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/

Wish I were on an airplane right now...

A lot has happened over the last 8 weeks to get me to where I am right now.

In early September, I sprained my ankle doing a recovery jog in Montreal. (Yup, that's what I get for being a good athlete that follows the training program instead of taking the day off like I wanted). It was pretty bad when it happened. I was jogging down Mont Royal when i came up to 3 rock 'steps'. I slowed to a crawl, dropped down one step, then the other and then the third.... i heard a 'pop' as I dropped a foot and a half onto an uneven surface and rolled my ankle.  I buckled over the railing close by, felt the most intense feeling of wanting to throw up. As I was bent over the railing, in intense pain and nearly hyperventilating, a gentleman walked past me...and kept walking (I hope not all Montrealers are so kind...). I was about 2 km from my girlfriend's place, I had only my phone (thankfully) and no way of getting back to her place. So, i started walking... Thankfully I could walk, so i knew the ankle wasn't broken, but i was in bad shape. I just kept walking, one step at a time and about 30-40 minutes later I got back to her apartment.

Later that afternoon, I went to the Maurice Richard Arena where the National Short Track team trains to see a physio to get it checked out. Turns out it was a first degree sprain (although recently i heard it was actually a 2nd degree sprain).

When i got back to Calgary, the treatment began and I got clearance by my physio to get back on the ice about 10 days later. I tried skating and the ankle hurt, but was manageable. I tried again the next day. No chance. By the following Tuesday, I was back on the ice for one of Xiuli's death programs ready to giver. Not bad...back training less than 2 weeks after an ankle sprain, and I skated pretty well.

The next 2 weeks I was quite creative in finding a way to skate. There was a lot of pain and tenderness. I was taped up like a football player so prevent any inversion. Then the addition of foam to pad up the tender spots made skating a little more bearable. In the first week of October, I finally shed all the tape and foam and got back to as normal as possible. (...I wasn't even close to normal)

(Aside: Everyone really takes the simplest and crucial motions and movements for granted, me included. Take away motion in your ankle (or elbow, or knee or thumb) and you realize just how important that motion is and how your ability to perform the simplest or most complex tasks become more difficult or impossible. Try it. Go about your normal day with your thumb taped to your palm, or attach a weight to your ankle and tape it so you have no mobility...your perspective will change completely.)

The next few weeks saw some progress. The ankle was improving from time and treatments (We have the best med team...physio, chiro, doctor, massage and osteo...) but i was still quite injured and spent every day in some form of recovery. I had some very promising practices from a technical standpoint where I applied many of the improvements that I worked on all summer with Mark and Xiuli. But there was still a lot of pain and tenderness. The biggest limitation was the tender fibula post and the loss of mobility. It is really tough to speedskate when you can't get your knee over toe. Its almost impossible....

Thankfully I'm really strong and fit, because that got me through the weeks of training leading up into trials. Training was going well, but due to my loss of knee angle, I was really struggling with my top end speed. I can only grunt through so much but eventually strength can't make me go faster, I needed to skate better technically.

Admittedly, I was a little concerned going into trials. I knew that the ankle was coming along, but I was still pretty injured. I had some very positive improvements technically despite the ankle and I knew that it would be tough to qualify for the fall World Cups. Nevertheless, I knew that I could do it. It was gonna take something special because my ankle wasn't 100%, but, if i really focused on me, trusted my race plan and trusted my technical cues, I knew I had a chance. Given all that I had been through in the last 6 weeks, all I wanted was to have a chance to qualify and be in the running.

World cup trials came and well, it was an interesting experience to say the least.

Thursday was the 1000m. It was a decent race. One of my fastest openers ever, despite a busted up ankle...not too bad! I didn't get the first lap going as fast as I should have, and it cost me. My ranking wasn't great, 12th I think, but I was 0.2 seconds out of 6th. Yup, 7 of us between 1:10.20 and 1:10.43 (and 9 of us if you extend that to 1:10.5).

I wasn't happy, sad or dissapointed with the race. I knew the race wasn't perfect and it was a missed opportunity. I could have qualified for the 1000. So, i watched race video that evening, realized a few technical things to improve on and put together a race plan specifically for my pair the next day in the 1500.

The 1500 m was an awesome race. I noticed in the 1000 that I wasn't keeping my knee over my toe on my left, and therefore losing pressure, because of my ankle (think levers all you engineering folk... ). I refocused for the 1500 with that being the main focus...get over my left and I had a solid race plan to attack the race and to take advantage of my pair.  In my first two 1500s of the year, I was way too slow in the opener (24.5).

I absolutely went for it, 23.8 opener, much better. I didn't sit back in the first lap and kept the speed I built in the opener.

At 1100m I was about even with the guys around me, but my lap time was about a half second faster, so I knew that I was going faster than they were at that point. I executed the race plan perfectly and overcame my ankle until 300m to go.

Coming out of the 2nd last corner onto the backstretch, I had a reflex reaction on my last left stride in the corner trying to keep my knee over. I slipped or stumbled and almost went down. I recovered reasonably well, but rushed the final homstretch and was so sloppy.

That cost me. I missed qualifying a spot by 0.17 seconds. One of the guys isn't going to Holland for the last of 3 world cups, so I missed going by 0.07 seconds.... quite a heartbreaker. So damn close, despite the ankle. If only I had connected one more stride....

I've taken the last 5 days off the ice to give my ankle time to recover and heal a little more. I didn't quite realize it then, but I my ankle was a lot more injured than I thought when I raced trials. I truly believed that I was about 90%....75% would have been lucky. I don't if it was a technical mistake or my ankle that caused me to slip, but it doesn't really matter. I knew I could earn a spot even with my ankle and came so close.

In retrospect, there are alot of thoughts that went through my mind. I was much more injured than I thought. So many shoulda, woulda, coulda thoughts... but one of the biggest things that came to mind was something that one of my mentors wrote to me in an email.

"Remember that whatever life has ahead for you, you have already won it. Sometimes it just takes a time to collect the prize."

Perhaps he is correct. I have a poster called "Instructions for life" by the Dalai Lama in my room. One of the lines is "Remember not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck".

Maybe, I've already won, and I just have to wait until January to collect my prize. Maybe I'm just not quite ready and need a few more months to engrain what I've learned and improved on over the last few months. I've always been a true believer that things happen for a reason, and someone has a plan for me. Maybe that's the case.

I might have been good enough to go right now, but going might not have served me the best right now. With a little more time, I might be that much better come January. Physically and technically. There is a little anger, sadness and everything in me right now. But I've turned this into motivation. 0.07 (or 0.17) seconds is the smallest of margins that results in the biggest difference of where I'll race this year.

I'm writing this post as the rest of the team is flying to Europe. I could have been on that plane if i were just a little faster. I probably should have been on that plane regardless if I was injured or healed up. I would have easily qualified if I was healthy....Shoulda woulda coulda. So what?

That's why I wish I were on an airplane right now. I can use this experience to my advantage or let it bury me. This setback is my focus for the next 2 months.

I will be ready come January....Every stride counts.