Those who have been following this journey for a while know that pace lines are (one of) my nemesis. Between back pain from bad form and a weak core to the agonizing arch pain I used to get with my old skates, pace lines did me in completely.
1) I was slow. I didn't really have sticky skating DOWN yet and too-tight trucks made things more difficult than they should have been. While I wasn't exactly Zippy McSpeederson tonight I feel like I had the technique down. With looser trucks I was able to get at lot more of the "slalom" action that Irate always describes. It also makes pushing around corners easier.
2) I was too bent over. I still struggle with this and experienced a bit of back pain tonight but Slam's reminder of "if your back hurts you're doing it wrong" helped me remember to sit into it more. Sitting into it fatigues those same hip-area muscles that give me trouble on crossovers but hey, if they're getting fatigued then I am using them and they are getting stronger!
The drill in question was the "endless jammer" drill which is where the league splits in half and one half packs up and the other half forms a paceline. The first person in the pace line skates ahead and pushes through the pack like a jammer would then ends up at the back of the pace line. Rinse. Repeat. I nearly hung the whole time in the pack but had to drop out at the end for water (I've got this nasty cough thing going on).
The only drill I had trouble with tonight was the transitions drill - on the whistle, transition. This was a challenge because I can't do transitions to save my life. Hollywood offered to work with me on them if we can find some time outside of our work schedules which is cool.
We did a lot of work tonight on form for speed - between Trixie's hints and what I have gleaned so far from my national-champion speed skating uncle I at least mentally grasped what was going on. Fix the fatigue, fix a lot of things. We did the cross-over component drill (push with one leg only, then the other).
We also did a non-contact version of Lion and Gazelle which was PFA - Pretty Freaking Awesome. I thought I was going to get eaten immediately and I didn't! The first time I went I was a gazelle. The whistle blew and I just took off. I tried to get speed-skater low on the straightaways and build up as much speed as I could and squeak around the turns. No one caught me and I think I surprised some people (including myself) which was cool. The next time I went out I was a lion and was able to catch the gazelles fine (they were instructed to stack packed up).
I got my first taste of positional blocking and I want more. I need to get those crossovers nailed so I can play with the big girls! I had loosened my trucks another half turn at open skate which was great for agility moves but I decided that I felt way too unstable during crossovers and balancing so I dialed them back a quarter turn and they felt much better. Maybe I'll do them back a quarter again in a couple of weeks.
Soooo... all in all an awesome, but tiring practice tonight. A little less coughing and a little more breathing would be good for Thursday! Thursday's goal - skate on the track. No skating on the outside for me. If anyone sees me skating on the outside, please yell at me unless it looks like I am under great duress. Thank you to Slam I Am for an awesome practice while SFOD was away playing with the Nuts.
4 comments:
Please excuse the obsessed newbie.
Loosening Trucks? Do you mean loosening the bolts on your wheels? If so, that makes perfect sense.
Sticky Skating. Is there a trick to this? I really struggled with it last week. I can't do it when I try to, at all, but I feel ok with it when I'm distracted.
Loose trucks. I had a HORRIBLE time with this for ages. Feel free to catch me on AIM/AOL at anguissette1979 if you have more questions :)
Ooh sorry... you know about the trucks. Yes... loosening the to "kingpin" bolts on the bottom of your skates. Only do a 1/4 to 1/2 turn at a time or you'll probably feel too unstable.
You are my hero! I've just stumbled across your blog and fully intend to read every work. I've been skating since July, still can't do crossovers and my back pain is getting worse. I *almost* have the crossovers which leads me to believe that my muscles are adapting to the new effort. I was just told yesterday that my stance is wrong, that I'm not sitting enough. Seeing you say the same thing about your stance reinforces that comment. I still haven't been able to do a paceline at the start of practice, but when we do them later I've been more successful. Yeah for you! Hope for me!
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