Wow, I got really behind - this'll be a long one...
January 15
I *think* I went to the gym and to fencing that day...
January 17
Indoor meet, West Palm Beach. We were supposed to be there at 6am, but the alarm evaded us so Birgit and I ended up getting there around 7:30. I made it just in time to run in, get my skates on and skate up to the line for my race. There was a brief pause while I pinned my number on
That was quite an experience - I called it 'wake and skate'. I think I did pretty well for skating on a new floor. It seemed like it was kind of slippery because there were tons of falls. I skated both novice and standard, which didn't really mean anything because there were only two of us. The other woman was Mary from Tennesee - we were fairly close for the short race but I outlasted her in the longer races. We had Carol skate with us for the 15 lap so she wouldn't have to skate by herself.
January 18
Outdoor races at the Velodrome. I'd only skated on it once before, so I wasn't sure how I would do. I had two other ladies in my division, and they put the rest of the women (masters, veteran) with us so we had 6 or 7 to skate with. I won all three races, but I was also the youngest one there. I really liked skating on the track. Joe says the one for outdoor nationals is similar, but the bank is much higher. I would like to go if it's not the same weekend as Montreal.
January 19
Outdoor on the road just outside the velodrome. There were also three races (and a time trial). I won the short race, then for the last two races they put two 17 year olds in the group with us, which made things a little more interesting. One of the girls and I raced up the straightaway to the finish. It was close, so I'm not sure which one of us was across the line first.
During the first two races, I accidently kicked one of the older women who came too close up on my side by misjudging the length of my stride. She wobbled a little both times, but she was ok. In the 10k, I was chasing the fast 17 year old with the others behind us. We were coming around a tight left hand turn when someone (I think it may have been her) came alongside me and got her feet tangled with mine while I was crossing over. My guess is that I was in the middle of an underpush and had my right leg in the air to cross over, because I went down so fast there was nothing I could do about it. She stayed upright but the poor girl behind me (the other young girl) fell too. She looked like she just got scratched up a bit. I considered getting up and finishing, but my elbow was hurting pretty bad so I knew I had done a little damage. When I looked at it I thought I was gonna hurl. If you haven't seen the pictures yet:
Warning: Gross
It's almost a week later and it seems to be healing ok, but the hole is taking a while to fill in.
Overall it was an excellent meet - I won all of my races except the 10k, and my time trial times were really not that bad. Since no one else in my age group did the time trial, I won a few bucks for it.
The only thing that's really disappointing is the fact they don't display the results anywhere. You would think that with the fancy schmancy new site USARS has with the listing of events, it wouldn't be too hard to list meet results there too. Ah well.
January 23
20 mile bike ride at Flatwoods. I felt very winded and sore, just from three days off...
January 25
20 miles at Flatwoods, long and slow. This was my first time back on skates since the fall. I ran into Glenn O. so we skated together for our last couple of miles. My heart rate was slightly elevated, but other than that I felt good.