Wish I could Sleep In

The threat of rain loomed over practice once again, but it turned out to be nice and dry.

A very large group tonight at TISC which was encouraging given the fact that it's the middle of August. Nice and easy warm-up today even though I started to feel it in my back. I wish I had gone to Yoga today to stretch things out. At the tail end of warm-up, Peter went over the drill again where we block everyone going into the corner and then power out.

We did what was called an Elimination Race, which I confused with a points race (although I could have sworn they initially said we were doing a points race). Not having done much racing on the track and not understanding the different variations, I spent much of the time confused and wasting my energy, also not knowing when to go and not to go, but that could have been more of a communication issue with the group I was skating with. It appears the best strategy for an elimination race is to hang back... the only person you need to beat is the person in the back of the pack until you are down to two and then you sprint it out in the final lap. However it becomes even more confusing when it's a double elimination race. You have to keep track of who has been eliminated once, and then once the other two (of the four) have been eliminated, the final two immediately have one lap to race it out. Since I tried to keep myself at the front of the pack, it's hard to keep track of who's getting eliminated behind you. There were times when I could have sworn someone got eliminated, but there they were skating in the group. There is also no benefit to being first in the elimination rounds it seems (unless you are wanting to get a good workout) because you are immediately sent to the back and need to fight to get back to the front. I don't think I am strategic enough for these kind of races. It would have been interesting to go one group at a time so that the guys at the back end of the racing group could observe what the two faster packs were doing and what kind of strategy was going on, and even the mechanics of how a double elimination race works. What Peter described Jesse did in their group (I believe a variation on the jamming that Jesse was describing to me the previous week) would have been interesting to watch in action.

We did a drill focused solely on powering out at the corner. I tried to keep in mind how you can try and anticipate when the person at the front tends to make their move.

The final drill we were given a choice as to do 1 1/2 laps on 2 1/2 off, or more of a "Marathon" style. Since I'm on the track to work on my sprinting, I opted for the first option. I managed to hang in for the first few, but got dropped on the final two.

The final cooldown was a good excercise for me. I found myself behind Travis who was behind Peter. I tried to focus on following Peter's stride. It's always been hard for me to be more aware of what's going on further up the pack instead of focusing on just the stride of the person in front of me.

The top TISC skaters are off to World's once again. I wish them the best of luck. Morgan says he's going to focus on Marathon strategy over the next few weeks when he steps in to coach. I'm looking forward to that given the Fall events are coming up in just a few weeks.

Of course after a hard workout, I undid all the good by stuffing myself full of butter chicken!

I really need to start upping the ante on my training. I've been feeling pretty lazy lately. I have no where near the volume of skating in previous years that I generally use to build up my endurance... particularly when it comes to the Ultra-Distance events. I'm still trying to decide about the New York 100, but I'd like to at least do the Defi again since it's within driving distance. Morgan had some suggestions for hill training for the NY100 that I should try out.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Vector and Nature's Path Zen and Rebound Cereal in Soy Milk. Orange Juice. Pickle. 2 sandwiches on Flax bread with veggie salami and veggie cheese. popcorn. apple. pita. butter chicken, garlic naan. saag lamb. rice. mango lassi.