Charlie Brown On Skates

I wasn’t sure if I was going to go to indoor practice on Sunday due to my cold/sinus problems. But since I need to be ready for Squiggy in 3 weeks, I figured I’d better go. Of course this means we’d do the Lap the Pack Pyramid of Death(tm) because I was under the weather.

Maybe for serious indoor skaters, this is no big deal. We’re an outdoor team though, we don’t do a lot of the indoor specific stuff “real” indoor teams do. Add to the fact that this is my first year indoors and I’m still not comfortable in the corners, and this was tough for me.

Coach Tommy ran us through our normal off-skate warm ups and  we did our 10-15 minutes or so of technique drills. Then we lined up for lap the pack (as groups). The drill was to lap the pack 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 1 times. We had done this before, but never 4 laps, and never in  pyramid like this. The 1s and 2s are no big deal, the 3 is slightly tougher and the 4 was killer. I actually led the whole way on the 4 for my group, and a couple other times. I don’t feel comfortable passing, so if I got off behind someone I would rarely pass them even if I could. A couple times I passed inside on the straight, where it’s fairly “safe” to pass.

Even though it was tough, it was a good drill. It was kind of like doing interval speed work. After that we did 2-lap leads at 80%, with the idea you should get back on the pack when you are done pulling. I am generally slotted right before the faster skaters in the line, so getting back on for me can be tricky. I can usually get back on for one lap or so. Somehow, today I was able to get back on and stick for like 4-5 laps with Cale, Major and Jim R. I felt good about that, it was probably the highlight of practice for me.

At that point though, I was beat. We did 1-lap leads one more time at 70% and I doubt I even went that fast. I only got back on for one lap after that.

I finally cut off the straps on the front of my Hyper Sincro boots. I had never once tightened them, just as Cale predicted, and they were just in the way. I also do not have laces in the first 3-4 eyeholes. I probably need to put some in there just to keep the tongue from popping up now that the straps are gone.

Indoor free skate is tonight, hopefully I feel well enough to go - only 19 days until Squiggy time trials and I am not ready.