involved.  I just try to beat my metric times in those races, since you get to skate inner turns on all the corners you should be faster in a pack race… not to mention the ability to draft off of others. 

Outside of the rink, I can’t say that I have ever been anywhere when the temperature went from 51 degrees (F) to 3 degrees in the same day, at least not without my changing elevation.  Not until yesterday, that is.  Amazing to be outside in a long sleeve t-shirt at 11am, then require a coat, hat and gloves to not freeze to death at 4pm.  Such is the weather this time of year.  Hopefully, it doesn’t get that cold in Lake Placid this weekend.  I’m making my way back east Friday morning for Long Track (pack) Nationals.  I’m pretty excited about going to Lake Placid, but won’t pretend to hide the fact that I really have little to no interest in pack racing.  I’ll take metric races any day of the week.  Anyway, I’m really looking forward to checking out the track (only my second time racing outdoors) and seeing the other Olympic venues from the 1980 games.  Which, it pretty much goes without saying, are most well-known for the “Miracle on Ice” hockey game (and Eric Heiden’s 5 golds in speedskating).  I’ll have my camera and will post some pics when I get back.

Time trials were canceled last weekend, so the ice was open for practice on Saturday and Sunday.  This weekend is the first American Masters Sprint competition.  There are only 33 skaters signed up, hopefully the event will grow in future years.  They run Masters (30 years old and up) meets throughout Europe, you can see a schedule here.

We continue to get more snow, although it is supposed to warm up this weekend and into next week…. hopefully it melts the snow off of the streets/sidewalks.  That said, I may be off to Las Vegas next week for work.  It hasn’t been decided yet - the boss is out until Friday.  It looks like I’m going though.  Bad timing, this is the kind of trip I need when a taper week starts… not right after New Year’s when I’m geared up to hammer out the next two months!

Anyway…. nothing really exciting to report from Milwaukee and Chicago.  I’m the proud owner of a new car battery.  Luckily, the old one died while I was parked overnight in Chicago.  There’s a mechanic’s shop two blocks away from my apartment there, and on this particular morning I happened to be parked about four car lengths from their door.  I think that makes up for this summer’s tire blowout/fiasco.     Since it was snowing like crazy when I left the house on Friday morning, the last thing I wanted to do was stand around playing with the car. 

Hope everyone enjoyed ‘07 and is looking forward to a great ‘08!