Quick Post – Gross Gerau
Posted on April 29, 2007
Hi all. First, thanks for checking in. I just arrived home from Gross Gerau, a small town in the south west of central Germany, just over three hours by car with Wayne Begg driving 180km/hr nearly the whole way. All I can say is that the last four days have been eventful. Traveling from Canada, to Switzerland, to Germany and back to Switzerland, and racing Gross Gerau which is a huge race. There were 150 Senior Men!
The racing didn’t go well for me. I am still really tired. I was even sleeping between races. I can’t say that is really an excuse, because once I had got uppity for the races, I felt alright on skates. Though in the points race my technique completely fell apart. Anyway, I made it out of the heats ok in the 500m, and in the quarter I finished 4th in the bunch with a 44, but it wasn’t enough to qualify for the semis. In the elimination race they of course had to separate the field into heats, but they were still massive. My position in the 500 gave me a decent, but not fantastic position on the line, I think I was in the fourth row. The racing was extremely physical. Actually, it was awesome, but scary as hell. If you were on the inside, you’d get pushed into the centre, and hard. I mean impact. Shoulder to shoulder. Anyway, I survived most of the race, but the physicality was really distracting. So I went to the front to enjoy leading. And though I can’t say it was any easier, there wasn’t so much pushing. After about 5 or 6 laps, my team mate Wayne came up front to give me a break. [This is where I learned something critical. In this position don’t do this:] When he came around, I gave him too much of a gap, and I guess I took my sweet ass time closing it. Before I even knew it, guys were pulling into the gap in pretty much single file. These guys know what they are doing. Every single one of them. Anyway, within about 2 laps of this process, and unable to find a decent position with guys moving up constantly on my right, I was at the back of the pack fighting off elims from the worst position possible. I managed to fight off three or four before I was eliminated, with 9 [elim] laps to go. Lesson: grab the dude’s hips when he comes up front, and don’t give an inch.
In the points race, I started on the wall on the outside, about four lines back. I was worried that this was going to be trouble, but the outside started off incredibly fast, and I was getting pulled to the front. I only needed to pick up a few points to essentially guarantee entry to the final…
Anyway, we were moving up on the outside, and as guys pulled to the inside to grab a spot in the pack, I took the chance to go right to the front, and grabbed a point finishing second on the first lap, with a gap between me a first, and me and the pack. I guess I looked like a bit of an idiot sitting off the front, not looking sure what to do, and an unknown in the field. When they came around, I stayed to the inside, and I could barely move to keep my speed up, and ended up yet again at the back. I should have just skated hard at the front, and attempted to lead for even a second, and I probably would have found a spot. The back was brutal, again with the pushing and shoving. I lasted this time until 12 laps to go before I was eliminated. Your points are taken away when you’re eliminated by the way, so I didn’t qualify for the final. Ok, this was more than I had planned to post, so I should wrap it up here. I have a big road race Tuesday in Lichtenstein that I am really looking forward to. The team will have its first chance to work together, but the field will be top notch. I hear everyone is going.
All the best, peace and love,
Aaron.
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Gross Gerau…
Posted on April 27, 2007
Hi all…
My first day here was a bit crazy. I got off the plane, was picked up by Wayne, we drove to my place, I had just enough time to throw my bike together, and I left for a light 2 hour ride on the bike. Here are the stats from the ride:
4/26/07;
Ride time: 1:55:48
Avg. HR: 135bpm
Max HR: 173bpm
HR Zone (135-170)
Time in zone: 1:11:33
above: 0:00:32
below: 0:43:43
Kcal: 1198
Distance: 53.5km
Avg. Speed: 28.3km/hr
Max Speed: 52.8km/hr
Avg. Cadence: 89rpm
Max Cadence: 103rpm
We finished the ride, and I had enough time to gather my things, and Wayne and I left for his, Andrew’s, and Sig’s place for a late lunch, then had just enough time to make it back to my place, gather my skating gear, and leave for skate training that evening. I was skating with some damn good skaters. I felt really tight, and had a hard time relaxing, though I kept up alright, but took a few breaks. They’re fast. I am rushing this ‘report’, because it is 5:28am, and I leave for Gross Gerau in 30mins. I should go so that I can eat. To say the least, my first day was rather busy, and I slept like a rock/stuffed pig/inanimate object. Yesterday was far lighter, with a day off training, and preparing the house for living with the essentials. Oh, and Germany definitely is cheaper. I hope to post better when I have some more time.
Ciao!
-A.
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Flight Post (…not plane ride)
Posted on April 26, 2007
Well, I am sitting on the plane, typing up what will serve to be a brief announcement that I am indeed en route to Switzerland for the season. It was amazing to me to see how fast the last few days blew by for me in anticipation of the move. Today has been a long day, as I had my last exam at school at 2pm, to catch my flight later at 6:30. It seemed that I wasn’t really able to spend as much time saying goodbye to my close friends as I would have liked. It really did all seem rushed. I suppose that the party will serve as my goodbye to everyone. To those that couldn’t make it, you were surely missed, and you all know who you were. It really was a blast of a party.
A few random things:
How ‘bout them Raptors! What an awesome game! It was really coo that we could all watch the game after practice last night. That was a lot of fun.
We did a pretty cool elimination race at practice last night. I had spent some time during the day thinking about how it might work to include two groups of varying ability in the same elim race successfully, and keep it interesting, fun, and challenging for both. As soon as I mentioned the idea to Eric “Hip-hop” Gee, he was into it. I thought that it worked really well, and frankly I was impressed to see how well the fitness group did with it. What I did, was to keep the fast guys out of the top three, and reserve those spots for the fitness guys that wanted them until there were 10 left in, which would take care of the speed. So, there was a period where the last of the fitness group was safe up front, while the elims were being fought for off the back by my group. Then at 10 left (6 elims remaining), the race pretty much exploded, and havoc was had. It was a lot of fun, and I was really happy to have some fun with the last TISC practice I would run this year. I really will miss all you guys this summer. Have a great season, and skate safe!
Lastly:
To those that have been with me through my skating career, and know me as a friend, all I can say about this upcoming season that I look forward to with unabashed excitement is; you ain’t seen nothin’ yet, baby!
Cheers to all, and please follow the site! (I really have done some work in preparing it for reporting from WIC, and I just hope it is enjoyed by my fellow skating peers)
Aaron Richard Arndt; [en route to Switzerland]
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Day off, sort of.
Posted on April 22, 2007
Well, I suppose that after yesterday’s adventure, today’s skate/”training” can be considered a rest day. One round of frolf (I shot +3 on the day), I skated a light 10km on CTK track (200m, awesome), then skated the 20km into the city, and back, followed by a nice light cool down on the track again, rounding off around 50km. One thing I just had to mention was the dude I saw with a pair of new-looking Simmons, and 4×100’s with Yellow matters, wearing a Russian cycling jersey. I have no idea who he was, and frankly he didn’t seem to respond to my friendliness. Who was he? Does he follow my blog? Will he post a comment?
Oh, and to Lizzy; a belated thank you for the Birthday present and cards! I do hope you read this.
All the best to all!
-Aaron.
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Tough day with no saddle…
Posted on April 21, 2007
So, today’s adventure was intense. There is only one word I can use to describe the intense mix of elation, challenge, frustration, exhilaration, fatigue, pain, and triumph. The word is cathartic.
This morning, I awoke at 6am to consume the necessary calories, and prepared for a LONG road skate. Yes, I said “skate”. After packing the car, I headed down to Port Credit to attend the Gear’s Bike Shop’s Saturday morning group ride, with training partner Peter Light. We met down there at 8am, in time for pre-training coffee, some chatting, a stretch, and of course to gear up. The ‘gearing up’ part is where the heads started to turn in my direction with several audible laughs, and apparent/obvious skepticism. I planned to skate the ~120km out-and-back road cycling group training session. The group today was pretty big. I would say it started out with around 40 riders, and whittled down to a lead group of the five strongest riders before the 65km meeting place in Campbellville. I hung onto that group until the second last climb, and came in solo through the last 3km falling back quickly by a few minutes. We then stopped, and grouped up for the slightly shorter, but windier ride back. Because I was on skates, I didn’t have my computer/HRM with me, so today’s stats are from Petey’s speedometer. [PL, I subtracted the time I waited at the gas stop to get this average…] We took it a bit easier on the way back, which allowed for an occasional sprint, which felt really good, even at the end of this very long skate. After this session, I really feel ready for the move. I feel motivated, and organized, and in decent shape. I think my acceleration needs a lot of work, but my top end feels as good as it ever has. [I know my corners suck…]
Oh, and I forgot to mention the downhill-into-a-corner outside pass on Petey at 70km/hr (that was INSANE!!!), and hitting a top speed of 75km/hr and freaking out arguably the strongest rider today by making a pass between him and the shoulder of the road he didn’t expect. I kind of got locked into that line as I passed the others on my way up to him, and at that speed I just wanted to make sure I stayed up. Sorry about that, dude. I should have called that out.
Anyway, here are the stats;
4/21/07:
Time: ~3.48.00
Distance:116.38km
Average: 30.6km/h
Oh, and I just wrote my second last exam. It was hard! :P
Thanks for reading, I really can’t wait to post about Switzerland.
Stay Tuned!!
-A.
Oh! And how about that weather!!!!!!!!
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More Stats…
Posted on April 20, 2007
As promised, here are some more stats. Today’s ride was longer than I intended, because the weather is beautiful!
I am hoping to skate the gears ride tomorrow, I hope Petey answers my phone call tonight, I’ll need his help. :)
From today; On this ride, I was trying my best to keep my cadence high, and spin with good technique. At the beginning, my ass was sore from yesterday’s ride, so it was extra important to keep still while spinning at such a high cadence. This consumed alot of my attention. And though that went away after a while, my left knee was starting to bug me. I think its time for a good stretch. I was happy to find some success spinning @ an average of 94rpm, and frankly surprised I avg’d a speed as high as I did considering I was trying to ignore speed the whole ride. Anyway, here they are:
4/20/07:
Ride time: 2:42:51
Avg. HR: 156bpm
Max HR: 195bpm
HR Zone (135-170)
Time in zone: 2:10.12
above: 25.27
below: 7.12
Kcal: 2185
Distance: 80.2km
Avg. Speed: 29.6km/hr
Max Speed: 69.2km/hr
Avg. Cadence: 94rpm
Max Cadence: 126rpm
Anyone wanna ride with me? Hehe, I’ve been feeling pretty good on the bike, and I think with an occasional draft, I’d be flying.
Cheers all,
Aaron Richard Arndt.
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PM Roadskate…
Posted on April 20, 2007
As expected, the skate last night with Doucet was no disappointment [see below]. To his credit, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in as good shape as he’s in right now. He was skating pretty damn fast too. I think it was the first time he opened up the throttle on the roads I skate on here, and to say the least, he was impressed at the speed of the roads over a number of sections. We ended up skating with the young guns (Jade and Jesse Pauley) along with their father, Scott. It was something of a “who’s who” in Toronto inline speed skating skating. I just wish we could get together more often to train like that, because it was fast. It’s much more effective to be able to average a decent speed while protected from the wind in the pack, then open up some sprints, rather than doing a bunch of work to hold speed in the rest sections and compromising your ability to really sprint well when it’s time. Anyway, though I was tired, it was a really good skate.
I should mention that yes, I [and in this case we], skate in the dark here. The roads are very well lit, and its actually alot of safe fun. You can skate all out here, and there is a really nice variety of road surfaces. [Hills, turns, smooth and rough pavements.] Skating at night really opens up time that is available to train. Try it here. It’s awesome. Of course, I leave in 5 days.
Anyway, I did mention that skating with Peter is always interesting. For those of you that don’t know him, PJ is the biggest joker I know. That’s a serious understatement, actually. Even before he got here, he was cracking jokes on the phone to Jade. On his arrival, he called to let me know he was lost, as he pulled into my driveway, and upon doing so, found himself extremely excited to see a raccoon. The highlight for me was that in response to “Show me your Bolts!” I was able to take this picture [below]. I should mention though, that he does not normally look like this. Peter is full of expression. He even has a t-shirt with “The faces of Doucet” printed on it, with pictures of himself making different faces. [all true] I wonder if this is one of them…
Anyway, after taking this pic for LB, I just had to share via here. I think this is a classic picture already. Oh, and hilarious. PJ, you’ve outdone yourself yet again…
leaving soon,
ARA
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Admission: Training, Dicipline, and Motivation
Posted on April 19, 2007
admission - A statement tending to establish the guilt or liability of the person making the statement.
Ok, so I have an admission. For me, the hardest part about training is staying motivated and disciplined. What I mean is that for me, the hardest part of training is making sure I set aside an appropriate and an appropriate amount of time, and to get my ass out there onto the roads. I think this in some part because I seem to always end up training by myself, which can sometimes mean skating or riding sections of >20km into serious headwinds with no relief, and all things that go along with training solo. Sometimes it sucks. I think this speaks to the attitudes of other skaters, and the Canadian community as a whole. I think that often skaters become more concerned about concealing a lot their training from other skaters in order to create some sort of an advantage (or something like that) rather than actually really improving. Maybe this is why Canadian skaters have developed an alarmingly negative reputation in the real international skating community… that, and making fools of themselves outside the competition (socially). This is something I was disappointed that I had to deal with in confirming a spot on a WIC team. You see once I’m out there, I can train as well as anyone. I actually really enjoy it. Even the times when it is complete misery and suffering. I think that something that might help me is to post some of my workouts with some amount of regularity. To this end, here are the stats from my ride today:
4/19/07:
Ride time: 2:47:45
Avg. HR: 163bpm
Max HR: 185bpm
HR Zone (135-170)
Time in zone: 2:24.39
above: 21.43
below: 1.23
Kcal: 2395
Distance: 84.5km
Avg. Speed: 30.2km/hr
Max Speed: 63.7km/hr
Avg. Cadence: 86rpm
Max Cadence: 116rpm
This might not look too special, but with the wind, terrain, and the fact that I was solo, I was really happy to average over 30km/hr…
Anyway, I am skating later tonight with Doucet, which is always interesting. I might do a light skate before that too with some younger skaters, but I’ll have to see what happens before then.
I’ll leave it at that, but I do have an easier ride that I did earlier this month:
4/02/07:
Ride time: 3:01;49
Avg. HR: 155bpm
Max HR: 181bpm
HR Zone (135-170)
Time in zone: 2:44.10
above: 9.19
below: 8.20
Kcal: 2391
Distance: 82.4km
Avg. Speed: 27.2km/hr
Max Speed: 63.2km/hr
Avg. Cadence: 79rpm
Max Cadence: 102rpm
Hope you enjoyed,
if you ever feel inspired, shoot me an email and ask me if I’m still training hard. You, know kick my ass a little.
-Aaron.
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WIC Schedule
Posted on April 17, 2007
Ok, I have to admit, I am having a hard time staying motivated and diciplined in my study right now, I have an exam tomorrwo morning, and skate practice on the track tonight. Though i am considering racing my bike tonight instead. If it is wet, I’ll race the bike. Well, I haven’t decided yet. Anyway, I am working on something for this website… I had to wait to post this (Calandar: LB), , though It is still a work in progress.
What I plan to do is to post a page titled ”WIC Schedule” and include links to the URL’s to each race website, aswell as links to my report, and upcoming reports/pics to each race. The schedule itself looks like this:
WIC Schedule:
April: 8 (Sunday) Seoul, Korea
May: 5 (Saturday) Basel, Switzerland
13 (Sunday) Rennes, France
June: 3 (Sunday) Incheon, Korea
9 (Saturday) Weinfelden, Switzerland
10 (Sunday) Dijon, France
17 (Sunday) Zurich, Switzerland
23 (Saturday) Sursee, Switzerland
30 (Saturday) Engadin, Switzerland
July: 8 (Sunday) Suzhou, China
15 (Sunday) Zugersee, Switzerland
Aug: 4 (Saturday) Biel, Switzerland
20 (Sunday) Berlin, Germany (x-race)
Sept: 8 (Saturday) Euro-champs??
15 (Saturday) WIC-T-Track- [Weinfelden, Switzerland?]
22 (Saturday) Mainz, Germany
29 (Saturday) Berlin, Germany
As you can see, its a full schedule, but still needs work. I think I will start the page, so you can take a look at it by clicking “WIC Schedule” at the links section at the top of the page. My hope is that this will really be the main attraction to the site. I think the potential is really high for the site, and that the style of the site is unique, and so is the perspective of the reports. Anyway, I’m just sort of typing this without any plan or sense of direction. I’ll probably edit it later. -A.
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Packing…
Posted on April 14, 2007
While packing, I had the misfortune of watching a grueling/nauseating/sickening/revolting/disgusting 3 minutes of the show “House of Carters”. In this circumstance, three minutes is actually a very, very long time, and what is surprising, is that this three minutes has become one of the largest regrets of my life. In response to the show, I have written an open letter to Aaron Carter (who by the way, is ruining my given name).
Here it is:
Dear Aaron,
Please get hit by a car.
Regards,
Aaron Richard Arndt.
Ok, this wasn’t a great post, but I did feel inspired. On another note, the packing is essentially done. I have it down to two bags (both already underweight), my carry-on bag, laptop case, and bike case. Everything is in place, I just have to write the rest of my exams, do some heavy cleaning, and continue training. If anyone wants to join me for training of any kind, call my ass.
A dot com.
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