Seriously, I Never Skated This Fast Before

300m TT: 00:34.89

10k Points Elimination: first one being lapped out

1000m: 01:52.29

Glass Half Empty: I came in last for every race in my category today.

Glass Half Full: I far exceeded my own expection in terms of speed.

Coming into Nationals, I have already given much thought about my race strategy. In a nutshell, I only have sprint races. I treat all my distance races as sprints as well to delay my elimination as long as possible. The weather forcast today was absolutely miserable. For the first three hours of the day, we hung out at CITC hoping/watching/waiting the track dry. For old time's sake, we resurrected our scooters and wheel barrel racing from two years ago, followed by a long jump contest. I guess the moral of the story is don't leave a bunch of skaters sitting around with nothing to do....

My day began with the 300m TT. Coach AH gave us some last minute pre-race coaching, specifically telling us to grunt. Then he walked over to me with a few choice words:

AH: Candy, I know this is an embarrassment for you...

[I stared at him incredulously...what kind of pep talk this is?! Telling the slowest skater in the club that skating the 300m TT would be an embarrassment?!]

AH: ...but the grunting would really help you to skate harder.

[Oh, okay. Oops.]

Other than getting called a false start, my 300TT went almost as well as I could hope for. Remember my idea from a few days ago of getting Mr. P to yell at me in the first corner? It worked like a charm. Everything was fantastic up until the third corner when my left leg gave out under me and I stood up to regain balance. Alas, that mistake cost me my leg speed and power. However, I am ecstatic about my results because I had never skated below 36s before, even during practice. To do so in such convincing manner, I was over the moon.

The 10k points elimination race was a learning experience. The start was very fast and I was quickly gapped by a quarter lap. I was not able to close on the gap at all and well, that was pretty much it. However, knowing what I know now because of the 1000m race later in the day, I have a bit more confidence going into the 15k elimination race tomorrow. I hope that history will not repeat itself.

1000m is a tough distance to race because it is an all-out sprint for 5 laps. My previous PB for this distance was 2:13.88 so you can imagine how proud I am of cutting my time by 20s. Similar to the 10k, I got gapped quickly during the first lap. However, I just kept pushing hard because I wanted a new PB! With two laps to go, LK got dropped from the pack and I just knew that she was within reach. I caught up in the last corner, went wide, and we fight for the finish. Unfortunately I missed her by a few milliseconds. However, knowing that I have the ability to challenge her, I know that I will skate more aggressively in the 15k tomorrow.