Monday, October 31, 2005

The Halloween Episode: Live and Uncut

"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell."
- Harry S Truman

This post is about what scares people in my world. Halloween in Protocol World is fun because it's a day when I can pull out all the stops on the colorful and exaggerated metaphors for life in the world of speedskating!

Let's start with a few Protocol-themed Halloween costumes, inspired by my life in American speedskating. Two of these ideas also happen to be inspired by Japanese horror films.

The first costume idea is "Rodan the Flying Monster," as in, Rodan vs. Godzilla. Rodan is a supersonic flying beast, kind of like a pterodactyl, that makes an appearance in the old Godzilla movies. He also happens to have the first 5 letters of my last name.

Picture the following scene: It's late winter, on one of the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota; the exact lake is of no consequence. The weather has been warming up, so the ice on the lake is getting thin. The giant reptile Godzilla, wearing a US Speedskating sweatshirt, is standing in the middle of the lake, picking up skaters and separating them into piles labeled, "Wanted" and "Unwanted." Meanwhile, Rodan circles overhead, waiting for a chance to swoop down and peck at the thin ice beneath Godzilla's feet.

So how would you go about dressing up as Rodan the Flying Monster for Halloween? It's simple: Go to the Party America store and buy the Flight Attendant costume for $29.99. Sound incongruous? Check your premises: Play the role of the cute, rosy-cheeked flight attendant who does her job with cheerful efficiency, and this is what MOST of the world will see. However, I can guarantee that if US Speedskating wants to see a horrid, supersonic flying beast with radioactive breath, then this is what they will see.

Costume idea #2 is Samara, from The Ring. Samara is a little girl who gets thrown into a well by her adopted mother. The problem is, she won't stay dead, and she won't stay down there! She enters peoples' lives through a video tape that tells her story and leaves them seven days to live after they watch it.

The metaphor here refers to the rejection and discarding of a talented athlete by her own federation. The other day, I watched a video of recent time trials in Salt Lake City. "Who is that girl?" I thought, "She looks strong. Is this someone new I have to worry about at the trials?" It took me some time before I realized the person I was watching was me.

Every year, I feel like US Speedskating keeps on throwing me down into that well. Every season it seems like such a fight to struggle towards the light; climbing the wet, slippery walls on my way to the surface, only to have the people on top look down at me in disgust and stomp on my knuckles when my hands reach the final layer of stone.

I can think of at least one person who despises me because rather than making a tremendous breakthrough from the outside of USS, I keep grasping onto that last remaining spot on every World Cup team. A person like this should be reminded that every year I have to climb out of that same stinking well in order to claim that spot on the team.

To dress as Samara this Halloween, simply take your hair out of that wholesome pony tail and brush it down in front of your face.

The third Halloween costume idea comes directly from Qwest's "Spirit of Service in Action," right here in good old Salt Lake City. Now, you too can dress up like the infamous DEX Phone Book!

Dex is scary because Dex Knows All. When asked a question, Dex can neither lie nor hide information, and as such, he is the ideal mascot for the sport of metric speedskating.

For your Dex Phone Book costume, you will need a large cardboard box. Cut the box into a single long sheet that you can fold in half. Cut out a hole for your head in the center of the fold, so that the sheet rests on your shoulders and falls on either side. Use yellow, blue and black paint to replicate the design of the Qwest Dex phone directory.

Of course, if you're one of those Salt Lake City long track skaters who lives under the viaduct, then you know that those big cardboard boxes are hard to come by. In that case, be sure to use your neighbor's house for your costume, rather than your own.

And now, I will end my scary Halloween post with a special transmission from Lake Wobegone for the Minnesota Mafia and all like-minded "Thugs-In-Spirit:"

"A Curse:
May your soul be forever tormented by fire and your bones be dug up by dogs and dragged through the streets of Minneapolis."

-Garrison Keillor

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Get In, Get Done, Get Out:

Fall World Cup Trials are what you make of them, and I definitely made this one a business trip. From the time I started planning my itinerary a month ago, I was determined to spend as little time and money on the whole ordeal as possible, while still accomplishing my objective of qualifying for the fall world cups.

What bothered me the most about the trials this year is the fact that the national team skaters got the whole trip paid for, because the trials "happened to" fit into one of their low altitude training camps. Thus, their air fare to Milwaukee, a place to stay, and food were all covered by USS for the duration of the trials. My trip, on the other hand, cost me a little over $600, which made a significant dent in my savings.

Back when I was with the national team in 2003, I asked if our trip to the qualifier would be covered by US Speedskating, and the person I asked replied, "No, because it wouldn't be fair to cover anyone's expenses to a QUALIFYING competition, while other skaters have to pay their own way." How convenient to simply fit it into a "training camp."

(Speaking of training camps, whatever happened to the good old days, when all skaters who qualified based on their performance at the nationals were invited to national team training camps throughout the following season, regardless of their regular coach or training program?)

It was thoughts like these that I was trying to prevent from creeping into my head over the past weekend; thoughts like, "Shouldn't your best potential Olympic season be an exciting experience, where all of the people important to your success try their hardest to make it easier for you to perform at your best?"

Or, "I wonder what it would be like to compete for a federation that DID care about me?" Or just thinking about what it might be like to have someone by my side at races who cared about me but also respected me and wasn't overbearing. Is that too much to ask???

Of course, all of this is too much for me to ask; at least it has been for me in my experience of speedskating. So I knew that what I needed to do was to convince myself that none of these details actually matter.

I managed to do this, and as a result, I turned in two days of solid but thoroughly uninspired racing. Looking back, I see that I could have done things better if I had paid more attention to taking care of the details myself, rather than trying to ignore the advantages that others had over me. One example? Maybe I shouldn't have waited until the last minute to try to find someone to give me lap times for the 1500.

As soon as my races ended on Saturday, I signed my declaration of intent form, indicating which world cups I will skate. Then I left town, driving to Chicago to spend the rest of the weekend with my brother. Why not? After all, I paid for this trip myself, didn't I?

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Scarier than an Organic Chemistry Exam:

I am currently working on obtaining a copy of the U.S. Long Track Olympic Team selection criteria. Unfortunately, the printer in the Utah Oval's athlete lounge hasn't been working for several weeks now, and it is apparently not working today.

But don't worry, U.S. Speedskating. I intend to bring this document on the plane with me to Milwaukee tomorrow, so I can pore over it with my magnifying glass and my highliter. Nothing is going to get by me.

From the brief glance I took at the criteria just now, I can see that I'll probably have to skate the European world cups, through Torino in mid-December, and then have about two weeks to recover before the Olympic trials.

Whatever my studying turns up, I should be ready to solidify my world cup plans (if I should make the team this weekend, of course) by the time I need to sign my name to anything.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Life in the Carnivorous Fishbowl:

In Zen and the Art of Speedskating's interview with Jen Rodriguez, Andrew Love says that the world of speedskating can sometimes be a "carnivorous fishbowl." Right away, this seemed to strike me as something I might say. But when I thought about it some more, I was surprised to find that my actual view of this speedskating world as a whole is a bit more balanced than this phrase might imply.

It's true that we athletes can feel like we live in a fishbowl. This will become even more true as the Olympics approach, and more people start watching us.

As speedskaters, we assume that most of us have gotten over our initial inhibitions against wearing spandex in public! Still, going out there in front of a Heerenveen World Cup A-Group crowd of 10,000-plus spectators can be disconcerting. Of course, now, with all the sharing of photos on the internet, there's always the chance that you'll end up on somebody's "camel toe" web site! And there's always a photographer waiting to capture a priceless shot of the horrible face you're making as you enter the final turn of the 1500.

You know you're in a fishbowl when you're having a bad race in public. No, not just any old bad race- the kind where maybe you hoped you'd finish on the podium but you came in 7th, or something- I'm talking about the kind of complete and utter humiliation of trying and trying to push, but your legs just won't go, and when you finally crawl across the finish line and look up at your time, you just want to crawl into a hole and die!

It takes guts to step out there onto the ice in front of a crowd, knowing that you'll be showing people what happens when YOU approach your physical limits. Part of the fascination of the sport of speedskating, especially when it comes to the middle and long distances, is watching to see who cracks under the pain and the pressure.

Yes, speedskating can definitely feel like a little world in a fishbowl. Yet, for the most part, it doesn't feel carnivorous. I don't feel that "dog-eat-dog" attitude from most of my fellow skaters. It seems to me that many other U.S. skaters feel that I speak up for them, especially on this blog. I feel that people are curious to see how I do without a coach, and without a lot of the other advantages given to members of the National Team. I feel that a lot of people secretly wish me well.

Of course, there will always be times when some intruder marches right up to your little fishbowl and tries to shake it up, just to see what will happen. Last December, at the U.S. Nationals, I stopped my pre-race jog before the first 500 meters in order to say "Hi" to one of the old-timers I knew. I had raced the 1500 two days before and absolutely bombed it (my legs blew up after the 300-meter opener, and I just felt like I couldn't move) and this guy felt that 20 minutes before my next race was just the time to let me have it. He got about 5 inches away from my face and started yelling insults: "That 1500 of yours was terrible! It's obvious you haven't changed a thing about your training program. If you care this little about your speedskating career, then you should just quit right now and get married!"

As an elite athlete, you have to be prepared for this sort of thing. You have to shake it off and focus on your race, as I was able to do on that day, with a solid performance in the 500, and in the 1000 that followed.

I'm sure some people wonder if I make my life in the speedskating fishbowl more difficult for myself by making so many people hate me. It's true that I make some people hate me. Mostly, people who hate me do so because I won't let them get away with faking the reality of how they are running this supposedly pure, objective sport. I won't let them pretend that the playing field is level, when it is not.

I know there are people out there who (at the risk of quoting a Bad Religion song) would want me to "accelerate into oblivion." But I also know that there isn't much they can do, within the limits of the rules, to take an active, "carnivorous" role in the process.

I realize the extent to which some people dislike me. My friend Bill, who drives out to skate at the Pettit on some weekends, recently told me a funny story. He asked one of the US Speedskating people to "Say hi to my friend Eva Rodansky for me, when you see her." The look on the guy's face, said Bill, was "like he was out in a boat on the ocean and couldn't take the waves."

Seriously, though; I'm willing to pay a certain price for "cleaning the fishbowl." Metric speedskating ought to be as pure, clean and simple as a fishbowl, where everything is unashamedly on display for all the world to see. In my speedskating fishbowl, we have a lot of fun toys for the fishies to swim through. We have seaweed, brightly colored rocks, and even a little toy castle. And when I reach into the fishbowl to pick up the castle, I want everyone to see the little man who sits in the corner, pulling all the strings.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Keepin' it Real at the Hotel Derelicte: Mama Eva's Boarding House for Wayward Speedskaters offers only the finest mattresses made by homeless people for the D.I Thrift Store!

I usually avoid reading the USS News emails, as I tend to find them rather untherapeutic to my mental well-being, but one of my skating friends from Southern California insisted I take a look at the one about the remodeling of the short trackers' housing in Colorado Springs. "There's got to be a good blog post in there, somewhere!" he said.

The subject heading of the above-mentioned email was this: "Ohno, USS Athletes Get a Room Makeover: NASA and Hilton Work Together to Give USS Stars a Good Night's Sleep." Apparently, Hilton Hotels will modify 160 athlete rooms at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, using the expertise of former NASA scientist Dr. Mark Rosekind, who has developed methods of combating fatigue in pilots and astronauts.

Dr. Rosekind says, "Sleep is so important and so basic that it could make the difference between winning the gold or the silver at the Olympic Games. The proper amount of sleep can boost an athlete's performance as much as 30 percent."

Apolo Ohno agrees that "Rest and relaxation is a critical component to competing at your best."

To help the athletes achieve optimal rest, the "Hilton Competitive Advantage Program" will incorporate elements including enhanced bed size and bedding (a plush-top mattress to reduce tossing and turning and to improve circulation during sleep), a usable work area and an effective wake-up mechanism (a radio alarm clock that automatically adjusts for daylight savings time and includes a connector for MP3 and CD players).

The rooms will also feature new 6-setting shower heads, curved rods and curtains, and "large, thick terry towels and washcloths" provided by Hampton Hotels.

"Other room enhancements include sensory changes involving temperature, lighting, and visual stimuli." However, several details are still being kept top-secret. (I'm assuming that we are trying to prevent the Norwegian team from gaining the same advantages for their athletes!)

Dr. Rosekind emphasizes the importance of sleep to an elite athlete: "For an athlete, two hours less sleep than needed is the same as having a blood alcohol level of 0.05 when it comes to the effect on performance."

Ha-ha-ha. I know of at least a few speedskaters for whom, in order to prevent feeling like they have a BAC of 0.05, the ideal bed would feature the following: An industrial-strength bedpost, complete with handcuffs, to prevent the skater from going out to actually search for booze!

As an an internationally competitive US Long Track speedskater who resides in the Salt Lake Valley -- supposedly the home base of the US Long Track program, since it is where our training facility, the Utah Olympic Oval, is located -- how am I supposed to feel about reading such an email? How am I supposed to react, knowing that every American long track skater who has limiting factors that prevent them from living up in the USS high altitude housing in Park City, has always been ON THEIR OWN when it comes to housing?

I remember sitting in on a teleconference of skaters with USS board representatives a couple of seasons ago. We were discussing controversial issues regarding sponsorships and the distribution of athlete funding and benefits. The topic of housing was brought up. We talked about the unfairness experienced by certain skaters who were qualified for the free housing up in Park City but couldn't live there because their hematocrit would be too high if they lived at high altitude. As a result, they were forced to live down in the Salt Lake Valley and had to pay for their own housing.

And what about the people who drive shitty cars that won't make it up and down Parley's Canyon? What about those who can't afford the gas?

I brought up the point that, regardless of whether people were able to take advantage of the "Live High-Train Low" philosophy, US Speedskating, the USOC, and the Utah Olympic Oval should be concerned about THE LACK OF HOUSING AVAILABLE IN PROXIMITY TO THE UTAH OLYMPIC OVAL.

There is a great need for housing close to the UOO. First of all, most American speedskaters don't have much money and are looking for ways to save. We'd love to be able to walk or bike to the Oval. A residence facility for athletes would be a great thing to build nearby. Besides, why shouldn't we long trackers have access to free housing, just like the short trackers?

I believe that the lack of nearby housing is a major reason why speedskaters from all over the world choose to train in Calgary rather than Salt Lake City. The hotels here are just too far away for the skaters to walk or bike to the facility. As a result, the speedskating sessions in Calgary are overcrowded, while the Utah Oval wastes away like an empty warehouse for much of the time.

In the athlete teleconference, when I brought up the need for housing close to the Oval, I was told by one of the athlete reps, "If you bring up the need for housing in Salt Lake with the program director, he will laugh in your face." WHY? I never got a straight answer.

So, I bet you're wondering when I will get to the point of this post. My point is this: Why bother to optimize housing conditions for the short trackers, when the long trackers have never had anything at all? Why care if some short trackers toss and turn and lose two hours' worth of sleep, while the long trackers might as well live in cardboard boxes under the I-15 overpass, eating spaghetti-O's from the dumpster?

I, for one, have recognized the need for affordable athlete housing close to the Oval. In fact, by purchasing a house within a 10-minute walk of the Oval, I have managed to create for myself an opportunity out of an obstacle. I rent rooms to speedskaters who come here to train.

I would have loved to be able to stay in a training center for free, but since there was nothing available, I had to hunt for my own housing options just like every other American long tracker. I've done it all: rented a room from someone else, rented my own apartment, and shared the rental of a house with a group of other skaters. Finally, I decided to buy a house near the Oval, knowing that I could keep most of the rooms occupied with skaters for most of the year -- thus having other people pay my mortgage for me. Back when I was still a "well-paid scientist," I was able to obtain a mortgage.

Here at Mama Eva's Boarding House for Wayward Speedskaters, we "Live High, and Train Low" on the West Side. (Hey, there has to be at least a 20-meter elevation gain as you walk up the hill from the Oval to my street!) Rent is on the low side, even compared to the rest of Kearns, and you can easily walk or bike to the Oval in 10 minutes or less. Though the living conditions are not those of the laboratory-controlled perfection that ought to be provided for future Olympians, they are acceptable.

Unlike the new dorm rooms at the USOTC in Colorado Springs, my room does not always present me with the "ideal sensory stimuli." My lights are either on, or they're off. Sometimes I'm awakened in the middle of the night by the putrescence of the Great Salt Lake blowing in on the northwest wind of an approaching cold front. On occasion, my radio alarm clock wakes me up with a Motley Crue song. And, yes, it is true: I sleep on a mattress that was made, not by Hilton on recommendation of a NASA scientist, but by homeless people for the Deseret Industries Thrift Store.

Even though being a home owner gives me a tremendous sense of accomplishment, and renting rooms to speedskaters has enabled me to make friends from all over the world, it still bothers me that US Speedskating ignores the fact that we long trackers need housing every bit as much as the short trackers do.

I know it's not USS's fault that Hilton and NASA chose to overhaul the OTC in Colorado Springs. But why gloat over the fact that the short trackers will have ideal conditions? Why publicize the knowledge that proper rest and relaxation is critically important for athletic performance, while expecting athletes like me to continue to suffer for your contradictions and hypocrisy; your continued assertion that athletes like me don't matter, and that your "walking billboards" don't even need food and shelter?

US Speedskating has always been about image, the expediency of the moment, and piddly-fucking little pseudo-scientific details, while losing sight of The Big Picture. Oh, yes. Your long track skaters suffer. We bear the burden of excessive working hours. We bear the burden of not eating properly in order to save money. We bear the burden of the guilt of adults who accept our parents' help, because we represent this country on an international level of competition, but we can't take care of our basic needs.

It's not like I'm going to sit here and cry over how good a speedskater I could have been if I'd had access to everything I needed for optimal training and recovery over the past 5 years. I'm just going to go out there and do my best anyway, and see what happens.

No matter what random favors happen to fall to random people on someone's standard-free whim, I realize that my own ability and strength are not THEIRS to give, take, assign, or deny. I will continue to fight this unreasonable battle because I love the sport of speedskating and want to skate well. I know that everyone who follows this blog and my race results realizes that everything I've accomplished in this sport has happened because I have triumphed over impossible odds, and not because my federation has provided me with everything I need in order to train and recover at my best. That is what The Protocol is all about: destroying false images of the lives of Olympic hopefuls.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Back with the Castrated Version:

Don't tell me you really thought they came to take me away, heee-heeee!!! I know I haven't posted anything on The Protocol for a long time, but it's not because I was locked up in a mental institution, and it sure isn't due to a lack of material. On the contrary, I've been writing furiously in my notebook (which I like to call "the uncensored version"). The problem is not that I don't have anything to say, but that I just want to be careful not to say anything that might hurt people whom I still care about, even though we have had some pretty major disagreements.

I've also hoped that my race results from the past two weekends would tell part of the story.

Since leaving High 5 three weeks ago, my plan was to give my body a chance to recover from overtraining, and then to add volume to my program if there was enough time remaining before I had to start my taper for the fall World Cup qualifier (Oct. 21-24). So far, I am very happy with my results.

In the first week, I still felt quite bad, physically. I couldn't lift weights or do tempos on the ice. By week 2, I was "up and down," actually having a few good days of training for the first time since early August. Tuesday's lap workout felt good, but I couldn't hold a good skating position on Wednesday for tempos, so I decided to do 300's instead. The race prep went well on Friday, but for Saturday's races I felt a bit off, and felt unusually tired after the 500.

Last week was my first consistently good week. My waking heart rate actually got down below 60 beats per minute for 3 days! On Monday afternoon, I had the best skating workout I'd done in a couple of months. And, considering the outside stress I was facing on that particular day (my dog had run away the night before and I had spent the morning visiting all of the local animal shelters and posting "lost dog" fliers around the neighborhood) one can only explain my good workout by admitting that my body had finally come around to a level that enabled it to accept a training load again.

Fortunately, I managed to find the dog by the end of the day (she had spent the night with a family in the neighborhood), and I fixed the hole in the fence through which she had escaped.

For the remainder of the week, I felt good in every training session, and managed to add volume to my program. I finally resumed weight lifting, and even added a hill tempo running workout on Wednesday.

One of the main strategies used to recover from overtraining while preventing a loss of fitness is to maintain training intensity while reducing volume. This is why I have decided to race so much lately. Because I basically lost the entire month of September -- the time when most speedskaters are picking up speed, doing 1200-800 meter tempos on ice and throwing up into trash cans -- I've had to "race myself into shape" over a short period of time in early October.

The strategy for this past weekend was to use the two-day racing schedule to mimic my two most important days of racing at the fall World Cup qualifier: 500 and 1000 on the first day; 500 and 1500 on the second day. I am extremely pleased with my times, with my consistency over the two days, and with the way I felt during and after the races.


So I guess the question of the day is this: Is a "mentally weak athlete" the sort of person who leaves her team with the full confidence that she can handle an Olympic season on her own? Is a "mentally weak athlete" the sort of person who can perform as well as I did in these last two weekends of racing?

---

There is one last thing I need to mention, and that is the reason why I have decided to hide the comments on The Protocol. It seems that a lot of speedskating blogs have become a forum for the bashing of various people -- some of whom are not even involved in the story being told on the blog. I realize that my posts often inspire controversy, but I don't want the "comments" section to be a place where people go to insult each other.

To all who have taken the time to post supportive comments, I thank you, and I appreciate your kind words of encouragement.