Morning spin Evening skate

I've been getting comments lately on how I've managed to keep off the extra 10-15 pounds this winter. I hadn't realized that it had become such a natural expectation for people over the past few years! I don't love indoor inline or ice short track speed skating as much as I love the outdoor trail inline skating, but hopefully it will have kept those muscles working all winter when they would normally atrophy. I've got my fingers crossed that I'm not starting out at square one in the outdoor season like I am usually doing at this time of year with four weeks to train for Ottawa. Unfortunately there is no Ottawa Inline Marathon to look forward to kicking off the season this year, instead we have Detroit. There is a half inline marathon in Ottawa in two weeks. We'll see how that goes.

Only got about an hour sleep last night. I'm bagged. Going to go have a nap.

Went spinning at Tanya's Spinning class at Mount Pleasant this morning. She was great today. My clocks were all messed up and I got there about an hour ahead of time... that means I could have gotten an hour extra sleep. Felt pretty energetic during the morning spin. I like the newer bike's at Mount Pleasant... they seem to be sturdier and feel smoother than the ones at St Clair.

Tonight was the last night of indoor inline for me and I'm glad I ended up dragging myself out there... I was waffling a bit since outdoor practice starts tomorrow (although it looks like rain). Luckily Kevin called me back and we drove out there. Not as many people tonight, but we had a good group in terms of folks who I could skate with close to my level like Bruce and Morgaine, Peter's girlfriend from Montreal (who was often in my pack in marathons in previous years).

Practice felt really good, probably the best one I've had in a while in terms of what I was able to absorb.

The first thing Aaron demonstrated was the stride on the straight... it was a subtle difference between a slower, lower, longer and more deliberate push versus a "clunkier" quicker push from what I could see. I tried to keep it in mind as I skated.

Today we were focusing on technique and a more defensive track pattern, and having much fewer people there really "clicked" for me. I think the biggest issue with the track patterns when we do it in such a big group is a kind of "broken telephone" occurs, particularly when we line up in order of speed. The people up front model it well, but as it goes down the line down to the slower folks, you don't have as clean a model to follow down in the back of the pack. Particularly if we are trying to follow the slow, deliberate two strides on the corner and two strides on the straights that we were doing today. Luckily you could see the track pattern that they were doing at the front of our eight person pack, and it started to click sooner for me, particularly once I started following behind Aaron at one point.

I definitely still need to work on getting closer to the cones, I'm still working on my balance and probably a little nervous about tripping over them if I get too close. But I guess it's more likely I'll knock the cone over than anything else. There is more power the closer to the cones I get and lean in with that hip. Exit and Enter closer to the cones on the Defensive track pattern.

I think I have three pieces of technique that I need to think about from today's practice. The first was that my lower back was really feeling it towards the end of our warmup round... and that was because I needed more knee bend. I started being more conscious of getting lower with the knees and less lower in my back and it seemed to make a difference immediately. Peter had a good anecdote... "People usually complain about sore backs, but not sore quads at the end of a race."

Peter's observation was that I seemed to be just gliding on the recovery. Instead I should bring the knee together and push out with the "fall".

Aaron took me aside at the very end and pointed out that I was toeing out on the recovery and losing quite a bit of power. I'm going to try and be conscious of keeping the toe in, particularly as I skate the trails this summer.

I'm really tired as I type this out... hopefully all of this will make sense to me when I reread it in the morning.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Apple, small Cliff Bar, C-Boost Smoothie, Natuer's Path and Granola Cereal in Soy Milk, Orange Juice, Bagel with light cream cheese, pickle, hot and sour soup, chili, choclate donut, ham and cheese sandwhich on whole wheat, Frutopia, ice tea.