The road to Sochi 2014

Friday morning ice: Only an hour of ice fridays so its always short and sweet. We did a warm-up accel and then 4 laps pretty much all out with a one lap build, then 6 laps at 9.6 with a one lap build then 9 laps at 9.8 and then 13 at 10.2. I got better as the session went on which seems to be a pattern. I am always so stiff in the beginning of the sessions and though I become more fatigued by the end, maybe I relax and loosen up. I think also that the skates give a little by the end. Today I felt soooo good at the beginning of the 13 lapper - like I would have stayed at the front of the pack the whole time, but then my blade stripped about 5 laps into it. Soooo frustrating.
  The dryland was great though. It was 5 times 5 minutes of pain basically with a minute rest in between. For skaters: 30 seconds of weight transfer, 30 secs of skate jumps, which means jumping from one lag to another in base position always having the other leg extended to the side and staying in one place. Then 30 seconds of in-and out two leg jumps, then scissor jumps, then cross jumps and then the same pattern again. The sun was so hot and I was sweating soooo much - it was awesome! I really love the feeling of completing one of those workouts. Although my leg muscles were killing by the end, all these exercises need a certain amount of flexibility and technique and I found it so hard last time we did this that I just stopped and ran instead. This time it started out just as hard but as I got hotter and hotter I became more and more flexible so that I could really do the weight transfer correctly and extremely low - great feeling and not one that I've experienced a lot before - maybe once before, but this was the best.

  Yesterday at weights I got up to 165 lbs in squats with 6 reps. Thats a new high-water mark. It goes up by so much each time though - tomorrow I'll probably do more.

  I am still so uncomfortable at high speeds but I am starting to be able to think a bit more while I am there. That is important because I think I have the strength to stick with these guys some of the time, I just need the technique and to learn how to use the strength. My legs are really getting bigger - I notice it all the time.
  We are going to go to a beach somewhere and have a barbecue today. Laterrr