10K: The National Record that Lived for 5 Days
As you may know, I've had this thing about skating 10K races in recent years. Here's the story of how that came about, and what the 10K means to me.
I'll begin at the end. It's almost embarrassing to hold a record for only 5 days, but this is just another one of those pathetic and silly episodes that have characterized my speedskating career! By now, I've just learned to shake my head and laugh.
The thought of skating a 10K first entered my mind during the Oceania Regional Qualifier in Calgary last year. I was in the middle of a disastrous racing season that had been wrecked by overtraining, and had just slogged through another embarrassingly bad allround samalog performance. The team was sitting at dinner when I heard somebody mention the fact that Maria Lamb owned the 10K national record. This made me curious, as I was not aware that US Speedskating kept track of a national record for the women's 10K. I looked up the record on the web site and found the time. It was 16:02.01.
Since I had not qualified for any world cups, I was free to do whatever I wanted with the rest of the season. When I returned from the Two Track Tour of Italy, I decided to put my overtraining to good use and try to skate a 10K. Because my goal was just to finish, and I was not concerned about trying for the record, I agreed to be paired with Nate diPalma. The two of us asked to race a 10K at one of the weekend time trials in Salt Lake City.
My first 10K was, without a doubt, the most painful athletic event I have ever done! And I've run a marathon before! Only halfway through, I got all "peg-legged," and after that was not really able to skate any more. I just kept trying to put one foot in front of the other, telling myself that the only humiliation would be in not finishing the race. Having a Swift Skin on, I was overheating pretty badly, and with 7 laps to go I had to take off my hood. (Kim Kraan told me later that if I ever do that again, she better see me with a shaved head!) But by then I was convinced that I'd be turning in a pretty terrible time, so it didn't matter...I was really surprised that I ended up tying Maria's record in that race -- right down to the 100th of a second.
My time was declared unofficial, since I had been paired with a man, so I went to Calgary to skate an official 10K at the end of last season. However, I was very sick with bronchitis and ended up skating a slower time there.
----
I was working in the lab one morning last spring when I got a call from my fellow 10K skater, Nate diPalma. He was so happy to inform me that a group of Dutch statisticians had found that my two 10K races were the Season's Best women's times! Even though I realized I only had this title because so few women skated this race, it meant so much to me to find this out, after my worst-ever season had just ended. For me, the 10K proved that I wasn't underperforming because I lacked toughness or pain tolerance. It gave me back all the self-respect that I had allowed US Speedskating and others to take from me.
After this season's breakthroughs in my sprinting performance, going after the 10K American record was just a bonus. I hadn't trained for, or raced, anything longer than the 1500 since October. For my 10K race at the America's Cup Final, Boris and I made up a lap schedule that would take me into the 15:50's. I'm very happy that we achieved our goal, with a nice flat race (that didn't feel nearly as bad this time!) and a few seconds to spare.
To me, there is no use in holding a record or a title, such as Season's Best, in a distance just because "Nobody skates it." I always knew that all a "real" distance skater (such as Clara or Catherine) had to do is to go out there and try to skate a 10K, and they'd have a great race, for sure. I would like to congratulate all of the excellent female distance skaters who came out to skate the 10K this year, and showed the world what you can do!
As you may know, I've had this thing about skating 10K races in recent years. Here's the story of how that came about, and what the 10K means to me.
I'll begin at the end. It's almost embarrassing to hold a record for only 5 days, but this is just another one of those pathetic and silly episodes that have characterized my speedskating career! By now, I've just learned to shake my head and laugh.
The thought of skating a 10K first entered my mind during the Oceania Regional Qualifier in Calgary last year. I was in the middle of a disastrous racing season that had been wrecked by overtraining, and had just slogged through another embarrassingly bad allround samalog performance. The team was sitting at dinner when I heard somebody mention the fact that Maria Lamb owned the 10K national record. This made me curious, as I was not aware that US Speedskating kept track of a national record for the women's 10K. I looked up the record on the web site and found the time. It was 16:02.01.
Since I had not qualified for any world cups, I was free to do whatever I wanted with the rest of the season. When I returned from the Two Track Tour of Italy, I decided to put my overtraining to good use and try to skate a 10K. Because my goal was just to finish, and I was not concerned about trying for the record, I agreed to be paired with Nate diPalma. The two of us asked to race a 10K at one of the weekend time trials in Salt Lake City.
My first 10K was, without a doubt, the most painful athletic event I have ever done! And I've run a marathon before! Only halfway through, I got all "peg-legged," and after that was not really able to skate any more. I just kept trying to put one foot in front of the other, telling myself that the only humiliation would be in not finishing the race. Having a Swift Skin on, I was overheating pretty badly, and with 7 laps to go I had to take off my hood. (Kim Kraan told me later that if I ever do that again, she better see me with a shaved head!) But by then I was convinced that I'd be turning in a pretty terrible time, so it didn't matter...I was really surprised that I ended up tying Maria's record in that race -- right down to the 100th of a second.
My time was declared unofficial, since I had been paired with a man, so I went to Calgary to skate an official 10K at the end of last season. However, I was very sick with bronchitis and ended up skating a slower time there.
----
I was working in the lab one morning last spring when I got a call from my fellow 10K skater, Nate diPalma. He was so happy to inform me that a group of Dutch statisticians had found that my two 10K races were the Season's Best women's times! Even though I realized I only had this title because so few women skated this race, it meant so much to me to find this out, after my worst-ever season had just ended. For me, the 10K proved that I wasn't underperforming because I lacked toughness or pain tolerance. It gave me back all the self-respect that I had allowed US Speedskating and others to take from me.
After this season's breakthroughs in my sprinting performance, going after the 10K American record was just a bonus. I hadn't trained for, or raced, anything longer than the 1500 since October. For my 10K race at the America's Cup Final, Boris and I made up a lap schedule that would take me into the 15:50's. I'm very happy that we achieved our goal, with a nice flat race (that didn't feel nearly as bad this time!) and a few seconds to spare.
To me, there is no use in holding a record or a title, such as Season's Best, in a distance just because "Nobody skates it." I always knew that all a "real" distance skater (such as Clara or Catherine) had to do is to go out there and try to skate a 10K, and they'd have a great race, for sure. I would like to congratulate all of the excellent female distance skaters who came out to skate the 10K this year, and showed the world what you can do!
posted by Eva at 11:07 AM
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