A Good Morning of Skating
Dec. 30th, 2011 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beige_alertI had been thinking of maybe taking it easy speed skating today. Instead I had my highest-speed fall yet, followed by my fastest timed lap yet, followed by my fastest timed full 400 meter lap. Then I think I finally figured out one of the big things I'm doing wrong with my right leg in the crossovers, and I think I'm improving that. And then finally the coach sucked me into joining one of my fellow old guys masters skaters for the workout he was doing. I ended up spending over two hours on the ice.
Shortly after I started skating one of the Real Athletes had a fall on the front straight (no harm) and then shortly afterwards I had my own fall, which was the good kind, didn't hurt at all. I fell entering the turn at full speed, slid along and hit the pads at pretty good speed, but I had enough time sliding to set up for it and it was pretty much a non-event. After a few minutes rest I did a 37.1 in the inside lane, my fastest yet, followed a few minutes later by what worked out to be a full 400 meter lap, crossing from inside to outside lane, in 37.3 (I hadn't planned to do the full inside-outside lane lap, I was just avoiding traffic on the backstraight, but it worked out nicely). Those both work out to around 37km/hr average.
I get lots of very good advice, but I often find it very hard to really understand what people are telling me about what I'm doing because I really have a hard time feeling what I'm doing. I've been told I point my right foot out in the crossovers, but it doesn't really feel like it to me and I've had a hard time correcting since I don't really know what I'm doing. I saw someone else skating and pointing his right toe out in the crossovers and realized that I was probably doing something similar, and the contrast with the motion of the right feet of those skaters we can confidently assume are doing it right was suddenly clear. Now I have a better idea what to change, and I can already feel the whole motion of my foot in the crossovers is much smoother and easier now. It's always really exciting to figure something like this out.
Oh, yeah, and then why not join in on a bunch of sets of 300-200-100 meters? It was a chance to practice crossovers, entering the turns at speed in the draft of my fellowold guy masters skater (I need to remember to use the term "masters speed skaters" because it sounds so gosh darn great, like we're a bunch of experienced experts, rather than just referring to us as "old guys," which doesn't sound nearly as impressive).
Shortly after I started skating one of the Real Athletes had a fall on the front straight (no harm) and then shortly afterwards I had my own fall, which was the good kind, didn't hurt at all. I fell entering the turn at full speed, slid along and hit the pads at pretty good speed, but I had enough time sliding to set up for it and it was pretty much a non-event. After a few minutes rest I did a 37.1 in the inside lane, my fastest yet, followed a few minutes later by what worked out to be a full 400 meter lap, crossing from inside to outside lane, in 37.3 (I hadn't planned to do the full inside-outside lane lap, I was just avoiding traffic on the backstraight, but it worked out nicely). Those both work out to around 37km/hr average.
I get lots of very good advice, but I often find it very hard to really understand what people are telling me about what I'm doing because I really have a hard time feeling what I'm doing. I've been told I point my right foot out in the crossovers, but it doesn't really feel like it to me and I've had a hard time correcting since I don't really know what I'm doing. I saw someone else skating and pointing his right toe out in the crossovers and realized that I was probably doing something similar, and the contrast with the motion of the right feet of those skaters we can confidently assume are doing it right was suddenly clear. Now I have a better idea what to change, and I can already feel the whole motion of my foot in the crossovers is much smoother and easier now. It's always really exciting to figure something like this out.
Oh, yeah, and then why not join in on a bunch of sets of 300-200-100 meters? It was a chance to practice crossovers, entering the turns at speed in the draft of my fellow
