Wheel Excitement

I've ordered a set of Plus G Outdoor-100mm from Munro for the TISC fundraiser. I've been skating on the same set of "practice" wheels and bearings since the beginning of last year's outdoor season. On the one hand, I see guys like Camilo achieving remarkable speeds on wheels that look like they have been ground down to their hubs, and better technique will serve me better in the long run than better equipment, but I do think that Peter made a good point as we were transitioning from Indoor to Outdoor about the difference with a good set of wheels and bearings. Particularly since I'm trying my best to hang onto the coat-tails of fast packs... every little bit helps a little bit, and I always notice a difference when I put on a fresh set of wheels and bearings for a race. or maybe it's all in my head.

Yesterday, I went to TISC practice at Christ the King with the intention of taking it easier, to try and recover from the weekend's skating activities as well as tapering for the race in Detroit this weekend. There doesn't seem to be the large Toronto-area crowd heading to the Detroit Inline Marathon in the same numbers as we would have been attending the National Capital Marathon. It's a shame, but thankfully there will be quite a few opportunities to skate in Ottawa this year, including Nationals, the Eddy Metzger clinic and the Ottawa Inline Festival in the fall.

There was certainly quite a crowd at practice last night... i don't think I recognized about half the people there. This looks like a very positive thing for the inline community, and hopefully they will continue to come out to TISC practice and support all the local inline events.

It doesn't look like there is too much of a program for the "speed group" in the past couple of weeks. This is probably a challenge given the diversity of abilities and even the range of age dynamics that have to be accomodated (I'm happy to see that there are kids and teens skating with us!).

I was really concerned upon my arrival at Christ the King, I spotted Jacky lying in the middle of the track almost in the same fashion as he was laid out on Hamilton Trail the day prior. I certainly hope he looks after himself and if he doesn't get himself checked out by a doctor, at least allows himself time to recover and heal.

During the warmup, I discussed my problem with Kevin of setting down too early and not holding the glide/recovery phase. I've been trying to follow more technically proficient skaters at practice in the past few weeks like Kevin, Morgan, Sarah, Peter and Eric hoping to catch the "rythm". Kevin was working on his technique with slow long glides and holding his crossovers, and I have to admit that I found that quite a challenge.

We did a number of drills I recognized from ice. Backwards skating is quite a challenge for me, I can't imagine how "Backwards Guy" can do Marathons let alone Ultra Distance events like the Defi and 24 hour. Feet need to be closer together on the glide.

On the "push out to the side and keep your weight on the bent leg" drill, I really have to work on pushing directly out to the side and not backwards. Making the adjustments so that my front wheels line up in the push out. I also need to make sure i'm on the outside edges and my position is "Tony Knows".

We broke into groups and I was put into the "B" group that was doing the "shopping cart" drill. I found it a challenge to stay crouched in "basic" with many others in the group that were practically standing up during this drill. When I started to feel the "burn" that would indicate that I would be sore tomorrow, I decided to hop out and join the "A" Group doing intervals just to save my legs for the weekend. My thought was that I'd try to work on hanging on in the pack and maintaining speed on the sprints in anticipation of the Detroit Race, particularly since the gaps kept opening up during our skate out in Hamilton on the weekend. I probably should have discussed it with Eric prior, as it turned out he had wanted me to work on the technique involved in the "shopping cart" drill for a reason. I was suprised since it was such a large group, I'm never sure whether I'm lost in the crowd or not. It is comforting to know that he can keep track of all the moving parts of the whole like that! It's most definitely a different kind of experience than last year with Camilo generally coaching two or three of us at a time and the incredible amount of one-on-one we got. I find I always got a handful of dumb questions going through my head that I want to ask, and I'm not sure if the big group has patience for that overall and just wants me to shut up and go skate.

We did get to do some speed work with the one-minute on sprints to end the practice. Once again, I found my technique just falling to pieces after a few of those and the fatigue setting into my body. At that point I'm back to square one and just muscling through it instead of finessing it with technique.

I'm a bit envious of all the newbies getting a strong foundation and proper coaching in inline speed skating technique today at TISC practice. In many ways I feel like I'm even further behind those that are showing up at these past couple of weeks for the first time. They are starting from square one at the basics, but I have well over a decade and a half of bad skating technique to unlearn on top of learning the good skating technique. Hard to believe I bought my first pair of inline skates in 1991.

An interesting point Kevin made on the way home... I generally feel vey confident and stable at all times when I'm on my skates. If I had better technique, I'd feel like I would be teetering on the edge a bit more. Maybe that's a metaphor for life?