French hens#

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Obviously that low walking does seem to have done something after all. It's near-crippled me: the muscles in my thighs don't seem to work any more. I am still just about able to run up the stairs to my room, but it's definitely less pleasant than it was yesterday.

am: Sassari track. It's a short banked oval - I don't know what kind of traffic it's is intended for, but it makes a very nice skating circuit. First we worked on "fundamental" drills: skating position, push, d-shaped recovery, etc - but only on the straights. Then into the middle for some work on ankles^Wedges.

pm: Amadula, 32k in rolling hills. I think there were about three groups on this route, and I decided to play with the fast boys. On a scale of "too much fun" to "way too much fun", this is somewhere at the high end. I was grinning like a scurvy victim by the end.

Skating in a paceline is in some way much easier than solo (esp. in a headwind) and in other ways much more demanding - e.g. when the guy in front isn't keeping a consistent stride. Downhills in a tuck are a new experience too: it's all fun and games until the lactate hits (usually at about 70 seconds) and you have the distraction of pain along with the spectre of speed wobble and the idle musing about what might be around the corner.

Ankles fine (maybe a little sore, but nothing that won't have gone by morning). This all goes to reinforce my earlier hypothesis that it's not the skating that hurts, it's the tarting.

In the evening, a lecture on training and recovery: periodisation, increase in intensity, appropriate recovery after exercise. Marcel summarises the difference between training and practice as "training is goal-oriented", which sets me off to thinking that I don't really have goals as such, I just have a shopping list of stuff I'd like to do - not really the same thing. Mind you, this is not unique to skating, this is just my life in microcosm. But without goals, what am I training for?

"To defeat the enemy, see him run before me, and hear the lamentations of the women"

"Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper"

Something to think about, anyway