Easy Rider

Based on yesterday's suggestion, I went to the last half hour of the spinning class at St Clair just before my Yoga Class. Of coures once I'm there and have the Instructor calling out motivational type things and encouragement to work harder and dial up, it doesn't end up being the easy ride I intended. I should just dial back on keep the legs moving, but the energy of group ex is pretty infectious.

In the freestyle cycling classes, there is opportunities to choose options in terms of what positions you take on the bike. Faith at one point towards the end suggested we take the opportunity to work on whatever it was that we felt needed work. It got me thinking what might be the best kind of cross-training for inline. I've often been taking the croached "aero-racing position" because it does get me down and low like inline. I find it also helps to stretch out the hip flexors which I find have been tightening up lately from all the skating.

Yvonne's Yoga class was once again a complete joy. I nice treat to end off the week.

I'm just trying to figure out my weekend schedule. Not sure if I should take tomorrow as a complete Rest Day, given the tentative plan that I might "Bandit" the Chilly Half Marathon out in Burlington on Sunday morning. I've been doing it every year with Jen, and this year I forgot to register and it's now sold out. Of course I haven't been running at all and I still have ice on Sunday night. If I skip it, of course that will mean that I will be doing Around The Bay (30K) with zero buildup, and then the Flying Pig Marathon is right after that.

I need to eat more vegetables. Particularly dark greens.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Flax Bagel with light cream cheese, hot and sour soup, banana, strawberry yogurt, organic cereal and soy milk.grape tomatoes, flax bagel with crunchy peanut butter.

bits and pieces

Sigrid dropped me an email with this info:
"2 things: Creatine is not for recovery specifically. Because it helps your muscles you end up being able to work harder but that is just a side effect. Creatine is to build muscle and should be taken before or during training, especially weight training.. Glutamine is for recovery, so is Zinc and Magnesium. If you take the latter 2 be sure not to take it with Calcium because Calcium inhibits Zinc uptake. Finally, arginine promotes growth of muscle AND recovery, should be taken 30min before training.

The second thing is rest: Kevin is right, very important. You need to take rest so you don't burn out. You can do a very easy 30min ride on rest days so you don't feel lazy. Easy riding also promotes recovery :-)"

Thanks for clarifying Sigird. The only thing that seemed to stick in regards to that conversation was "amino acids". I normally get the Wheatgrass/Barleygrass booster in my post-workout smoothie. Don't know much about that other than it's supposed to be good for me. I'll have to ask more about arginine at next week's practice.

I think overall I need to take a look at my nutrition and be more pro-active about what I'm eating.

Tomorrow is a Rest Day.

Blizzard!

The snow storm would have been the perfect excuse for a Rest Day, except for the fact that Tanya called me to go in to sub her Mount Pleasant class tonight. I didn't even realize there was a Snow Storm!

I hopped in my car and drove five minutes away to the gym. A suprising amount of people were there tonight despite the crazy weather.

The Combat class went pretty well given the fact that I didn't have any time to prep for it and we were switching things up. I was breathing hard at the end.

I did Duff's spinning class after I taught Combat, with the intention of "spinning out the lactic acid" as Jen puts it (I'm not even 100% what that technically means). Everything that is great about Group Fitness environment to get you motivated kind of works against you when your goal is to take it easy and give yourself a bit of a break. Particularly when you are an instructor yourself and know the person who is teaching the class. At one point Duff looked over at me and gave me a bit of a verbal nudge about halfway through which made me pick it up for the second half hour.

I was also positioned next to a mirror. Here is an example of how your perceptions can be removed from the reality of the situation. I thought lately that I've been keeping my top half pretty solid in spinning class, one glance in the mirror tells me that is not the case. Something to work on.

I did Nathalie's flow class afterwards and that was just heaven. I am obviously losing a great deal of flexiblity in the shoulders, back, hamstrings and hip flexors. I really need to go do more Yoga and Flow classes just to stretch things out an a regular basis.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Flax Bagel with Light Cream Cheese, Half a Cliff Bar Chocolate Mint, Green Beans and Pork, Beef Noodles, 2 Peanut butter sandwhiches. Orange Drink.

Yoga and Skate

I got a footrub before bedtime last night. That was a nice treat.

I had trouble sleeping last night. Jen says I was groaning in my sleep at one point and keeping her from sleeping

Forced myself out of bed this morning to go to Yvonne's 9:30 Yoga class. I really needed the stretching and relaxation. The hip is definitely still sore. It felt really good to take some time to figure out what was tight. Deep Breathing Rocks.

I felt sufficiently challenged by today's indoor inline session. It felt like a good workout and seemed to balance out a number of different elements. At one point there was a "medium" pack to skate with.

Focus on technique. Keep it all squared up. Push to the side, not back. LOW (think about how low it was skating behind Camilo). Smooth (think of the ice guys).

Things I need to remember...
Scott pointed out that I don't need to quicken my cadence with a gap opens up, just take a stronger stride (lower and longer).

Don't "Dive for the Cones", get a bit deeper before cutting across on the track pattern. I'm dropping my shoulder again.

Don't stop skating after the pass. Look for a gap to take within the pack is the objective, not rotating to the back.

Carolyn commented about how fatigued I've been looking over the past two weeks and that I don't seem to be "regular Ed" after the late night Wed practices in particular. Swerving while driving home might be an indication that I'm tired.

Whatever benefit I got from the workout kind of went out the window when Kevin and I stopped in Chinatown on the way home from practice for a late night meal.

WHAT I ATE TODAY.
Banana, Flax Bagel with light cream cheese, Half a cool mint Cliff Bar, General Tao Chicken, Green Beans and Pork, Rice, Beef Noodles, tea.

My Hip be Square

Woke up with my hip feeling really stiff and sore, a result of the fall after I was body-checked last night. I thought about the advice Morgan gave me. Even though the drill was about keeping your position in the pack, better that I just give it up rather than getting injured over it.

Didn't eat properly before the workout again. As Vanessa was telling me the other day, I really have to be careful about nutrition if I'm on a more intensive excercise routine.

Pushed myself tonight, and I was a bit OCD at the gym when I discovered that the McCaul Pump class was full. I dragged Jen off of her cardio machine and down the street to the Eaton Centre location and managed to squeeze into the packed Pump class there, so I got to do my weights. I was losing all form on the biceps by the very end, but managed to keep it together through most of it with the 10kg. Kept the Squat weight low at 20kg and no weight on lunges to give my legs a rest.

I think Jen realized I was in a mood, and she generally figures it's best to drive the crazy-making out of me is via physical excersion. So she convinced me to stay for Sabrina's Combat class, as long as I took it easy. No such thing, maybe it's my pride as an instructor, but I just couldn't take the low impact options. Actually felt a bit better than yesterday, but we were back to release 30, so my body could pretty much do that on autopilot at this point. Although Muy Thai Jump Knees were insane.

I had a Booster Juice with Creatine in it afterwards just to see if it would aid in recovery.

My other thought was, why do ALL the Les Mills classes tend to do things like the "plank" in the same release period? Then the plank disappears for subsequent releases only to reappear again all at the same time. Wouldn't it make more sense to stagger them a bit? Or at least have them consistently in the releases as opposed to popping up once in a blue moon?

It occured to me today that I'm much more tired than I usually am during the height the regular outdoor inline season. I'm not doing the huge amount of mileage I log in during Spring through Fall, yet here I am just wiped all the time which seems to be taking a toll mentally as well as physically. What I'm thinking is that over the past few years, my body has just really gotten used to the long distance skates where for the most part I'm skating in a straight line. Between Indoor Inline and short track ice, I'm now forcing it to constantly crossover, which is an entirely new thing that it is not as accustomed to. The unrelenting tight crossovers we are forced to do here in the confined spaces is a different kind of crossing over that we do at the 400 meter track at Landesdown.

I'm starting to think about what Kevin Smith originally told me about the importance of Rest Days in training when I took the inline speed skating workshop a couple of years ago. The problem is these days I just feel anxious and lazy when I don't go to the gym or get a workout in. Maybe I should be forcing myself to take an entire rest day off between workouts, and work harder on the workout days?

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Dark Chocolate multigrain bar that they gave out on the subway the other day, Booster Juice with Power booster, Mango Salad, rice, spicy thai noodle, spicy tofu and veggies, green curry tofu, mango juice.

Battered and Bruised

I'm physically exhausted once again, but still kind of buzzed from practice tonight. I'm sure the iced tea at Tim Horton's and Aaron's birthday cake isn't helping me go to sleep.

I have to remember to eat something substantial first thing when I get up, prior to heading for the gym. Can't expect to perform without fuel.

Did most of Tanya's Combat class during noon hour at Manulife. It was good to switch up the routine, but I was feeling really sluggish in both upper and lower body. Struggled to push through it and try and maintain form. Am I slowing down in my old age? I felt like at times I was punching and kicking underwater. I always prided myself in being able to throw fast sequences... visualizing Bruce Lee throwing in his half dozen strikes before your opponant has a chance to get his in. Kind of makes you wonder if there is only so much muscle memory in your body's hard-drive before you reach capacity. Does the constant repitition of movement in one activity start to impact other activities once it reaches the realm of instinctual and reactive?

On the car-ride to practice, Sigrid pointed out that we only refer to short track on ice. I should be saying track skating and road/trail skating to differentiate inline.

Aaron helped me put on my red matter wheels, and he had a trick with the spacers and bearings stacked in sequence on the tool that I should remember the next time I need to put my wheels and bearing together quicker. Also: if the wheel isn't rolling smoothly, hit it with another skate hard spinning it in both directions until it starts spinning good. His comment about my frame positioning was "who put these on Helen Keller?", which made me laugh. I don't think I've looked at the frames since last summer. I should be more aware of my gear.

I'm not sure I noticed a difference with the new wheels or not yet tonight. Scott said it looked like I was still skidding. I tried to push the envelope a little bit to try and see if they made a difference on the cornering and went down and into the wall at one point during relays. I was feeling really tired and sloppy in my technique though, so I'm sure it has more to do with that than the wheels. Let's see how things go in the next few practices.

I HATE falling. My left hip, right shoulder and elbow are feeling the effects of the crashes tonight. I'm a sore, scraped and bruised. Plus I got home and noticed that the new pair of shorts that Jen got me are trashed which upsets me more than it should. Folks were playing rough on the track tonight, but at least I'm getting a better sense of the rules of engagement now for future physical skirmishes.

Mentally and physically wiped. There is quite a bit to capture from the practice and all the different conversations tonight, and when I'm this tired I find it hard to retain it all.

Really having a hard time trying to follow the strides of the people in front of me. Tried my best to get behind the better skaters to follow their technique. I'm finding I don't know what to do in this drill when I'm behind a skater who's technique isn't very strong. On the one hand you have to stay in tight to that person in front of you, but that makes it hard when you are constantly slowing down and speeding up to keep your hand on their back. It wears you out. I know you're supposed to be looking a few skaters ahead and try and follow THAT technique, but gaps tend to open up when I'm doing that. Trying to remember to stay cool and not panick, and the track pattern is the most important aspect of the drill.

There was chat about the reason why being closest to the wall was most advantageous at the relay hand-off, but at that point in the evening it was very hard for me to focus. I could barely eat my chili at that point let alone try to distill all the voices weighing in an opinion. Morgan's answer of "Shit Happens!" was the only thing that stood out (and gave me a good chuckle). I'll have to ask on Wednesday what the answer was (although I don't even think I'm 100% sure what the question was). My guess would be track pattern.

There was also the suggestion to try watching some bicycle racing to see the kinds of tactics that can be employed into inline with the drafting and pack/team skating.

Had a really good talk in the car with Andrew, Morgan and Sigrid about the different brands of racing skates again, as well as the benefits of amino acids (for recovery and preventing soreness), pack skating techiniques, and passing, fighting for positions and contact (slip in low Underneath, get the arm in either over or under theirs). Hopefully I can remember some key points in these conversations tomorrow so I can capture and reinforce them.

The one that sticks currently is Andrew's observation about looking when someone peels off and heads for the back of the pack, chances are they are looking to break away. I think the point being, I should be always watching the other people, more often than not that their body language will be telling you what their next move will be. Need to focus more on tactical skating.

Talked about how your skating style (agressive versus clean) and reputation impact how others in the pack react to you (pro and con). For the most part, skating locally I'm almost always in a pack with "Friendlys" from OISC, Roller Montreal and Toronto that work well together, but that won't always be the case particularly if I'm going to be travelling to more events.

Morgan mentioned that he feels the lower profile on his three point Bonts were good on the corners and in sprints. And I think Sigrid was saying there is benefit to the three point Bonts (or any other boot that you request they lower) because of the Lower heel positioning that can help correct the toe-push that everyone general has as a bad habit at some point or another. As per my conversation with Carolyn the other day, I will have to remember to bring her along when I am ready to order my new skates, because she generally always asks the questions that I don't even think to ask. I should keep all this gear talk in perspective though, the best skates in the world won't do a lick of good if my technique sucks.

Going to pass out now.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
some multigrain dark chocolate bar they gave out on the subway, Green Goodness smoothie, 2 lick's homeburgers with all the fixin's, tim horton's Chili, Turkey on mutligrain with Bacon, mocha birthday cake, pickle, hot and sour soup, apple.

I felt pretty fast today

Ice felt really good today. I only did the intermediate session, legs were tired, but I concentrated on technique. When I got really low, did the hip thing, and tried to smooth it all out, there were a couple of laps that I felt really good about.

We had a more technical drill today involving passing, which was a bit tougher with a crowded track. Glad I was partnered with Carolyn for this one. We started by going around the corner on the right skate, and then progressed to one passing after the apex just like in inline, preferably on the inside.

I also came to the realization that for some reason, I can't do crossovers in the reverse direction slowly. Probably a technique thing I need to work on to iron out the bumps in that one. I seem to need the momentum on the corner to crossover my left over my right, but it still comes off as a stagger.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Flax Bagel with light cream cheese, banana, apple, veal chop, shrimp, fries, mushroom spinich salad,

Dancing Feel Like Dancing

Called Dave for climbing today and he ended up Bailing on me. So today is a Rest Day.

Although I did end up going dancing tonight for a few hours in clubtown with Tara and some others, so hopefully that counts for a bit of cardio (broke a light sweat).

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Banana, 2 Custard Buns, Burger with cheese and backbacon, Potatoe Skins, Sour Cream, Chocolate Brownie with ice cream and cream, Ice tea, Orange Juice, Sprint, Cranberry Juice. Cream of Mushroom soup. Green Goodness smoothie.