It's been awhile since I raced this well: CAN-AM Racing results

What a great few days of racing for me. Such a confidence booster and some personal reassurance. I knew that I could have qualified for both the 1000 m and 1500 m a few weeks ago, but, my ankle injury definitely limited me. I did make some technical mistakes but the ankle

Wednesday evening, I wrote up my race plans and rehearsed them. I knew exactly what I was going to do for both the 500 and 1000.

Thursday was a great day of racing. I executed technically and tactically and was mentally tough. The result was 2 solid races.

500m: 36.34... Its hardly a world class time but a significant improvement for me and a season's best.

1000 m: 1:09.81. A much better race compared to trials, and with that time I would have qualified for the 1000 m. (I know I can't directly compare despite the ice being very similar to trials.. different day, no trials pressure etc.) I finally figured out how to open under 17 seconds (16.91) with a pb opener. That is so important for me because I am giving up way too much time to my competitors in the opener. The rest of the race was very smooth and I skated the best I had all year in racing.

Friday was an even better day of racing, but there was a little bit of a rollercoaster to make it interesting.

500m was not as good as Thursday. I was rushed  on the backstretch and messed up the 2nd inner.

So i was a little nervous and there was some doubt that creeped into my head. Was my focus wrong? Is the technical side wrong? Am I tired? I took a few minutes to clear my head, then went over my race plan and technical cues.  I put some tunes in my ears (C'mon...catch em by surprise Tiesto ft Busta rhymes... soo awesome) and started warming up. I went through all my technical cues with some position drills. Then, the best way to deal with nerves is to fight fire with fire. I got ready to race, went to the line and went for it.

1500 m: 1:46.52. 0.1 seconds off of my personal best. Fastest time  in 2.5 yrs on slow and unforgiving ice.
Solid opener. easy speed. Smooth first lap and I was just flying. 25.78 is one of my fastest 1500m laps ever, and one of my fastest laps of the year... in the 1500! I didn't even work for the first lap and a half. There are definately some things to work on in laps 2 and 3, but that was one of the best races that I've ever raced...up there with my 1500m at fall trials in Richmond in 2009 that qualified me for world cups.

These races, especially the 1500 m, are exactly what I knew I could do at trials had I not been injured. These were low pressure races..definitely not trials, but there was some serious pressure on myself to perform given that i was healthier. I know that I'm on track and that I will be ready for racing in Quebec and at trials in January. Such a great feeling and very much needed.What a great race. It's been awhile !

The ankle is finally healing up

I raced this week at the Annual CAN-AM International competition here in Calgary. It was the first racing for me since trials so I was a little nervous to see how I would race now that my ankle is in much better shape than it was a few weeks ago. I noticed a considerable improvement in my ankle over the last week, but especially over the last 3 or 4 days where each day it was noticeably better. I figure I'm at about 90+% now, but this is where I thought I was back at trials.

Early this week, I noticed a few things technically when I was thinking about a few things at home one evening. So I tried out a few things on the ice for race prep on wednesday and the difference was enormous. First, I didn't realize how much I was using my quads instead of my glutes when I skate. Race prep on wednesday felt like i was a completely different skater. I felt like I had to relearn how to speedskate. By the end of practice I was really starting to get the new feelings down, but I didn't exactly have a fast tempo. Sure, I was slightly concerned but decided to just go with it and trust that the technical changes would work tomorrow. Plus, I knew that was the technique I needed to skate with to improve moving forward.

I decided to stick to the plan, write up my race plans and rehearse them and just trust the technical changes and see what would happen.

Inspired by the "Book of Awesome"

I recently heard about the book "The book of Awesome" by Neil Pasricha and took a peek at it. The point of the book is to step back and notice some of the awesome things that we experience in daily life but are too busy or not aware enough to notice them. An example, putting on a warm shirt right out of the dryer or that nice cozy feeling when you wake up in bed.

Yesterday, I had one of those moments. Yesterday, November 10th, I rode my bike outside in the sun with very few layers on because it was 13 degrees Celsius. Yup, pretty awesome.

Check out http://1000awesomethings.com/