As above, see below#

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 00:12:21 +0000

While attempting last night to think of a sufficiently awful pun for the title of this entry, I came up with the following joke:

• Q*: What does the bridge at the far end of Paddington terminus have in common with the Democratic Prawn Party Manifesto?

• A*: They're both 'cross station platforms

Moving swiftly on, then ...

• 12 June, presumably I went to Tatem

• 15 June, LFNS: bike first half, marshalled second, bike there and back

• 17 June: London to Brightoncycle rideskate, followed by drinking rather a lot: the wear and tear I felt the following day was entirely about the dehydration and almost not at all about the having skated 50 miles at, all told, a fairly leisurely pace. Others seemed to enjoy it more or find it more of an achievement so, fair play to them.

• 18 June: recover from hangover

• 19 June-present: recover from dodgy knee. Demonstrating once again (first time this year, actually) that though race-derived road rash may give you big scabs, require you to faff around with vaseline and melolin, and get blood and pus all over your clothes and bedclothes for a week, it's the low-speed impacts that really cause you to hobble. Yes, tripped and fell just before the last turn on L2B (though this didn't stop us from hamming up a big sprint finish with a hawk for the line, the memory of which still makes me smile). Left knee, seems better now, still isn't crackling as loud as the right knee, so I guess I probably have some synovial fluid left.

Do I sound a bit disenchanted? Maybe a bit, yes. This whole season has just seemed like a plateau - nothing (with the possible exception of various of the drills in Sardinia, but they're not translating into winning anything) that I can point to and say "look, I'm skating better than last year".

Yesterday, headed out to Victoria Park to find a short circuit that I could practice crossovers on. There's a small triangular loop right at the west end of the park that has one reasonably tight curve in it and two acute angles. Observations after half an hour or so:

• the transition from regular skating to crossover is where I thought I was weak, but actually it's not so bad. It's the transition from gliding to crossover (i.e. the acute angles, where I needed to be going slower) that's a mess: I'm leading with the right foot while I glide (natural side to scissor) and it doesn't get any better from that.

• armswing: hells' bells. It's too early to say without testing at serious speed, but this could be the answer to most of my crossover woes for sensibly-sized corners: on the skateable curve, adding a bit of rhythm to my inside arm, suddenly I found I could pick any line on the track that I wanted, and that my feet were going when I wanted without lagging my brain.

• the acute turns I was having little or no success with: I was getting them right (or at least passable) occasionally, but not often enough to be other than fluke. Failure modes; (1) coast into turn too fast with outside foot leading (and probably not enough kneebend), become seized with sudden fear of what will happen when I lift my outside leg to crossover, fail to do so; or (2) coast into turn not too fast, take single deep underpush on inside leg. Not so bad in that it gets me around the corner, but balance is too far forward and doesn't feel right laterally either: if my pushing skate were to slip, I'd be scraping tarmac again.

So, I need to go back and try again, this time resisting the temptation to hammer around the easy curve, ensuring that I keep skating right up to the entrances of the other turns, and taking many shallow steps instead of trying to get around on a few swingeing great huge ones. Yes, big deep ones are much more efficient, biut I'm not after effeiciency, I'm after manoeuvrability and a better sense of where my feet are.

Next race: Hanover-Celle, 8th July, just hope my passport (away being renewed) is returned to me before then. This race last year is still my PB (see what i mean about plateauing?) though as it's European Masters this year it might not be as much of an opportunity: rumours are that each age group is started separately, so I may not have quite the same opportunity for finding a honking great co-operative line and sticking with it for the duration.