<- 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!

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday time. 

Last weekend training was limited to time trials on Saturday.  I was slightly off my season and personal bests.  Posting a 43.83 in the 500M, .06 slower than my best 500 to date.  My 1500 was just over a half second slower than my season best, coming in at 2:15:41.  The encouraging part of the 1500 was that my opener and first lap were personal bests… now I need to keep putting in more laps, and get my legs in shape to finish out the last two laps strong(er).

This weekend is the same schedule (hopefully), time trials on Saturday and open ice on Sunday.  I’m not sure if the Pettit Center is having time trials on Saturday yet… conflicting reports between their time trial schedule, and their ice schedule.  Only one way to find out - time to call to see if I can register for them.

They were kind enough to post the January and February open ice times this week…. preventing my OCD from going into hyperdrive.  (I need to know my schedule people!!!  Even if it does change on a daily basis!)  So, as the end of the week, and the end of the year, approaches us it is time to take the time to “clean house” and get situated for the new year.

Earlier this week I helped paint the track for the upcoming short track event here in Chicago.  Mayor Daley’s Speed Skating Classic will be held on January 27th, 2008 at the McFetridge Sports Center.  Here is a quick behind the scenes look at how the track gets laid out for an event.

Here are a few quick shots of the rink at McFetridge, before we drilled holes in the ice and poured in the paint for the blocks and start lines.

Here is picture of our guide to laying out the blocks.  As you can see, there’s some paint on the sheet from it being used over the years…  I’ve highlighted the areas that we need to drill into the ice, and fill with paint, with red outlines (the blocks and starting/finish lines).  Also, you’ll notice the red triangle that I inserted on the right hand side.  Once we take the meausurements of the rink, we measure to a center point to traingulate from - then we use that point to layout the track/blocks. 

Here I am at Center Ice, as we take the exact measurements of the rink from Board-to-Board.  The ice ended up mearsuring out to 100′ x 85′ 5-1/2″.

From here we started our meassurements.  Two pics below - first pic is after I set the center (triangulating) point, as Peter and Carl prepared to set the first block.  The second shows them measuring out the distance to the first block from the starting line, as Elise holds the tape measure at the starting line.

I had my camera in my pocket as we did the trinagulating so I didn’t get any shots of the tape measures crossing each other to find each point where a block should go… sorry, I know you were all looking forward to those pics! 

So, skipping ahead, here you can see the end result.  Three tracks and starting lines, almost ready for racing… once the zamboni does a drive by and shaves off the extra paint.  Because this is a smaller event there are only three tracks painted.  For those unfamiliar with the sport of short track speedskating, the ice can get chewed up very fast during races.  So the track (blocks) are moved from one set of dots to the next after almost every race.  Water is poured onto the ice frequently during a race day, and there are resurface breaks, all to help prevent the track from becoming too choppy.  Best analogy I can think of is to ask you to imagine what the baseline looks like at Wimbledon at the end of the final match, now imagine what it would look like if they had three baselines to rotate.  Would probably look a lot better, right?  And they don’t have 18″ blades under their feet! 

Well, it’s been a little over three weeks since my last PT appointment now.  The knee still feels good, but as with any injury there’s always days where you wonder if it’s going to show up again - if even for a fleeting moment.  Like, oh, I don’t know, say the first 30 seconds of a slideboard workout when you aren’t quite warmed up enough…

This past weekend I skated time trials on Saturday and Sunday.  On Saturday, my 500M time was 44.4X.  Not sure of the exact finishing time (it’s not posted on the Pettit site yet either).  It was a pretty sloppy event… started in the outer lane and didn’t get off to a good opening 100M.   Which translated into a slow outer turn.  My inner turns are much better right now, especially after the first 100M.  I didn’t get into a groove until I was about 250M into the race, so there wasn’t much chance to set a personal on this day.  In the 1500M, I got off the line well, and the first two laps felt good.  Since I don’t have the lap times, I only know that the race ended up a 2:14:XX (67, I think).  Small improvement over the first two 1500 of the season (2:16:12, then a 2:15:50).  Hoping to put up something better this weekend - as I still haven’t finished a 1500M race strong yet this season.  Still trying to get my legs in the shape they should be in after light workouts while doing PT throughout October/Novemeber. 

Sunday was a decent day as far as my times went.  I skated a 1000M and a 3000M.  Set Pettit personal bests in both races.  I finished the 1000 in 1:29:21, my first trip below 1:30 at the Pettit.  And finished the 3K in 4:56:50.  I think that was only a personal best by about .4 - but hey, it’s still a personal best. 

I worked on my starts quite a bit after both days of racing.  I’m shooting for a sub 11 start by the end of the season, and lap times that are in the 29.00 range for the 500.  We’ll see.

Not quite the 12 days of Christmas… 

Anyway, after finally getting back on to write a blog entry, and catch up on lost time, for some reason my last two posts were in a draft folder?!?  So, the two posts that follow this one are from earlier in November (not sure what dates exactly, but they were before Thanksgiving… for all I know they may show up twice after I post this entry!).

Now, to catch up - I spent Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania this year.  Attending my cousin Stephanie’s wedding.  Was a lot of fun, and the trip would have been a money saving endeavor (I chose to drive rather than fly) if it weren’t for the damn Pennsylvania State Police.  I stopped to make friends with one of their nice officers, gave him my autograph, and mailed my check for $145 to help keep their roads in good condition.   

After making my way back to Chicago/Milwaukee, I competed in three pack-style meets over the last three weeks (one was actually the weekend before the wedding).  I’m not a big fan of pack meets, and the kick to the shin, along with a couple of spills during racing only further advanced this love.  The good news is that most of the racing from here on out is metric.  This weekend is the American Cup series in Milwaukee - although U.S. Speedskating has made the process a mess for people to participate, I should be skating a metric short program on Saturday and Sunday (500, 1000, 1500, 3000).  We’ll see…. I’ll know by Friday night.

As for the overdo bonus… I feel the need to share some frustration - last week I got my “annual” bonus from work.  Only it was for 2006, and it was rather small (by the logic of how it was calculated and thus explained to me… has to do with our company’s 401(k)… or I should say the 401(k) that was supposed to be set up last year but hasn’t been yet).  Anyway, now that my boss has finished building the large addition to his house, complete with “bonus room”, he finally paid his employees their, 12-month overdo, under-sized, bonuses.  Thank God there’s no dress code or time clock for me to punch here… or I’d have to start looking around for something else to do. 

Last weekend was the first week of long track racing for me this season.  Although I didn’t feel 100%, as my knee still doesn’t want to fire out of the gate, the results were not bad.  Here are the times for each race (along with my fastest time in Milwaukee from a year ago):

500M - 44.30 (44.73)

1000M - 1:30:42 (1:30:88)

1500M - 2:16:12 (2:13:92)

3000M - 5:00:01 (5:09:93)

Still a LONG way to go, and a lot more conditioning to get my legs back to where they should be.  My physical therapist thinks I should be in good shape by the end of the treatment schedule (next Wednesday), as far as knee pain goes.  I’m not 100% sure of that, but we’ll see.  I’m starting to think this may linger a lot longer than I want it to… judging by the way it felt Sunday morning.

This weekend it’s time trials on Saturday and the first pack meet of the season on Sunday.  In between now and then, it’s back to Short Track practice tonight and Thursday.

Ah, the memories…. Freshman year of college, and I return to my dorm one morning to find my roommate flying paper airplanes out our window.  From our 9th floor dorm room, on the northern edge of the campus, we had a great view of picturesque North Philadelphia.  If you don’t get the sarcasm, not to worry… just don’t put North Philly on your next vacation itinerary.   The only problem on that beautiful sunny day, was that I noticed we were out of our usual airplane flying paper (hey, it was college!).  So, upon scanning the room I noticed that my 3-ring binder of Calculus notes was open.  Yes, needless to say, two chapters of Calculus notes now litered the two blocks north of Hardwick Hall.  Thanks Joe!  (For the record, I only went to four Calculus classes that semester anyway, but pulled off an A-.)

So, it’s with great pleasure that I bring to you the productivity killer of the day:  Flight Simulator

If you make it out the window, it is much prettier than North Philly.

Last night we had another VO2 workout.  I think there is something wrong with the fact that I like the feeling at the end of these 20 minute sets, when you feel like you can’t stand up and you can’t quite breathe!?!?  Then again, I took up speed skating at 28 years old… I know there’s something wrong with me!

I just called to register for time trials tomorrow morning, and was advised to call back after 4pm to make sure they are not canceled.  The minimum number of registered skaters for them to hold time trials used to be 12, I’d imagine it’s still the same number… but there have been a lot of cancellations this year.  More so than in the past two years, or at least it seems like it to me.  Hopefully they will have enough people and I can get my races in (500m and 1500m).

Final note for the day, I’m big on finding things that motivate you/me to do more.  Whether it’s a song, quote, picture, etc… You can’t be 100% motivated all of the time.  Some days it just doesn’t happen.  So, it helps to have things that push you to keep your focus.  As the 2010 Winter Olympics get closer, more things become available about what the host nation is planning to do in Vancouver.  Periodically, I get emails from the Vancouver 2010 website, the email that I got the other day had a great video/song that will be part of Canada’s “Own the Podium 2010″ campaign.  You can read more about it here.  But if you are having a rough day at work, or you need some motivation for that evening workout, I’d suggest visiting this site to see the video.  BELIEVE

Saturday was the first short track meet of the season (for me), I might do another but that all depends on the schedule and whether or not they have time trials scheduled at the Pettit.  As for the race on Saturday, overall it was a productive day.  My times were better in all three races (compared to my only short track times from last November):

Last November 4th-5th (Great Lakes Short Track Meet, my best times in each race)

500M - 57.86, 1000M - 1:57:95, 1500M - 3:03:73

Saturday’s race results (best times)

500M - 56.36, 1000M - 1:53:36, 1500M - 2:55:52

Encouraging first races for the season, even if they are short track.  This upcoming weekend I’ll most likely be doing time trials for the first time this season.  It looks like they are only going to have them on Saturday - if by chance there are time trials on Sunday I might sign up for the Great Lakes Short Track meet (it’s only a one day meet this year, as opposed to two days last year).  We’ll see what the folks at the Pettit decide to do.

In other news, I believe I mentioned in a previous post that our head coach, Carl Cepuran was recognized by U.S. Speed Skating at the end of last season as being the Volunteer Coach of the Year.  This Saturday, something happened that I’m sure he is even more proud of - Carl’s son, Eric Cepuran, qualified to skate the 5000M for the U.S. at the Salt Lake City World Cup event.  I believe it is being held on November 9-11.  I know Eric, and have had the privilege of working out with him once in awhile when he is home during the summer.  He’s an excellent skater (obviously), but he’s also a good person and a great older brother.  Congrats, Eric!  Keep working hard, and see you in Vancouver!!!