Happenings of late

Things have been going well lately, I've made a major breakthrough in my skating, and the last two clinics with Sue have been extremely good. According to her, in each of the last two clinics I've made bigger advances than she's ever seen before. Of course there's still a ton to learn, but it's good to get some feedback that I'm moving forward.

One thing I can say for sure is I'm feeling much more confident and stable at higher speeds, and my pushes are much more smooth. It's a great feeling.

Oh, and Coach Dave Rondot came up with a new drill that is awesome, and stupid fun. He calls it the corkscrew, basically you take one lap on the outside by the boards just to get up to speed, one lap on track building up your speed, and one lap cutting inside the track right after the first block, pivoting to make the turn as hard as you can. The pivot is the absolute most fun part of this drill, the feeling of power is absolutely incredible. It kinda makes me realize there's more power left that I could be using just by adding a little bit extra lean.

On another note, an article I wrote for the Crossfit Journal (www.crossfit.com) about Andrew Astalos was published in the April issue. Andrew trains with us at my facility, Motor City Crossfit, and has been doing incredible lately.

Quick update

I don't get around to posting on here very much. Nevertheless, things are getting better and better. I've made a couple recent breakthroughs, and Sue Ellis said that this last clinic she saw me at was my best yet, where she saw the most dramatic changes. So, that's obviously a good thing.

Unfortunately I goofed some things up in my training and didn't do much of an off-ice workout due to my sleep (well, lack of sleep) schedule. I've found that if I don't get enough rest, it's next to impossible to skate well, and I just end up going backwards. So it's been lots of praying every night "God, please PLEASE let the kids sleep through the night". It's been much better lately though. So anyhow, yeah, I goofed some things up in my off-ice training, and then went down to a facility in Ann Arbor to train with them Wednesday night, did their Olympic Lifting class then their standard class after that. Unfortuantely after not really working hard off-ice for 2 weeks, that workout was actually pretty hard on me. Put it this way, part of the warmup for the second class was pretty much 8 minutes straight of lunges (lunges to the other side of the room, jog back). That was the beginning of the warmup. Yeah, that gives you an idea of what I do to train.

And if any of you out there doubt it, come on out and try one of my workouts, we'll compare our time to complete (that's usually how we measure 'em around here).

Anyhow... that workout resulted in DOMS (google if it if you don't know), that was Wednesday, then on Thursday I was fairly sore, and Friday, um, sore didn't describe it. Saturday was still pretty stiff, and today (Sunday), I'm feeling much better, but still sore, so I did another workout (come on, haven't done a good one since Wednesday...) I feel pretty good. And I'm gonna skate tomorrow, so I feel even better.

I AM still alive...

Just an FYI, I am still alive, although I haven't posted on here it seems since Noah walked the earth...

Just been plugging away, skating whenever the club has ice, and whenever the arena has an open ice time, like public skate (which hasn't been on a regular basis, which is kinda weird, but I guess that's why nobody shows up for their public skate sessions). I use those open ice times to work on basics, and typically will skate a "3000m" (I put it in quotes because I don't actually have a track laid out for it, but it's close).

Just been learning lots of things. Lately I've been working on fully extending the right consistently in the corners, and landing the left properly then pushing it through smoothly, so I'm not on the right for, say 1 second, and the left for only .5 seconds, but rather 1 second right, 1 second left. Get it?

Andrew Astalos in the news

One of our club's skaters, Andrew Astalos, was recently featured in a newspaper article for his accomplishments and ability in speedskating. You can check out the article here:
Speed skater Andrew Astalos in the news

Times keep dropping (again)

We had an extra day of skating on Monday, some skaters had some extra time on that day due to the Martin Luther King holiday. So we went out to the arena, and ended up doing a "long" workout (by "long" I mean Sue Ellis long, which in this case for the particular skaters it's geared towards, means 9 laps, because Sue focuses on technique more than conditioning, if you've got bad technique, why pound out lap after lap of bad technique and reinforce bad habits?)

Anyhow, in the middle of it, we made one of the sets into a 9-lap "race" type time trial. One of our skaters needs to get her time down a little bit to skate in the women's senior division at Nationals this year. She can probably skate it fine, but just needs to get the time officially. So, we set out to get her her time. I skated it with them, and ended up a little less than a half lap behind. Only problem was, I think we ended up skating an extra lap, because the time the timer showed on the stopwatch was 1:57, and there was no WAY that they had only done a 1:57. Unfortunately also, he didn't get all the laps, so we couldn't count them to see, but the ones he did get were early laps, and they were low 12's, and we sped up from there, which leads us to believe that we did an extra lap, at around 12 seconds or so. If that's the case, then they did a 1:45 1000m time, which would be a personal best for both skaters who did it, and me, being less than a half lap behind, would put me at 1:52 or so, which is another 11 seconds off of my 1000m time. Only thing is, I can't "officially" say that because we didn't get my exact time.

But, I definitely think that I can get into the mid 1:40's at this point, and if I can fix a few things and get consistent, I'll probably be at least low 1:40's. To qualify to skate senior division for Nationals, I need a 1:38. It's only a matter of time before I get there, but I *really* think I can pull it off if I keep improving as fast as I've been. It's a great feeling, it seems that every week there's another person in the club that I can keep up with, then next week pass them, then the next week pass with ease. As soon as I can pass the lady who is one of the top 1% skaters in Canada, then I know I'm getting close.

I am still alive...

It's been a long long long time since I've posted on here. Been pretty crazy around here lately, especially the last 3 months with our new addition to the house, our little boy, who thinks night time is for wakey-time. Thankfully, my wife has been taking care of him as much as she can in the nights, and I've been trying to help out here and there in the mornings and evenings, and sometimes at lunch time when I can make it home between my workout schedule (lunches are usually for doing my intervals, or running, or leg strength workouts, etc...)

But, things have been progressing, I went to a meet in London, Ontario this past weekend, and ended up placing 5th out of 11 in my class, which was about to be expected. The 4 people ahead of me were putting down 55 second 500 times consistently, and my best to date was only 59 second or so (although I know I can do much better if I skate well). The other 6 people were all 60 seconds and above. I ended up placing 5th in the 666m and 777m A-finals, and 1st in the 500m B-final, where I had to make a pass on a girl who was absolutely flying off the line at the start. I mean, I was in 2nd position, she was in 4th on the outside, and she beat me to the line. I've got a quick start, but it's been hampered lately since I got my new 17.5" KR-Spec Bont Platinum blades, I've got an extra 1/4" on both ends of the blades, and then the KR-spec sets them 1cm farther forward, so I've got over a half inch extra blade out front that I'm still getting used to on the starts. Heck, on the first start I did with these blades, I nearly planted the front of my right blade into the ice.

Anyhow, the results are listed here. I'm in Charlie group. If you look at our group, you can also see another skater, Alexandra Patterson, from our club, she's a former figure skater and is doing excellent transitioning to speed skating. When I first started she still skated with a figure skating technique, but she's gotten way better, and now you can't even tell she's been a figure skater all her life, she looks like a veteran speed skater. And let me tell you, she's tough as nails. She'll skate a 3000m like it's nothing. She's still working on getting good at starts, but in every shorter race I've seen her in, she's been reeling in the people in front of her, and in the longer races (like the 1000m), she's able to pass and win, in front of skaters who are technically "faster" than her, but don't have her endurance.

Speaking of the 1000m, she won it (although it's not in the official protocol), and I ended up shaving off 11 seconds from my previous 1000m time (not bad huh?) I ended up skating a 2:03.25, where my previous was 2:14.something... What happened was, I finally was able to correct one of the key things I was doing wrong. Basically, I looked at some pictures of myself from the Badger meet back in October, and saw that I was leaning in with my lower body ok, but my upper body was sitting upright, making a sort of "V" shape with my body. Speedskaters know this as "hips in, shoulders out", but whatever you call it, it is a tremendous waste of power, as it tends to throw you back on your hips, and also shifts your weight to your heels, which will send you flying into the boards. Plus, I think it keeps your weight farther to the inside, which prevents you from being able to really use your weight in your push (and instead need to use only your leg muscles to do it).

Unfortunately, when I started the 1000m, I took it easy off the line, thinking I wasn't as fast as the rest of the group. So I immediately started losing them, but at about the 2nd lap, I figured out how to keep in line, and use my weight, and immediately felt an increase in speed. As a matter of fact, I was catching back up to the group, who were about 1/3 lap ahead of me by now, and I wasn't really pushing myself all that hard. For a moment I thought about trying to catch back up to them, but for whatever reason decided not to. About halfway through the race however, I started getting tired, and they started pulling on me, up to about 2/3 lap ahead at the end. But I think that if I had kept up with the group, I could have pulled under a 2:00 1000m time, possibly hanging with their 1:55's or so. Now that would've been quite the jump from my previous times. But, next time I'll know. I think in practice, I'm going to try to do a 9 lap with Alex (Alexandra), and see if I can stay behind her the whole time. That'd put me down around 1:52 or so. I think I can do it, just need some more practice.

And with that, I'm going to start getting ready for Sue Ellis's camp in Milwaukee from the 27th to the 30th. It's going to be a great time, and she should be able to help me correct some more things, and really pick up some speed.

October 25 update

I'm still working on putting together that whole "Technique update" page, but I wanted to write down a couple things to record and remember.

I skated out this morning, not too many people were there. Actually there was 3 of us total, so we only put up pads on 1/2 of the rink. But this was also good, because I wanted to work on my lay-in, and we put up two extra pads on the one side so I could do that.

I need to make sure I keep in mind that I need to keep in the basic position, butt tucked and chest down. My chest was popping up a little bit, which brought my weight to the heels, and I think my chest MAY have been popping up because my butt was coming un-tucked, which *started* to bring my weight to my toes, and to compensate I think I unconsciously brought my chest up, which brought me to my heels, and felt really really crappy. So, I think if I keep my butt tucked, my chest might not rise at all.

I found out that I CAN do the continuance of the lay-in on the left skate (basically, meaning that I start the corner lay-in right after the left leg finishes its straighaway push, (do a complete left leg straightaway push, making SURE I complete all the way through to the ankle, so that my ankle angle on the left should be fully extended, that will help you relieve tension in your right ankle and will help to drive your weight forward to the ball on your right leg). Do a long, patient recovery with the left leg (I need to remember to focus on this), give a firm, consistent push with the right leg (don't just let it move through the motions and hardly push), drive the left leg up towards my chest while I'm still laying in, and DON'T SET DOWN THE LEFT SKATE, but rather just wait for it to hit the ice because my right leg push is ~99% complete and I'm leaning in more and more as I finish it. Then when the left skate hits the ice, my left hand is going to be coming down towards the ice (to catch myself? balance? I dunno), and on the left skate, I need to remember to lean FORWARD and diagonal still, and give a FIRM, consistent push with the left skate, not just let it sit there. If I let it sit there, I'm way off balance. So, firm, consistent push with the left skate, body moving forward and in at a 45 degree angle, left hand hits the ice, glides for just a second as I pass the 3rd, 4th, and 5th blocks (roughly, maybe a little earlier, maybe a little later, I'm still learning this part), then start pushing again and I don't need to keep my hand on the ice. If I keep it there too long, I come back to my heels and fall.

Ok, so now I've got my notes down, I've gotta remember to review this.
So, in short:
Keep the butt tucked, that should prevent me from overcompensating by bringing my chest up.
On the lay-in, do a complete left leg push, MAKING SURE you complete all the way through the ankle, with a good recovery, and start the lay-in as soon as the left skate leaves the ice.
Give a firm push on the right skate, and ride it completely.
Drive the left leg up towards my chest, and DON'T set it down. Let it hit the ice because you're leaning in and pushing on the right skate so much. Complete the right leg push (should I also make sure I complete the right leg push through to the ankle, flicking it like I do on the straight, and ending up with a completely extended ankle angle?)
Once the left hits the ice, give a firm push with the left leg, and continue to lean forward and into the corner at a 45 degree angle.
As I'm leaning forward and into the corner, I will drive my right knee up towards my chest (and forward a little?). Make SURE I don't set down the right skate, but rather let it hit the ice when my left leg push is complete.
Once I complete the left leg push (all the way through the ankle again?), my hand is on the ice by now, and begin the pivot (once I learn how to pivot, and am going fast enough that I need to pivot).
Remember to drive the legs towards my chest through the entire corner, never setting them down on their own.

It's been a while

Man, it's been a long time since I've posted on here. Every time I get ready to make a new post, something sidetracks me and it's another two weeks before I remember. But, there's a lot that's been going on.

I just got back from my second Ellis Edge clinic, this time in Midland, MI. It was an absolute blast. I came in thinking I was skating pretty good, and left realizing a ton of little things that have made me more consistent and powerful, and a ton of other things that I've still got to work on. It's a long process. I can now see why Al Izykowski (Alex's dad) said that speed skating is the most technically challenging thing he's ever done. I think it's about on the same technical level as golf. It takes a lot of practice and repetition, and once you get it down, when you're performing at your peak technique, it looks like you're hardly putting in any effort.

I'm going to chronicle what I've learned, and still need to learn here, so that I can come back here any time and review what I should be doing, working on, and keeping in mind.

Matter of fact, I think I'm going to make a whole new post, and keep editing it over time to keep it up to date.

Went a campin' this weekend (again)

This past weekend I went to another speedskating camp, although this time the camp came to me. Wolverine Speedskating Team brought in Sue Ellis (www.ellisedge.com), the 2002 US Olympic Short Track Coach for a clinic. It was absolutely INCREDIBLE. I had been talking with Sue for a while now online, as she VERY freely gives her advice, thanks to her love for the sport and love to see people learn and excel in all types of skating, short or long track, as well as hockey. She's even helped a few inliners, although from what I understand, her normal technique puts so much pressure down to the ice that it doesn't transition too well to inline, as you'd just slip on your wheels. There's no problem like that with ice though, since you've got a huge blade biting into the ice, and it's not going to slip.

Anyhow, I've got a lot to say about the camp, and what I learned, but no time for it right now, dinner calls.

Goin' a camping this weekend

Speedskating camp that is. There's a regional development camp in Cleveland (my hometown by the way), put on by the Ohio Speedskating Association. Hopefully Cleveland Heights got some more pads for their arena since last time I was down there. I don't think I mentioned it, but they've got 8 less pads than we do, and they're not quite enough to cover the whole "spill zone" (that's where I often hit the pads). And last time I was down there, I took a spill into the boards on the corner entry. Sad thing was, my kneepad slid a little bit, and I hit the wall with my knee, literally like 2 feet from the pads. It sucked. A lot. I don't think I really hurt anything, but I was pretty sore getting up after about 20 seconds of waiting there, and I got this horrid scab on my knee from it (I guess I hit at an angle), and it's still there after, what, a month it's been I think?

Anyhow, hopefully they've resolved this little "issue". Nobody else has a problem with it, but little 'ol me who's got a tendency to suddenly stop turning and go straight ahead, I like to have as many pads around as I can. I heard they're supposed to be getting some more pads, but I couldn't get a hold of anyone to confirm or not. Either way, I'm going to have a good time. I get more and more stable every time I'm out there, so the pads become less and less of an issue. But it's always good to have them there when you need them, that's for sure.

The camp should be a good experience for me. I haven't been able to get out on the ice during lunchtime lately, I've been working right through lunch (I really need to retire from my job, and get that out of the way). I'm trying to stay as close to the Sue Ellis technique as I can, that's what our coaches at our club teach by, and hopefully the instructor at the clinic uses the same technique.

Anyhow, I think right now I'm just babbling and trying to find something to write, so, I'm done. Talk at you later, I'll let you know how the weekend goes.