Cleaning The Floor

Let me start off by saying:

What a fantastic practice tonight!!

Sure I fell more than I ever did in one single practice...but we can get to that later. I felt strong. I skated well. I worked hard. I did not give up. Oh, and I had fun too.

Practice began with three sets of one lap dropback followed by two sets of one lap dropback in the clockwise direction. The pace was relaxed enough that it was really warm up pace for me. I had a chance to concentrate on skating smooth, pushing properly in the corners, synchronizing strides, track pattern...in short, skating with quality. I completed the first three sets and was happy with how nice the floor was today (thanks guys!). Skating in the reverse direction was sketchy so as soon as I was done with my turn leading, I went to the middle of the floor to work on some basic stuff instead.

Next, we did some mock races with emphasis on passing. Coach AA threw in some variations so keep things interesting. The first race consisted of 30 laps. AA controlled the pace of the first half of the race to ensure the whole group stayed together. In the second half, the fast group took off and the two groups continued to skate at different speed. After the split, I found myself skating with KN, JS, and GN. KN controlled the pace for the most part and I quickly found myself skating at 100% in order to hang on. Honestly, I was too busy trying to keep up so passing was really out of the question. On any other day, I probably would have given up pretty quickly but I was feeling good enough today to keep up. I was exhausted but at least I crossed the line more or less in the group.

The second race was 15 laps with two teams. My role was bascially to stay in the middle and keep passing (don't let the other team get to the front)...hmm, easier said than done. I was up against skaters who are significantly faster than me so staying with the group is a challenge in itself. I didn't really did my job for my team but at least I finished the drill. However, it was certainly fun to see how everyone was skating more agressively because there was a specific purpose.

The last race was another 15 laps and everybody skated for him/herself. I stayed in the front for as long as I could, did a couple of passes that were less clumsy than usual, and eventually ran out of gas.

I was exhausted by the time we started relay. It was a short pyramid of 5x1-3x2-1x3-3x2-5x1. However, I was a little nervous because I have not been skating relays with the main group for several weeks. I was on the same team with MW and LF. My exchanges were very messy. Overall, I came out too early and was too slow when I was about to be pushed by LF. I think this has much to do with the fact that I left the relay box too early. I have lots of difficulty in judging how my acceleration would match the speed of my teammate so I have a tendency to leave the box earlier than most people would. As for my push...well, I will learn to push properly...one day. A couple of obvious problems include slowing down in the corner and feeling anxious that MW would skate away. As a result, my push was too late and I made contact too early (i.e. wimpy push).

Oh right, did I mention that I fell three times in the relay? Gosh, I practically cleaned the floor! Luckily, they were all minor ones. I managed to get up and keep skating every single time. Not that it didn't suck though. I could feel my frustration rising with each and every fall. My first fall happened right after a relay push and I slid into the middle of the floor stopping just short of the markers. I had another close call in the exchange area shortly after, clicking skates with EM. Fortunately, a close call was all it was. My second fall was one coming out of the corner in close proximity with KN. He thought for sure we made contact but I think what really happened was my left skate landed funny. I remember the wheels made a funny screeching noise before I went down. My third and last fall was plain stupid. It was the last exchange and I slid when I was just about to enter the track. My patience was wearing thin and it was not hard to understand why. I mean, enough falling already!

Despite all these falls, I felt good today and I felt like I accomplished something. I am once again motivated and looking forward to skate.