Now let's get down to some real speedskating business. I'm sure that people want to know why I chose not to go to the Fall World Cups, even though I qualified for a spot in the 1500 meters. This is because my coach, Boris Leikin, and I decided to train through this part of the season in the hopes of getting better results later on.
One of the main reasons why I chose to train with Boris this year is that I did not like the way my speedskating career was heading and I needed to make a major change. Boris has been watching my skating career since I came back in 2001, and at the end of last season, he seemed to be the only coach who had some real solutions to the problems with my skating.
The last thing I wanted to do this year was to repeat a training program that didn't work the last time. Throughout this summer and fall, Boris has helped me fix some problems with my technique, through exercises that give me specific strength in the skating position.
I knew I was taking a big risk by deciding not to train with one of the teams here in Salt Lake City, but from my results so far this year, I believe I made the right choice. Though I haven't turned in any awesome times yet, my races have at least been consistent.
I'm also taking a step back from racing my favorite events in order to learn how to be a better sprinter. I've gone to Allround world cups and not felt too out of place, but when I watched the sprint World Cup in Salt Lake City last year, I realized that all of those sprinters skated way better than me! It wasn't just that they had more fast-twitch muscles, either. On average, the sprinters seemed to have much better, more efficient technique.
Fortunately for me, Boris knows a lot about training the sprint. No matter what happens in the races this season, I'm hoping that with the sprint training I have been doing, I will be able to increase my top-end speed and be able to skate a better 1500.
One of the main reasons why I chose to train with Boris this year is that I did not like the way my speedskating career was heading and I needed to make a major change. Boris has been watching my skating career since I came back in 2001, and at the end of last season, he seemed to be the only coach who had some real solutions to the problems with my skating.
The last thing I wanted to do this year was to repeat a training program that didn't work the last time. Throughout this summer and fall, Boris has helped me fix some problems with my technique, through exercises that give me specific strength in the skating position.
I knew I was taking a big risk by deciding not to train with one of the teams here in Salt Lake City, but from my results so far this year, I believe I made the right choice. Though I haven't turned in any awesome times yet, my races have at least been consistent.
I'm also taking a step back from racing my favorite events in order to learn how to be a better sprinter. I've gone to Allround world cups and not felt too out of place, but when I watched the sprint World Cup in Salt Lake City last year, I realized that all of those sprinters skated way better than me! It wasn't just that they had more fast-twitch muscles, either. On average, the sprinters seemed to have much better, more efficient technique.
Fortunately for me, Boris knows a lot about training the sprint. No matter what happens in the races this season, I'm hoping that with the sprint training I have been doing, I will be able to increase my top-end speed and be able to skate a better 1500.
posted by Eva at 2:33 PM
OK, I see how it works! Thanks, Steph.
Welcome to my online journal. I called it The Protocol because the word "Protocol" means so many things in speedskating. There is an on-ice pre-race warmup called the Protocol, and an off-ice running or biking warmdown called the Protocol, but the one that really gets me is that when you go get the printout of the results from a competition it is called the Protocol. (In the lab, we'd call that the "data," or the "results," while the protocol would be the instructions for carrying out the experiment.)
I'd like to apologize for not having very many photos on my web site at this time. You know, it is possible to take a picture of me where I'm not looking like a complete dork, but you have to throw out probably 9 out of 10 to get a good one...Also, when I'm having a good race, my friends are yelling for me instead of taking pictures, and when I'm having a bad race, nobody wants to get a picture of that anyways.
Also, I have not yet checked my guest book, and I'm sorry for that! It's been weird to have a web site for the first time, because obviously, you need to have people looking at you, but then all of a sudden you realize, "Oh no! They're LOOKING AT ME!!!"
...and now, since I've had my coffee this morning, I will expound on the meaning of the songs I have on my site. The one on the homepage is called "Lightning Rod." Get it? A-Rod, J-Rod....Lightning Rod. "It's not about the speed, man, it's about being struck!!!"
Seriously, when I was a kid skating for West Michigan, my coach Mark Jastrzembski used to say I had the "Rodansky Dark Cloud" following me around because I was always the one falling in the last lap of a race I was leading, or, more recently, barely missing a berth on the 2002 Olympic team. My friend Pat says I need to go from "Woe is me" to, "Whoa!! It's me!!!"
The song on my Welcome page is called "Defy You," and, since I'm a little reluctant at this time to tell the politically incorrect story of my first retirement from this sport, I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
Then there is a silly song about driving the Zamboni, which is on my photo gallery page. I think most ice skaters have a sort of fascination with driving the Zamboni...
So, here is the first post on my Blogger. I think this is going to be fun!