A blog about skating and cycling, or vice versa

Stuffed#

Wed, 07 May 2008 20:14:04 +0000

Last week's recap:

Tuesday: RC was rained off

Wednesday: LondonSkate ditto

Friday: LFNS marshalling (in FSKs) in which I mostly did not hold back.

Saturday: slightly sore. Did Stroll RC in speedskates just to help my feet acclimatise to them

Sunday: Still slightly sore. Led Stroll (in FSKs). Third time lucky - unlike my previous two attempts it wasn't rained off. Leg more or less OK once it had warmed up

Monday: sore, skipped Markus's 20 miler

Tuesday: attempted RC, but it turned out to be not at all at all comfortable, and I sloped off halfway round to go home.

Wednesday: skipping Londonskate to give it a rest.

Grrr.

Without rhyme or rehab#

Sun, 11 May 2008 00:19:13 +0000

So after Tuesday's failure I took Wednesday as a rest day, then walked into town and back on Thursday (8km) which felt fine, then the LFNS on Friday (20km), then after that I skated home (7km), because I was still feeling good. And today the Stroll RC (12km) and it still doesn't hurt.

Current hypothesis is that it's not about how long I leave the leg between sessions so much as how thoroughly I warm up (about an hour seems to be OK, and about 60 minutes longer than it got on Tuesday) before trying to go fast. Which si sort of good news if it turns out to be the case.

On a swing and a prayer#

Sun, 11 May 2008 03:12:12 +0000

Having just recently emerged from a long discssion on the LSST forum about armswing, here is my current thought on how/why it works

Possibility 1: Lateral motion is key but fore-aft armswing is taught because it contains about as much lateral motion as is productive - let's hypothesise that more side-to-side causes aerodynamic, upper body torque or shoulder fatigue problems which outweigh the weight shift advantage - but that the fore/aft component as such is irrelevant to overall speed. This is possible (and what I used to believe), but would tend to suggest that a gentle swing is very nearly as effective as a vigorous one, because the lateral range of motion's about the same in either case. Doesn't sound quite right

Possibility 2: That there is an extra ingredient of some kind which means extra force in the fore/aft armswing creates more force in the legs despite the fact they're going in different directions. This is what I now believe based on last week's reading of gait papers and the stuff about CPGs - the exact mechanism may be open to debate, but the possibilities are clearly there for forelimb movement to stimulate neural paths that trigger muscle activity in the hindlimbs.

Another griping installment#

Fri, 23 May 2008 01:17:04 +0000

I can't remember all of what went on since the 11th, but a miracle cure wasn't part of it.

In recent memory

Tuesday 13th: calendar says there must have been an RC, can't remember it though

Friday: the plan was to spend Friday evening truing the wheels on the Firebrox, then pub for dinner, then down to Hyde Park Corner for the FNRttC. As it turned out, the wheels on the Firebrox where considerably less functional than expected - lots of spokes broken just inside the nipple. Looks rather as though two of them were in the wrong holes as well, which can't really have been contributing to even tension. So, go to pub, go directly to pub, do not collect spoke key.

Then the FNRttC, which was the first time I've used my summer bike since I put a trainer tyre on it back in December with the (completely unrealised) intention of getting fit over the winter. There seems to be a fundamental(sic) incompatibility between its saddle and my sitbones, to the point that I was actually looking forward to Ditchling Beacon as an opportunity to get out of the saddle. Also - I think I said the other day that my wrist was completely healed after accident in March? Wrong: not sufficiently healed that it liked 60 miles of road vibrations through my handlebar. Still, got to Brighton about 7am or just as the rain started, and was able to sit under the arches on the promenade eating full English breakfast. Can't be beat.

Saturday: slept

Sunday: Skated into town, in speedskates, to find some new bits for an LFNS lead. Then Stroll, which was going nicely until tripped up by a skater who veered right into my path exactly as I was passing her, sore in three places (now two)

Tuesday: skated into town for RC, did RC. Bizarrely, was getting the kind of weird hip pain I usually associate with my dodgy adductor in the other leg. Should be a good route, though (well, I would say that).

Wednesday: thoroughly sore, skipped LondonSkate as the prospect of skating over bridges into headwinds didn't really appeal.

Friday (tomorrow by my clock, today by GMT): first LFNS lead since my injury. Let's hope it works.

You call it untidy#

Sat, 24 May 2008 13:08:32 +0000

One of the oddest experiences I've ever had (actually, that's not true, but let's pretend) is of writing something on Usenet and then reading it quoted, several years later, in someone's signature. It probably wouldn't have seemed so odd except that when I saw it for the first time (I've clocked it a few times since, and google says it's still in use) I genuinely couldn't remember having written it in the first place.

Anyway, a bit of googlegrouping later I find that "You call it untidy, I call it LRU ordered" dates from a post I made to alt.sysadmin.recovery back in April 1996 when I was a student and presumably should have been revising not reading Usenet.

I'm no longer a student, but looking at the floor in my flat right now, not that much else has changed.

Carved up#

Thu, 29 May 2008 13:36:27 +0000

I noticed recently that a whole load of past entries in this blog are out of order. Some day I will sort them out.

My leg appears to be generally on the mend: 32km with no complaint on Tuesday comprising home to Hyde Park, route check and back home (some soreness on Wednesday). Which means I start thinking about technique (it's rubbish) and fitness (it's lost somewhere) again.

Step 1: I am still way lop-sided. [[Cool as cucumbers]], written in 2006, describes "weak left parallel turns, weak right crossovers, early left foot opening, bad left armswing, and weak right carve", and two years later

and being a glutton for beating myself up, I'll add

New month's resolution, therefore: I will scissor left-foot-forwards whenever I scissor (and whenever I remember). Might try polishing the floor too - in the wrong shoes it's pretty damn slippery already - and see if I can get some impromptu slideboard videoing going, just to see what my body position looks like.

Getting fit again: well, I lost the off-season, so it's a base-miles and long-slow-distance job for the next little while. Lots of route checks, skating-as-transport, long bike rides.

Skating log: Friday was LFNS lead, which worked pretty well - although, it being summer, was on average quite slow. Some good short sprints for the ten or so skaters at the front, though. Sunday was rained off, then Tuesday was skate into town/route check/skate home (as above), Wednesday was rained off. Small amount of adductor twinge yesterday (seems to have passed). Next up is LFNS again, and before tomorrow I need to book train tickets for my trip to the Dales next weekend