Tracks

Posted on January 31, 2008

So…  We made it, I think.  Things are coming along here in Toronto, and I think we can dial down the teach and talking, and dial up the practice.  Should be fun, I think we all have enough to continue to move forward. 

The federation decided that they would put on a series of races, the “RSO” series, which will be a series of four Sundays from here to the end of the indoor series.  I have sincere mixed feelings about it, immediately on the impact on practice times, as well as other aspects.  The first one is this Sunday.  I’m really not sure how much to write about all that.  Thoughts anyone?  …I don’t know.

I have to say ‘big ups’ to Dragi, a first year speed skater here in Toronto that really seems to be making and getting the most of the indoor season here.  His progress is remarkable, especially considering he missed most of the first half of the season.  He is already amongst the group in mock races, completes (portions of) even the most complicated drills.  Perhaps most amazingly, he is even amongst the group and holding his own in the relay portions of our workouts, including pyramids.  Big ups, D.  Again, I have to say it is a great showcase of a positive attitude and approach to the indoor scene from a rookie, despite an elite-centric focus.

Now, I should mention that of course, he isn’t the only rookie in TO skating indoors with us.  There are others, and I have the upmost respect for each of them.  I think that Dragi just happens to be “the most rookie”, and I can even trust that he wouldn’t take that as an insult.  So, big ups to the rest of the ‘rooks’.  I hope things are going well for each/all of you, and I hope that you all feel that you can drop me a line and provide feedback to/for/of me.

We’ve been spending a lot of time lately improving our track patterns and adjustments to different race situations.  I don’t intend to get into the details of all that now, I’ll save that for a book.  Besides, I wouldn’t want to do it a disservice here.  I just thought this pic was kind of cool.  I was using a white board to help explain, and I had Georg take a pic of it for me before I erased it.  Maybe it is a help for the skaters here to take a look at it again.  Intellectual property?  Hahaha, “some rights reserved”. 

Track Patterns on White Board…

 

The next big piece of news is that The Weakerthans are playing in Toronto on Saturday, and I am going.  I am super excited.  I went to the Tokyo Police Club show last week, and I thought the crowd was great, it was huge, full of energy, but really young.  It’s funny how that can manifest itself in a crowd.  Anyone planning on going to the Weakerthan’s show this weekend; get there early.  I know there will be a posse of my friends there, probably hanging out up front before hand.  It should be quite the scene.  There will be a lot of fire.  Anyone going, let me know. 

-A.

Aaron WIC Beil 2007 - Cool Pic

Posted on January 27, 2008

 

 

Going into the last lap in Beil, the pack down to single file chases down the most threatening attack of the day…

Pictured (front to back):Ewen Fernandez (Matter), Peter Michael (Powerslide), Nicolas Iten (Sportvital Rollerblade), Myself :) (Inlinecenter/Bont), DJ Nation (Spirotiger), Massi Presti (Bont/Hyper), two Citius guys (I think one of them is Casu), you can see Fabio Francolini (Powerslide), and that may be Stefano Galliazzo (Alessi Powerslide World) in the back, with the remains of the pack trailing behind us…

-DbleAdotca.

Campaign!

Posted on January 25, 2008

I realize that this may seem like alot for me to ask, but every little bit can be a huge help.  I am sure there are skating enthusiasts and readers of aaronarndt.ca that have Air Canada “Aeroplan” accounts and miles. 

I am asking if there are any out there willing to donate their Aeroplan Miles to help get me to Switzerland for the WIC 2008 season.

At the very least, I ask you to check out: http://www.aeroplan.com/use_your_miles/share_miles/launch.do
to see the details of the process.  My details are: Aaron Arndt, Aeroplan Number: 518 997 234.

Remember, Aeroplan changed their policy, and your miles now expire! So put them to good use!  Feel good!  Be a part of something special.

A flight from Toronto to Zurich (round trip) costs 60,000 Aeroplan miles.  I have 32,568.  That is 54%. I just read it costs $0.02 to donate each mile…

Does anyone know if you can use your miles for a portion of the cost of a flight?

-A.

Re: Wednesday repeat…

Posted on January 24, 2008

Things in the WIC off-season continue to boil.  At least it can be said that where things will settle for 2008 is starting become more clear.  I hope the skating community here in Canada is aware of just how impactful these signings and team rosters are on the landscape of the sport.  I am thinking that I will give a quick list of the known team rosters sometime early next week.  Of course, I am hoping to include myself on the list. 

To the community outside of Toronto:  Peter Doucet has been back on skates this week!  Hey now!  Bro-ham!  He has been off his skates for ~two months, taking care of a chronic knee injury.  on the bright side, his website is possibly the most current and updated news feed on the web.  Anyway, it is nice to have you back in the mix.  Take it easy and take care of your knee.  Don’t rush the comeback.  Remember, Spain isn’t till August.

In my opinion (and I can’t be sure if it is shared) last night’s practice was a success.  There is no question that the execution of the skills throughout the practice were far better than on Monday.  I think my explanation and demos were far better, much clearer, and more effective.  I thought it was some cool stuff, and I think that I skated nearly the entire practice.  I only stopped long enough to drink 100mL of water through the entire practice, and I’m pretty sure that was between warm-up (which was long in itself) and the program.  I think there was the most skating last night than in any other practice this season. 

I hope that everyone had the chance to really practice the skills; I know I did.  Perhaps more importantly, the skills were performed properly by the majority/basis of the group, and the knowledge base and general skill level of the group has increased dramatically. Hopefully now we can move forward, and make the skills-practice more specific/appropriate to the different (speed) needs of the individuals within the group.  I realize that this may have come at the expense of the quantity of the practice individually, but at least this time they were performed/modelled properly, and there are no longer glaring problems or misconceptions.  Again, way to go team!  we really are alot farther along.

-aaronlikestosnowboard (dot com).

Wednesday repeat…

Posted on January 22, 2008

 

 

 

I came back to edit this post, and realized that I kind of missed Sandra being at the top, so I am throwing this picture of us in Niagara Falls up. 

 

 

 

 

 

Original Post: I have some great news! If you missed last night’s practice at Scooter’s, fear not; the same lesson (essentially) will be repeated. I think my expectations of the execution of some of the skills were inappropriately high, though near the end of practice the majority of attendees really had things down. It was a cool transition to watch, but I think that I can teach them more effectively this Wednesday. To those that were there; I will be looking for you to demo. I think I have some ideas on how to better allow individuals to practice track adjustments, and a repeat of explanation should serve well, especially now that I have seen what wasn’t applied to the execution, as well as other difficulties.  

To the defence of the skaters last night, the floor was atrocious. The first half of practice, until we re-cleaned the floor, it was nearly unskateable.  Especially when we were skating off-track, it was stupid slippery. I think I’ll have to get involved and make sure the floor is tight for tomorrow night’s practice.  I also have some ideas for my explanation that should make things more clear/effective. I think the white board was a help, but I think I can improve the use of it as an aid to my explanation, not its basis.

Apart from all this, things at Scooter’s are really going well.  Watching how well the relay exchanges have improved is truly great.  There are still mistakes, and occasional falls, but we are now able to rely on relays as a valid component of the speed portion of our workouts.  Great job, team.  Looking at things from a little further back, really makes your improvement striking.

Oh and I think the “pass of the night” was especially impressive last night, with Andrew Hegarty and myself simultaneously ‘passing over the top’ of Leo… literally.  I’d like to have that video. 

wwaaaaaaaaassssssssssssaaaaaaaaaaaap!!
-a.

One Picture.

Posted on January 20, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

I just really like this picture, and what it makes me feel for Sandra.  First, she’s ultra cute, and second; happens to be making a snow angel.  She’s more than alot of fun, and its hard not to miss her.

 

 

I mentioned insanity in my last post; the short version of the story involves a tow truck, $100, a bunch of cell phone minutes, my car, and a swamp.  Luckily, everyone and everything is okay.  Nothing exaggerated.  I’m not sure I’ll ever write about the story, my writing back-log is huge as-is. 

So, how are you?

WIC team stuff is still afire.  An absolutely excellent and insightful resource can be found through Andrew Kraft’s skating blog.  I strongly suggest anyone interested to give it a look.  It is english, GBC centric, and offers more behind-the-scenes info than I have seen before on the information-superhighway.  (Hey, remember that term?) Big-ups on your site Mr. Kraft, it is truly awesome.  I didn’t know about it until recently, but it definately deserves a plug, some fwds, and attention from the masses. 

I like Jello.  I remember when my mom would make huge bowls of it when I was a kid.  We would top it with Whipped cream. 

Oh!  I didn’t take the dog. 

-Aaroniswaycooldotcom.

Ottawa 2

Posted on January 19, 2008

Am here…

After insanity.  Complete insanity.

-A.

*Crazy Pills.

Posted on January 17, 2008

Amazingly, I managed to one-up an already ridiculously long “warm-up” at practice last night.  I thought it was great, and I had a great workout.  I know that others, though it was really tough and they may not have enjoyed it, did too. It was intense, and now that we have invested so much time in some specific skills, they are refined enough that we can move on.  Last night we went [(17×3)x3)]+[(11×4)+(6×3)]=215 Laps, yes; again intense. I thought it really worked out well, and the drill provided an opportunity to spend time with each skater one on one, and I am happy to say that the group is already ready to move on.  Announcing this was met with relief from the crowd.  Hehehe, wimps!  :D  Well, the hurt was great while it lasted.  ;) 

I am excited about the prospects of the next practices.  I hope I am in the right mindset to teach properly next week.  My advice to Toronto skaters is: don’t miss Monday’s practice.  The old whiteboard will be out…

So, I have been writing alot of club stuff lately, and I’m not sure how well it works outside of Toronto skaters.  The international scene, meanwhile, is absolutely ablaze.  I almost never post links, and even less often skating links, but people, you have to follow the events of this link: Bont Message Board: World Cup Topics for 2008  This is the sport.  This year’s WIC off-season has been utter chaos, with teams folding, new ones created, and athletes switching teams, signing and not signing, and a relentless supply of floating rumours.  Meanwhile, I have yet to secure a spot on a team for next year.  I can’t wait to be able to announce it when it happens.  Things could be close.  Thanks to Bill Begg for being on top of the rumourmill, we would all be in the dark without you.

I think I’d like to write more about the on-goings and the behind-the-scenes of the International scene, and provide what insight I can.

Also, I’ve gotten away a bit from cutting things up and good old “truth-speak” (award given to name the reference). So…

 

The Simplified Lesson: Volume 6: 

What in the world are these skaters with virtually no edge control doing on 110mm setups?

Sometimes, I think I must be taking *(see title).  Or, the only one not taking them.

 

It’s hard not to see the rush to get on “Bigger Wheels”, it is just mind numbing to see that it often comes at the expense of technique.  My advice is: skate on the setup that allows you to skate with the best form possible.  It will translate into speed and efficiency.

Ok,
-Askadoddlepie.

Ottawa Practice

Posted on January 16, 2008

First, Special thanks go out to Stephane Tremblay, and Michael Garvin for setting things up for me to skate and assist in the Indoor facility this weekend in Ottawa.

Also to Cor Beattie for his advice, brief company, and kind words.  Big ups, C.  :)

So, onto the practice…

To start, things were a bit hectic in getting things set up for me to skate in Ottawa.  But, within about fifteen minutes of having things confirmed, I set out to Barry’s to hang out with the man Friday night, and of course Saturday morning.  Barry decided to join me at practice with the OUISC club, and I was really happy to see it.  Barry was on the floor and skating with us, mostly the whole time.  It was really great to see.  Old times, bro-ham, like the old ones.  :)

Their practice is broken down into three segments:

10:00am - 11:00 - Plyometric exercises
11:00am - 12:00 - Speed Training
12:00am - 13:00 - Technique & Fitness

Arriving at the facility a bit early, I saw some familiar faces as soon as I parked the car.  I realised that I hadn’t seen much of the Canadian Inline scene for quite some time outside of Toronto. 

Expecting the Plyometric to be outdoors as it normally is, I found everyone at the front of the building.  Due to the cold weather, the plyos were moved inside around the skating surface.  The plyos were super hard, if of course you did them right.  I was worried that my legs wouldn’t be as peppy as I had hoped for the practice.  I mean, you drive all the way, you hope to feel good for practice.  But after the first half of plyos, I felt warmed up which took longer than normal for me (probably because of the drive the night before and a not-so-great sleep).  So after an hour of plyos, I felt… alright. Though it was tougher than I had expected.

The next hour was the Speed hour.  I have to say though that I was confused when I saw all the local skaters pulling out their skates with XG’s on them…  I had heard the floor was slow and grippy, so to say the least, I was confused.  Hopping on the floor, and hoping for the best/most, it took me about two strides to feel how slow the floor was.  It felt like my wheels were deflated.  Or that I was bearing deep in a sludgy/mucousy material. 

The Ottawa floor looks like hardwood, but is actually an unusually thick laminate tile, and is just think enough to feel like a rubberized floor.  At speed, it is certainly far grippier than the floor in Toronto, but not at all “slip-free” anywhere above 70%.  Basically, there is very little glide, and it is tough to just hold your speed, but it is grippy enough to skate reasonably fast.  I think the most immediate impact is that it is really hard to hold pace.  I also think that it has later concequences on your techinque; that it will inevitably cause one to have an elevated stride rate, and will likely cause one to push back too much.

The floor being slow makes it tough to prolong the portions of the workout, since even a few laps are tough to skate at speed.  I won’t get into the specifics of another coach’s workout, so I will actually start to wrap this up rather quickly.

I think that the floor is slow enough to warrant shortening the straights a little, and it would then be far easier to do prolonged efforts within a workout.

I would say in short that if one were to skate a time trial at either Scooter’s or Ottawa; over 1 lap Ottawa would no doubt be faster, up to maybe about 3 or 4 laps.  Anything above that, Scooter’s is actually faster.  It would be really interesting to hold practices at each of the clubs and compare the lap times of varying distances and track patterns of the same skaters.

I stuck around and talked and skated a few accles and a warm down during the third and final hour, and spoke a bit to the Technique and Fitness group that was led by Michael Garvin.  It seemd to me he was doing a great job.  Keep up the great work, the club looks to be strong!

I will travel back to Ottawa this weekend and skate this Saturday’s practice with the group.  I am really looking forward to it.

I also picked up a few ideas on practices for us in Toronto, it was interesting to see what got this group excited, and these would be things that I might tend to ignore.

So, see you Saturday Ottawa!  (you too B)
-Aaroniscooldotcom.

One step closer to (the) everything (drill).

Posted on January 15, 2008

Practices at Scooter’s have been getting better and better…

I think last night’s practice was the best of the season. It was truly excellent. We are further along in our progression to the ‘everything drill’, which combines the use of a multitude of skills used in conjunction. I think we are about 40% the way there. The ‘transition’ drills have been going really well, and last night’s was surprisingly smooth, and the skill set of the Toronto skaters continues to impress me. Our warm up has been used to further strengthen some of the base skills for the progression, and the skaters are really starting to refine some very specific skills. I was really surprised at how well the whole thing worked together.

I think that the length of last night’s warm up was a bit out of hand, but it of course has positive outcomes as well. We went: (17×3)x3=162 Laps… And while this may be “inappropriately long”, it was a great chance to have a solid aerobic workout on skates, and gave my stabilizing muscles some steady work. Hehe, and that was just the “warm-up”…

Then we went 5×10 lap mock races where skills, passing, and pack movement were the focus. The last one of the A group was an excellent race. Big ups to Andrew Hegarty and Deanosaurus for pushing the pace late in the race, and I think I heard some of the fastest laps of the night being called in the final laps. [Hehe, I was able to rock up the inside ot the last corner.] The B group went really well also, and the steady tangling of Missy Maas and Shannon Hegarty were nothing short of excellent, with Jacky Schu waiting in the wings for a good line to pass up late in the race, but one couldn’t be found… Way to go girls!

Later, during one of the two sets of relays (10mins @1lap exchanges in teams of 3, and a short Pyramid 3×1,1×2,1×3,1×2,3×1); Jacky and Eric Maas both put in vying bids for the “pass of the night”… I still can’t decide between the two, with Eric’s being a butter smooth third to first, and Jacky’s being some sort of kamikaze “I can’t believe he made that” kind of thing. And since I am sending shout outs, you just can’t deny Sarah Hopkin’s ’save’. It was remarkable, and unlike anything I have ever seen on speed skates.

One last highlight has to be the fact that I was far less of an asshole than lately, and the approach seems to be working. The skaters and practices as of late have been nothing short of awesome.

I have a ‘report’ half written for the Ottawa practice and floor, only I want to spend enough time on it to give it its due. I should throw it up in the next few days…I think I need to eat somthing.

Oh, I’ll be in Ottawa this weekend too. Ha, and I am driving a dog back with me (long story).

-A.

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