Mountain a la maison#

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 00:10:31 +0000

Ingredients: one molehill

It may not be as bad as I thought: in fact, my earlier posts between them correctly identify the problem: I'm setting down with a deep outside edge and my body canted over at approximately the same angle as the skate underneath it. Which means I have to travel for ages before I can get it onto the inside and start pushing properly.

Anyway, my recent video review indicates that I'm still doing this (although, I think, at a less extreme angle than before). The difference is that in the pursuit of a slower cadence I'm now travelling much further sideways on that outside edge before rolling the foot over the centre edge to inside: this is, I can't help feeling, counterproductive. And probably explains why my anklebones hurt, which I guess is good news - all I have to do to fix that is, uh, not do it any more.

So, deemphasize the slow cadence practice and concentrate more on what I believe is that "falling from the hips" stuff. At least, some "moving the hips in the opposite direction to the pushing leg, in order to sooner get the skate onto its inside edge" stuff - less of a catchy name, but (I hope) more accurate.

Outside edge setdown: let's put this one to bed. Comments from club members seem to establish the following: (1) nose, knees and toes should be vertical and aligned at setdown, pretty much - an inside edge setdown is to be avoided as it probably means you don't have your weight over the support leg; (2) once you've got the skate on the ground you will soon be wanting an inside edge to start pushing, so you don't want a deep outside edge either; (3) but: a small amount of outside will tend to steer the skate outwards a bit, which is probably a good thing as it helps to get a bit of horizontal displacement between CoG and the wheels, which you'll need to start the push.

It's not really surprising, but it's interesting how much speedskating technique eventually comes down to "ways to more precisely control the direction that the pushing skate is pointing in". Even the humble heel carve: it's effective because it means you get a narrower angle therefore more mechanical disadvantage[1], not because it makes a rasping noise on the tarmac.

Other stuff from the video review: I'm now setting down too early, and I'm continuing to recover and setdown with toe pointing outwards instead of straight ahead. But my kneebend is improved on what it was, and (despite everything said above) my cadence is slower. One thing at a time, I think, and the first priority is to find a skating technique that doesn't eat my ankles.

[ Skating log: most of tomorrow's LFNS route, just to make absolutely sure I know where it goes. 20km? Decided it was too cold to enjoy skating home afterwards, so I didn't ]

fn1. Yes, disadvantage. A mechanical advantage (at least, a MA greater than 1) turns a small force over a large distance into a large force over a small one. What we want is the opposite.