Charlie Brown On Skates

One more Speed Racer post for you. As I said I was a huge fan. When I was learning Hash Animation:Master, I decided to do a 3D version of my favorite car ever. Hash ended up putting it on their application demo CD and I got a free jacket out of it. Here she is, if only it was real and in my garage!

Edit: Found a bunch of renders in various states of progress, including a final one done with some “show models” by a John B. where he took my model and mixed it with his girls. I’ve added those as well.

Lately I’ve been working on what I’d call “sustainable speed.” Anyone can skate fast for a few moments, but that isn’t speed skating, that’s sprinting. A speedskater is one who skates fast for the duration of the race, and in my case, it’s endurance races e.g. marathons. As usual in speedskating, it comes down more on the technique side and less on the fitness side.

Most speedskaters I know are relatively fit. Over the last three days I’ve skated over 30 miles and spent something like 16 hours building a retaining wall and working outside - fitness isn’t an issue, but technique always is. So how do you generate and sustain speed in speedskating?

There are two things that were introduced to me last year that I am working on this year, and both have helped me already. The first is interval training. I have been doing Tabata (Hight Intensity Interval Training or HIIT) intervals for the last month, once or twice a week. Interval training is crucial for the speedskater to train one’s body to adjust to rapid changes in speed - closing a gap, chasing a flyer, or just adjusting to the pack speed. Intervals help train you to be able to make those bursts of speed without killing yourself, it allows you to train yourself to recover.

Intervals also help increase your speed. Team Rainbo uses interval training both individually and at team practices. All our top skaters use interval training as part of their training regimen.

Secondly, hip and knee drive are crucial to getting and maintaining speed. It’s kind of hard to show in a blog post, but essentially you drive your hip forward after the recovery stroke while “throwing” your knee ahead. This generates momentum helping you get and maintain speed. This one thing is often the critical factor for me on whether I can hang with the faster packs or not. And it’s easy to forget when you start getting tired. My goal this year is to train myself to do this so automatically that I don’t have to think about it.

And, speaking of speed - I was a hugely freakish Speed Racer fan as a kid, and the movie comes out in three days. Oh yeah, I’ll be at the matinée early! Here’s me as a 5-year old dressed as Speed Racer - think I should wear it to the movie?

We weren’t happy with our original logo (which I had made) - it was not flexible enough, especially for the t-shirt design. So I began a new design, and we worked together to come up with a better logo. Here it is below. Hope to see lots of you there!

After missing Saturday due to rain, we got a beautiful day Sunday for our outdoor team practice. In the past couple weeks I have gotten back into my P90X routine in addition to doing my back and core exercises from my doctor. I think these are starting to pay some early dividends, I feel more fit and strong and my back has been a bit better.

Last week I also did two days of the Tabata / HIIT interval training from Barry Publow. Those are some insane intervals! The first time I could only complete 6 repeats. The second time I made the 8, but man it felt like I just skated a marathon. I don’t really have the time a pro skater would to do this 5 times a week, but I hope that a couple times a week in the early season will pay some dividends. For the next month I plan on doing mostly Tabata intervals with very little distance training during the week. Then I’ll do the distance stuff with the team on the weekends.

A quick word on how our outdoor practices work. We gather at the parking spot and suit up, and generally take off mostly as a team. The only folks that don’t skate with this larger group would be beginners who are learning other some other members and some members who cannot or don’t want to train at a more advanced pace.  After a couple of warm up laps on Trillium Blvd (3.7 miles) we take a turn into the main areas of the complex where there are some pretty challenging hills. At this point the pace picks up to what our top skaters (pro-level skaters) skate. Then it’s hang on as long as you can.  We generally do two laps out in the big area followed by a cool down lap at the beginning section. This ends up being a hour or so workout in the 18-22 mile range on average.

My goal at this point is to stick with the “fast pack” as long as possible, then skate the rest of the way with whatever group ends up forming after it breaks. Last year my best day got me over the main hill and then another mile or so. I should be able to extend that this year (well, that’s the plan anyway).

Sunday I was feeling halfway decent.  As we turned out into the main section, we made a right turn into a section we had been avoiding. There has been a lot of construction in the complex, and honestly the roads are really bad right now. Tar snakes, rocks and just bad pavement all over. You’ve got to watch every setdown.

By the time we made a couple turns and got to the downhill portion on the East side of the Sears Centre, I was already starting to get in trouble. The next right turn is a slow incline (deceiving, but tough) leading up to a parking lot (yet another climb). We turn around and head for the big hill.  The big hill is generally trouble!

In any event, I dropped off for a moment at the parking lot and cut across diagonally to grab onto the back again. This got me on briefly up to the hill, and then I was dropped on the hill. All in all, about 6.5 miles with the fast pack.

After that, I joined up with Guy (a good training partner for me since we are fairly close right now in fitness level) and later Lance and Bob and Bill for awhile. We finished up the first lap and skated another, keeping it pretty much in the 16-18 mph range. I finished up at just a hair over 18 miles, which was very satisfying for me. It’s the first long skate I’ve done since the Squiggy race in March.

My form was so sloppy at that point, and I had developed 6 blisters (forgot to use skin glide for one, sloppy skating for another). I just had to stop. But I felt good at the end.

I’m still dealing with my left skate which I found to be canting inward, causing me to hit my inside edge too often. I’m working on fixing that. Hopefully this is a workout I can build on for next week. My goal is to skate one full lap with the fast pack by the end of this year. That would be something like 12 miles, close to a half marathon.

But first, I gotta get back over that hill.