Tuesday August 2nd, 2011

This is the dead of summer, the "Dog Days" as they say. The whole summer's training is in my legs, in my head, in my psyche. Its hard not to get completely discouraged when every morning, I step on the ice and immediately know I won't be doing anything spectacular today. No,  will have to do the same monotonous, methodical, level-headed technique work because my legs are fried. They have no snap, no zing, and no endurance. Stiffness and fatigue rule. haha The only thing that keeps me going is seeing that Cole and Lexi are just as bad. John-Henry starts skating again tomorrow. He has been doing tons of one-legged cushions (where you go up and down to basic position, a ninety degree angle of the hamstrings and back of the calf).  All the other guys and girls that are here just for parts of the summer are dying as well but I don't compare myself to them since they are on such a different schedule. My goal now: To make it through the week without complaining to K about how tired I am and how whatever the drill he assigns, my first thought is usually negative and reluctant. This is it. This is the home stretch of Summer Training. This is what they were talking about when they said at the output "You're gonna be dying" or "You might not make it" or "You're definitely gonna snap at some point". My goal is to not get angry with K and remember that however much he pretends not to know, he does know how tired we are and he does take it into account. He just knows that it doesn't matter because in the end the same truth still holds:  the harder you push yourself, the better you'll be.

  Got two new grades back in school and they were both an A! One was for a lesson of American Government and the other was for my new course, Literature of the Future, for which I read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I had to write six different 5 paragraph essays. Now I am reading The Andromeda Strain by Micheal Crichton. Its real nice to have some literature to keep my mind multi-dimensional ...if only occasionally. The cello is the real key to that.

  Bon appetite and Goodnight!