Those Legs Are Mine? I Couldn't Lift Them Anymore!

Practice began innocently enough with some agility drills on avoiding crashes in corners. Coach EG explained the different trajectory of a fallen skater at different locations of a corner and the corresponding line that we could take to avoid the crash. In a nutshell, it is tempting to take to the outside lane but chances are staying on the inside lane is a safer bet.

Coach AH had me lead the first half of warm up followed by JaS. Still struggling to find a good setting for my frames, I was a bit unsure. However, it was not the time to be a baby. I kept the pace pretty relaxed since I had no idea how many laps I had to lead. Luckily, my shin held up for the entire warm up. It was whimpering a bit to let me know it was about to cramp but I had the opportunity to adjust my frame some more before practice really began.

500m rolling sprints are tough tough tough. I missed out on the first set because of some club admin issue so it was nine that I completed in total. I paid attention to conciously lengthen my stride because I have a tendency for short strides with little recovery when I sprint. After practice, JaS told me that I was beginning to skate lower even in corners so that was a very good sign. Two and a half laps of all-out sprints is tough like you wouldn't believe. Usually in the last 200m my legs were so dead that I could hardly lift them anymore. I asked AH if it was a better idea to go hard and fizzle or keep a more steady pace throughout. Of course the answer is to skate as fast as you can. After all, we're training for top-end speed. As I get stronger, I will fizzle a bit less...well, that's the idea anyway.

Practice today left me exhausted. When I got home, all I could do was eat and put my legs up. And we get to do it all over again soon!