What a day! I woke up feeling lousy and weak and was not very into anything. I tried everything in the books from relaxing as much as possible to eating super well, drinking hot tea, taking the right vitamins, trying to pump myself up with a walk around the block in the cold, but I still felt weak and heavy. We started very late today. my warm-up wasn't until 3:40pm (5:40pm eastern time) and even during warm-up, I felt okay, but not terrific. My first race,the 1500, I definitely had the harder of the two heats but I skated a good race and advanced easily to the final taking the 3rd and last qualifying position. The final was crazy! I had a situation only a handful of laps into the 13 1/2 lap race: My coach (Coach K) told me to start building it up as I was sitting near the back of the pack. The one guy behind me had started to build it up already though I didn't know it and as I went outside to gain extra speed, I went right in front of him and he crashed into the back of me. Somehow he went down but I didn't. I managed to survive the contact but it sent me careening wide. So I had to catch up. I did and I passed everybody except the two at the front battling it out. I stayed on them for a lap or two and then with one lap to go, I attempted an all or nothing inside pass. I had so much speed coming out that I blew by the first guy and trying to avoid running into the back of the guy in the lead, I veered to the outside to set up the last corner but aaaaahhh, I clipped his skate and lost control! So the last corner I went down and the whole pack passed me. I am super happy to be skating well again though and I have had so many people come up to me and say how happy they are to see me skating well again. The 500s were good as well. I skated a personal best of 43.9 in the first heat, and again in the final, i was skating great and had the momentum to make the winning pass but fell again hard into the great pads. I really am giving the break-away pads a good testing. I am encouraged tremendously with how I am skating as I am staying with guys that crushed me earlier this year. Can't wait to race tomorrow and then to get training again harder than ever.
More coming tomorrow but i have to sleep now. I'm exhausted.
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