End of the Season Results
Well, now that the season is over I can reflect on what I did right, what I did wrong and what needs to be changed heading into next season. There was a definite lesson learned with respect to summer training and the importance of speed skating specific dryland training (versus the combination of biking/running). Granted, the change in my summer training last year was brought on by an injury, still, it made me realize what the proper training does for one’s season. As I suffered in several of the 1500, 3000 and 5000 races that I had this season. And it wasn’t a struggle because I was breathing heavy, or becuase I was not in shape so to speak. It was because my legs weren’t in shape for speed skating, and they didn’t want to finish the race… it’s a bad feeling when you don’t think your legs are going to hold you up anymore… and you have a few hundred meters to the finish line. A bad feeling.
Anyway, this last meet was a success in that I ened the season with three personal bests, missed a fourth by .8 seconds, and missed a fifth best when my legs collapsed and I went sliding into the mats with 100m to go in my 1500 (it was looking like a pb by about 3 seconds according one of the guys I practice with). I did get to reskate it, and finished with a season best, but reskating the 1500 is not a good idea… I learned that the hard way. The times are not where I want them to be right now, not too ecstatic about that. The upside is that one month ago I honestly didn’t think I was going to match my times in Calgary from last season…. my legs just felt that bad. But with a good hard month of training, and a few pointers, I was able to lower my times to the point where I feel like I can at least take something positive from this season into next season.
Now, time to take a month off… and to stop giving all my money to those crooks at Mobil. A couple of weeks to veg, couple of weeks to plan. Then, to string together 11 months that are just as productive as the last one… next year the results will be there.
American Cup Times:
500M #1 - 43.16, 1500M - 2:13:14
500M #2 - 43.07, 5000M - 8:17:09
1000M - 1:24:96
