Tuesday October 19th

The days are flying by! Its already almost November! I have a race, another American Cup, November 6th and I am working hard as ever to have better showing than last time, which was just embarrassing! I am able to finish sessions comfortably now though without my foot being the thing I think about more than my technique. Speaking of my technique, I am starting to narrow things down and I am really ( I think) a different looking skater now than I was just at the last Am. Cup. My feel for the ice is improving which enables my foot speed to increase and when I move my feet rapidly there is still power behind the pushes. I can stay with Edin now when we do what Wil calls Plyo turns, where we start at the beginning of the straight -away doing slow, low strokes and once we pass the first block, build speed as quickly as possible for one lap from the next red line. This morning after the warm-up relay, we did 3 of the pkyo turns, which we do a lot, but I never mentioned them because I never really liked them (aka I was never very good at them). Then we wasted no time in jumping into the "Tempos". I don't quite understand why they are called tempos but its any distance all out, from what I can make out. We did a one lap build and then 9 laps all out 3 times. When Wil was previewing us the workout as she does every session, she said apologetically , "I'm sorry guys, but I'm gonna have to throw in a couple tempos". haha. The first one was okay. Andrew led it but died after 5 laps so Edin took over and he kept the laps fairly consistent so that  think we ended with a time around 1:32ish. I led the second one but I died super fast - much faster than I expected and who knows what my time was. Edin blew by me and finished miles ahead. It was weird because the next one, Edin led and following him, I did 1:30.9 and finished strong! I guess following is just that much easier??? All I know is that I felt very good in the last one and Wil said she was happy with the times this morning. Next we did slow technique laps which I love. We have the luxury of doing technique work at this point in the season because there is ice 6 times a week and it really helps me. We did 10 laps then 15 then 10. I felt great but again, I felt and looked the best following Edin in the 15 lapper. We did the band on the ice and then finished with 15 minutes of relays - 3 man team, 3 laps each.
  I will go to the gym later and tomorrow I will do whatever workout Wil gives me instead of stairs  because it has been so rainy here!! It has rained almost every day since I think sunday and is forecast to rain again tomorrow.