Back in the "412" again...again Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

Hey all, I'm back on that skating grind, making sacrifices, managing time, and all that. This last trip home topped the last one which I didn't even think was possible - but then again, I got to know and love this silly girl named Tui, who has me spinning and googly-eyed as never before...haha! I love you Tui.

  I literally can't remember a week that even came close to going by as quickly as this last one did. It was really just one big dream, I'm sure. No really, its certain. I just kinda woke up today and realized I better get my act together, only after doing some superbly stupid things. Today I discovered that it would have been good to pay attention more in physics class when I exploded Harshaan's Glass Pyrex baking dish in the sink. I had just pulled it out of the oven and tried to get ahead of the game by washing it right away...please, no comments. hahaha. That's just one example. These last few days have been just getting back into the rhythm of the days. The skating has been great though. I picked up where I left off before the break and am really excited about how my body feels, what I am discovering about it, and then the end result, how I am skating.

  The cello is also great. It was awesome to get to work with the Great Miss Diesslin again a couple times.

  I am extremely happy to be living in the apartment simply because of this little gym right next to it that I think is making a huge difference. Ever since I moved in, I have been improving steadily, I believe. Junior Trials in less than two months!!!

FINALLY, ...

HHHHHEEEEEYYYY!!! Hey so today I skated my personal best lap time for this rink!!!! That was extremely encouraging, my friends, yes it was yes it was. I enjoyed it. You know, I was moving quickly and feeling in control. Pretty sweeeet.  Practice was deadly today. K has really ratcheted up the training, I guess because we don’t have a competition for a while. Dryland was one of those jaw-droppers. It was pretty awesome. I came home and grabbed a quick shut-eye, which is a daily occurrence. I get around seven hours at night if I can get to sleep by a little before 10pm. Then I take a little over an hour nap when I get home. Yesterday, completely outlandish and unclaudstitutional, I took my American Government Final without a nap. Circumstances…  Today, all napped up, I think I did very well on my literature final. I had to get a little creative due to some recently-rare bad planning. I didn’t bring three of the novels that I was to write about in the exam from the Krueger house. Twas okay though. I wrote down a bunch of quotations in my notes and I think I pulled it off. Then I went straight to the Etiquette Dinner which was on the campus. It was an event that the skaters went to, just to learn about proper etiquette for when we get in that limelight. It was silly, but it showed good commitment to RMU, the rink where we skate. SO now I’m all done with tests and don’t have to worry about them when I come home on Friday!! Such a relief. Now a little workout, practice, dinner, and sleep.    PIU! An’ I’m out!

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

Hey everybody,

  I should get an LG phone to commemorate life being good! ...but seriously, I need a new phone, ever since Mrs K. pushed me into the pool! haha! She's sneaky. Training is going well, and I love staying in the apartment and cooking my own food. I squatted 15 reps of what my max weight was last year in Cali on the tenth set to boot! That was sweet. I took my final today for American Government for which I have been fiendishly studying the last few days. I was worried I would fail but I actually did much better than I anticipated. I think I will get around an 80 so I am very happy about that. The tests are so much ridiculously harder than the lessons and I said as much on the review of the course. It was crazy. Soooo much material to cover. I had to memorize over 500pages worth of text book material. I think I pulled it out though. I feel a great weight lifted off my shoulders. Tomorrow I take the Literature final, which hopefully will be a breeze compared to the Government one. Practice has been very interesting lately - lots of creative drills to go along with the technique and speed training. Goodnight, for today, tomorrow is not far away.

First Morning at the Bachelor Pad

Last night was calmly hectic. I'll explain that paradox:
  I planned everything out great. Harshaan drove to the Krueger house with his truck and Mr. Burkholder came from next door with his van at a little after 5pm and I had everything prepared to hop into the two vehicles no problem. We drove the apartment about half an hour away, unloaded into the apartment and finished around 6. Apparently Harshaan spent two hours scrubbing the apartment clean! Looks good bro. Then, Harshaan and I did a little workout at the Gym at his apartment complex. Then we went to the store to stock me up on food for the week - that was stressful, not gonna lie. trying to stay under a budget shopping for food while hungry is more nerve-racking than skating a final for a National Championship. Lets just say, the total price is gonna be a lot lower next time. So then we went back and I had to cook something for myself. Success. Then, I baked a celebratory tart for my new room-mates - that is, I slipped it in the oven and slipped it out. That Trader Joe's Raspberry Tart is just fantastic. Then bed. Looooong day and it was a blessing to have the extra hour. This morning I made an amazing breakfast of sausage, mixed with vegetable stir fry followed by yogurt with pair and raisins. Should hold me for a while! Now, to work on this blessed day off: cello, school, and scheduling the tests for my finals in school. Oh! i also have to update my whereabouts in the drug-testing pool.
  Hopefully I can procure some photos/videos soon. My room needs a door substitute (any suggestions?) but otherwise is quite roomy!

Yeeeeess Everybody, It's 9:39pm and I'm up late! Thats because Mrs B is picking us up tomorrow morning a little later than the Kruegers nornmally take off. Mrs Krueger is somewhere far into the West with her boys crammed in the tiny Toyota Corolla, meandering dutifully along to Salt Lake City. That's it. The two cornerstones of the club that started it all are gone! Its like losing someone close to you. Somehow I can't wrap my brain around it. On the positive side of things, coach K will have his eyes on me more of the time which means more attention on my technique, which I really need as alwaaaays.
  Tonight Ryan and I cooked a mean supper for ourselves. Home alone, we made a vegetable stir-fry medley to die for and I made a spectacular ham, cheese, and stewed Collard Greens sa'mich that turned out delicious and savory - like something out of one of those Food Network shows. I may have started my own famous sandwich with this one.
  Biiiig changes are coming. i may be moving in with Harshaan and Ryan as early as Saturday. I am pumped UP(!) to train as hard as possible and as smart as possible up until Junior Trials. I am making that team! Its that time of year again, ladies and gentlemen when donations are made to Claude Gilbert through this very blog. But then again, when is it not that time of year. Seriously speaking, every dollar counts and will help me get out to Salt Lake here and there to train with faster skaters now that Johnny and Cole are gone. Thank you and have a good night. I'm bushed!
 

Gooooodmorning. Some things I failed to mention last night:

  At this last Am. Cup, there were a number of Canadians that came down to Cleveland, from Calgary. Some were very fast. There were two or three that were faster than me out of the 11 that skated in Am. Cup A. After each day, they sped out of the rink to catch a bus at the corner of the rink and there must have been about thirty-five of them total. It was real cool to talk with them and I talked to their coach about which races we could go to in Canada. He said there were none coming up and that's why they came here but next year at the Octoberfest in Quebec is where we should go.
  On another note, the new system of qualification was tried for the first time this meet, where only the winner of the heat, quarter-final, or semi-final is guaranteed to move to the next round; the next designated number of spots are all by fastest time. So technically, a whole 1500m semi-final could move on to the final if it is faster than the other races in the semi-final round. The problem is that it is almost impossible to judge in the spur of the moment if your race is fast enough that the pass into first place maybe isn't necessary. In my case, both times I was penalized for passing and trying to block a pass, my race would have been fast enough that I would have advanced to the next round. As Mrs Krueger said, the novelty is a system of hindsight. The bright side of the system, and this is why National Coach Jae Su Chun pushed to implement it, is that in every distance, the times were much faster overall than at Am. Cup I, even though the World Team competed in St Louis and not in Cleveland. My 1500m times were very fast, two of the three setting personal bests.

  John-Henry continued his unbelievable recent success. He won the whole Americas Cup overall - at age sixteen. Not bad at all. He leaves for Salt Lake City Thursday. In fact, Cole does too. Mrs Krueger and her two sons are DRIVING a Toyota Corolla all the way to Salt Lake City!!! Meanwhile, I will be here hoping to make some real technical progress and do some new training to try to keep pace with them while they train with the National Team.
  I talked to a higher-up in Usspeedskating and confirmed that I have a sweet package of equipment coming my way, all Under-Armour clothing and paraphernalia as they are our new material sponsor.
  While waiting for practice thursday night in Cleveland,  submitted my final lesson of the American Government course and when I got back last night it was another A. All except my first submission have been A's (that was an A- as I didn't know I was allowed to refer to the textbook for answers - haha). Now I have to study for the final. Same for my other course, Lit. of the Future.

After a quick drive home from Cleveland, I am home in Pittsburgh again, reminiscing about all the valuable lessons I learned this weekend, what the training in Pittsburgh has done for me and could do more of after exactly a year of training here, and looking fervently ahead to the next couple days, weeks, and months. Although the overall results will not show it whatsoever, I skated fast while turning left at Am. Cup II. I surprised myself again, just like at AM. Cup I. I was killed by penalties and so my points tally followed suit. I don't even know what I finished overall. I skated great in the 1000meters and 1500meters. My endurance and strength is very good in comparison with the other athletes, however my 500m. is abominable. I am not a sprinter. That much I cemented this weekend, and I have to improve this part of my skating from many different angles. I have plans and schemes galore and I will talk to Coach K on Tuesday when we start training again. I also was crushed by lack of good judgement on a few passes, that I didn't need to make in hindsight, which lead to penalties. This will improve with experience and cataloging these mistakes in my mind in future races. "Gotta choose your battles". My dad said this. It was so nice to see paps and I'm really happy he came. We had some great times together like always. So thankful I have a great relationship with my parents.
  I don't know if its something I ate, or the lack of racing today because of a penalty, but I am extremely built up and inspired to train and try new things in the coming months leading up to Senior Trials and Junior Trials. Hopefully I can keep that feeling floating around my being and actually produce some tangible success in the result sheets come January. More coming tomorrow, including some good news!

Hey all, everybody - all you bloggers. Thanks for having patience. Times have been rough lately. Training is the same. John-Henry has been in Salt Lake City training and winning B finals on the World Cup circuit!! If you want to, check out his amazing highlights here: http://livemanager.eurovision.edgesuite.net/isu/site/index.html  and mrs Krueger has been gone a lot.

I am in Cleveland now for Am. Cup II and am enjoying the Embassy Suites Hotel immensely. Gonna see paps today! Very excited for this race. There are some new rules. Qualification for rounds is based on time more than placement, which is very interesting. Updates should be possible though there is no free wifi in the hotel.

Sunday October 16th, 2011

Back in Pittsburgh not much has changed except there are a lot more leaves on the ground and it is colder. I miss home already but I've learned that this actually subsides as time goes on up to an extent, before it starts being too long. Home was, well home. What can I say? I love it in the Ridge. Waking up early was definitely a plus as the days seemed much longer and more productive. I actually did some really great workouts that I hope to include into the training here. I took care of some issues, spent quality time with Ma n Pa, and the cat Peppito of course, had a blast driving myself places and running errands, and generally had a great stay I think because it was so last minute and unexpected, it was more enjoyable because it was almost a bonus. Friday night with my friends was just awesome. Had such an amazing time. It was one big blend of fun and silliness until I forced myself to go home and get some sleep before my eight hour bus ride. As bad as that sounds, it was actually better than a plane ride in some ways. There were much less annoyances and inconveniences. The seats were much more comfortable and I had a free seat next to me the whole time. I brought a ton of great food and beverages so that when we took a half hour stop at Subway half way to PA State College, I didn't even need anything and I didn't even eat dinner. Thanks so much mom. This morning I did a workout and felt the affects of the ride, but hopefully I loosened up my muscles for tomorrow. Time to train to be extraordinary! That's the new motto. Do something extraordinary. I have two weeks until Am. Cup II where I have an excellent shot to finish in the top ten as it is not a world team qualifier and the world team will not be there. (  ;) Dad).