Week as I am#

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 13:00:00 +0000

I'm sure I've done that pun before. Recap on skating since last week, anyway.

• On Thursday I went to see Tatem Park. It's a 227m banked track with two straights and a bend at either end. The bends are exactly the wrong radius - not quite tight enough to crossover naturally, but tight enough that the inside leg never really gets much of a push if skating normally. Been working on Norwegian crossovers ever since - I can do them, kinda sorta, but I don't get any speed out of them yet. Atrociously slow, therefore.
• Friday's LFNS went like a dream - albeit a dream without any temporal distortion, weird non-sequiturs, or running madly around airports missing planes, so perhaps not very much like a dream at all. 'Twas good, though, and on the second half we managed to achieve speeds that although not actually fast as such were at least pacy enough to give the people at the front a bit of a run. (We can't do fast on an LFNS unless the marshals are all really fast, as they need to be able to overtake the pack to block roads before we arrive)
• I missed Sunday's race due to illness (probably something I ate). Let's pass over that without going into the details.
• On Monday we went to Hillingdon and did some relay/intervals stuff. Timed a lap at 3:09, which is an 11s improvement on the last visit (but wind speed and direction makes such a difference). It'd be nice to get below 3 minutes (20 mph average) but I don't think there'll be much of an opportunity before Sunday now. Then in the afternoon, back into town to do Rick's Easter Monday skate
• and yesterday (Wednesday) the first LondonSkate of the season - and the first marshalled group skate I've done this year where I've been in the group instead of one of the marshals. (They're a different outfit from us, although we get along quite well - they've lent us their sound system in the past and we often share marshals). Always interesting to see how other people tackle similar events to the ones that we do, especially if we can steal ideas ... I was going to do this one in my FSKs (would have been the first time back on them since January) but I forgot them when leaving for the office in the morning, so ended up in speed skates anyway.