Michael Gilday...
Mine...
*sigh*
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Day 1 - National Team Trials Calgary
Well today was interesting. My heat involved me chasing a few guys down who decided to go for time... No idea why... All I remember is shaking my head when I saw them go. I passed them and finished 1st.
The Semi final was a little better (since no one went for time), I won the race and advanced to the A Final, where I met up with fellow team mate Michael Gilday.
Before stepping out onto the ice for our race, Antoine Gelinas-Beaulieu asked me if I "was ready to hurt". I shrugged, I wasn't exactly sure what he meant since 1500 m's always hurt for me. I should have guessed that he would go out for time... He pulled the first 10 laps of the race at an extremely fast pace, Gilday took over at that point and finished with a 2:06.565...
Yes, a 2:06.565...
Don't believe me? Check yourself...
That's like 4 seconds faster than the world record (2:10.639)... (Picture above is compliments of Alex Fishi!)
I managed to work myself from 6th to 3rd in the last 2 laps. I came in not far off Gilday, so needless to say I have an even faster 1500 m time now (to be accurate 3rd fastest in the world I'm guessing).
I'd like to note, that I did own the original Canadian Record, even though Speed Skate Canada never acknowledged it. It was announced that Michael broke Turcotte's old record, but it was actually mine. I did it last year at Winterfest... But it was ignored.
Anyways, congratulations to Gilday and nice work Antoine!
Tomorrow will be an eventful day as well, since it is the 500 m's!
National Team Trials #1
Trials on an Olympic year seem funny, but there are still a few spots remaining on the line for next years team. They start today with the 1500 m's. We'll be doing 3 rounds of 1500's starting at 10 am today.
The rest of the weekend will be:
Sunday 10 am start time: 500 m's (4 rounds)
Monday 10 am (I believe) start time: 1000 m's (4 rounds), super 3000 m (just one final), and a relay with the top 16 from the competition.
It will be a good weekend. Our group is strong right now, and we're skating smooth!
Monday, December 7, 2009
Canmore and things...
So I only went to Canmore on Thursday. A few of the other guys and gals went for Friday, but it was a long drive and the roads weren't great so I packed it in for the week.
Thursday was great though! I'm hoping I can get a group picture up soon but we'll have to see. The Canmore club skaters had the opportunity to come out and skate with us... Like I mean, literally skate with us. They were nervous at first, but after skating side by side with us in mixed relay groups, they soon learned that all we really are, are big kids. So needless to say we got along rather nicely!
The ice there is actually really nice! Very smooth and can hold our bodies on turns really well. The only thing is that mats come up quick with it being an NHL sized rink... Oh and it is very cold. Those kids are tough as nails to train there all week!
The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out at the Long Track World Cups with Matt Lipsett, a good friend I used to skate with "back in the day" (Ha). It was great catching up on old skating stories with him - what memories!
Now it's time to gear up for trials. They'll be running from Saturday the 12th to Monday the 14th.
One last thing, congratulations are in order for our Juniors here in the Oval Program. They all skated really well. We have three Juniors heading to Junior Worlds! Congratulations Kristy Shoebridge, Mikhail Choi and Rob Watson!!!
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