It Poured Buckets at the Detroit Inline Marathon Today

I'm in Detroit and it poured buckets and buckets during the Wolverine Inline Marathon this morning.

I was astounded to discover that I placed 1st in my age category.

Post Race Photo of Toronto Inline Skaters Courtesy of Peter Doucet.

We are looking remarkably dry in this picture!

More Later.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Flax Bagel with light cream cheese, cliff blocks, gatorade, chocolate chip muffin, 2 bananas, veal in tomatoe sauce, potatoes, veggies, cococola, chicken lemon rice soup. Vitamin water, pepperoni pizza, string cheese mozzarella, lays chips, salsa, pickle, chicken wings. grape punch.

Today I say good-bye to my Cadillac!

TOTAL REST DAY. Day before the Detroit race.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Nature's Path zen and power cereal with 1% Omega 3 milk, yogurt with bananas,

Pirates 3 Opens Today!

TOTAL REST DAY!

I did Yvonne's Yoga class and felt really good afterwards. It's my Oasis of calm and relaxation in the middle of the day.

I think I might becoming lactose intolerant. Although I seem to do okay with eating so much yogurt, but after so long with using mostly soy milk in my cereal, regular milk seems to unsettle my stomach.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
strawberry yogurt with banana, nature's path zen and power cereal in 1% omega 3 milk, Flax Bagel with light herb cream cheese, gazpatcho soup with olives and hot sauce, Booster Juice with Wilderness Boost, glass of 1% omega 3 milk. apple, huge tub of popcorn with butter and ketchup/sour cream sprinkles. Ice tea.

Completed: My hand-made Spiderman Pajamas

I taught a great kickboxing class today! Even without a mike and a clock (I went 10 minutes over today). There was a real good energy in the room. Hopefully I'll be fully recovered in three days and nicely rested for the Detroit Inline race. I still don't feel very well prepared, but I can only do my best at this point and try and stretch, relax and try and eat well for the next few days.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Flax Bagel with light cream cheese, apple, frozen fruit treat x2, gazpatcho with hot sauce and olives, Tuna fish sandwich on Flax Bread with light whipped dressing and pickle, orange juice and Fruitopia, Ice tea, booster juice with boggle boost, low fat chocolate ice cream sandwhich, BK Whopper, banana.

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?

The Healing Touch of a Stranger

Went to Mount Pleasant for Yoga at noon today. I'm obviously feeling some anxiety and it was hard to relax and calm down and stop the inside chatter. My body is fatigued and muscles are tight from this weekend's exertions. The best thing about this class is that the lady who teaches (I think her name is Frances) will give everyone a massage and some lavender aromatherapy during the final relaxation. I honestly am amazed that someone would do that for a room full of strangers, but it is definitely a very soothing experience as a recipient. The stretching is nice, and checking in to see where your body is at is always a good thing to experience, but the best part is having your neck and shoulders rubbed. The minty smell of the oil and the hands working the knots out of my shoulders were what finally got me to just let it all go. I'm feeling very good right now.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Flax Bagel with light garden cream cheese, veggie "beef" rice noodle, chinese greens, white rice, Lick's Homeburger with all the fixin's, fries, chocolate ice cream sandwhich (light), frozen Fruit bar, apple.

FireWORX!!!

Yesterday was a full rest day where i ate and ate and ate.

Today's Lesson... Make sure you always have your health card on your person when you skate because you never know! Luckily our friend Jacky had his on him in the spill we had this morning.

I clicked skates with Jacky on the final sprint today out at Hamilton Beach this morning and he went down like a rolling sack of bricks while he was going close to Full Tilt. It really freaked me out when I managed to slow down enough and turn around to find him still lying there surrounded by passer-byers. Luckily a half dozen of them happened to be nurses and 9-11 had been called. The paramedics came and Jacky was taken in the ambulance to emergency... fortunately the Hospital was just down the street along the Hamilton Beach Trail. Mike Lin and I went to the hospital to keep him company and make sure he was okay. He seemed to be in pretty good shape all things considering, but didn't stick around for a full examination by the Doctor which concerned me a bit, but he was able to drive home after filling up on Dim Sum with us out in Missauga. Hopefully it's just scrapes and bruises!

Because of late-night Karaoke at the Rivoli with friends last night, I hit the snooze button a few times and got there late again. I managed to get in two laps, the first one was a pretty tough workout as Coach Eric started some pretty fast sprints a few times, particularly on the up-hills. I struggled to close up The Gap that opened up each time. I was still tired and sore from our run to Port Credit on Saturday, and Kevin claimed he was too, but didn't seem to have any trouble sticking it in there. I have to really learn not to react so strongly to the surges in speed like that, particularly when I'm tired. Over-reacting is just a waste of energy, and I was really losing my form when I panic. Gaps will open up occassionally and it's important for me to be mindful of proper technique rather than just moving the legs faster only to jam up into the person in front when you do close the gap.

The Second Lap was entirely a moderately paced milk-run, and I tried to do some extended pulls just to get the extra workout in. We didn't even really start the final 100 meter sprint before our little mishap.

I ended up doing about 30 km this morning, not bad all things considered. Eric's tip for today was to push the tempo on the uphills and into the wind to keep th average speed up. I'm sure it's also good for training those scenarios as well as I know I'm not the strongest on the uphills or skating into the wind.

I was really glad to go to the TBN Fireworks skate out in Ashbridge Bay. It added an easy 10km to my mileage today (even on my rec skates) and it was just a fantastic fireworks show from the place we skated out to watch the show. They had also closed off lakeshore, and there is nothing like the feeling of having three clear lanes of traffic to yourself to just open up on skates without worrying about cars.

It's nice to do a social skate like that and the TBNers are generally a really nice bunch of folks to hang out with in a casual friendly skate environment. I will really have to do much more of these. You can't be training speed all the time! It's nice to skate and be able to enjoy the scenary and smell the roses as well.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Bowl of Nature's Path Cereal in Soy Milk, Strawberries and Yogurt, Gatorade, Dried Fruit Strip, Frozen Kool Aid, Wheat and Honey Bagel with Light Garden Cream Cheese, Chocolate Chip Muffin, Shanghai noodles, rice shrimp crepes, pork dumplings, egg custard bun, calimari, popcorn. 2 BK French Fries, 2 BK Burgers, Ice tea, Milk, Wendy's Frosty.

WHAT I ATE YESTERDAY
Fresh Orange and Grapefruit Juice, Veggie tomatoe soup, french toast brie and apple, home fries, Eggs charllotine (spinich, salmon and dill sauce), some greens, fried softshell crab, rice, rice noodles in sezchaun sauce, mango salad, hot and sour soup with chicken and shrimp, Kalbi Beef ribs, soft salad spring rolls, cheese filled wantons, a few sweet potato fries.