Time for outdoor skating and Happy New Year all!

I've had the chance to get a touch on the outdoor track of Helsinki in good conditions so far. Two sessions down, yesterday and on the day before that. They fixed the cooling pipes last summer first tearing off the whole surface and then laying the pipes so that they go now around the track parallel with the skating direction instead of being across the track which caused some nasty soft spots last winter. Fixing the pipes was really worth it and the ice stays good not softening down too much to be skateable even if it rains for the whole day.

As skating inside is more like touching a silky smooth, just perfect ice surface skating outside is...well different. It's imperfect and after skating inside you really feel every single bump in the ice which makes timing ones skating completely different.
We talk a lot about rhythm at which you skate, when your arm moves according to your legs and how you create the pressure by transferring your hip at right time to right direction. In skating hall this is something that comes more naturally as you're trying to keep yourself on timing with each push just a bit say a quarter of a beat ahead of what you actually do. On outside track you have to be one whole beat ahead of yourself since the ice won't let you feel the new building pressure and you can't avoid being late on pushes if you start waiting for the perfect pressure. What I mean is, when I push with my left leg I'm actually already thinking of the next push on my right. So the whole skating is more like a boulder rolling downhill. It's different as I said, not a bad thing since it challenges you to adapt your technique with changing conditions as even ice inside a hall varies quite a bit with temperature and humidity outside.

Long talk about the stuff I face when skating here at home. Every challenge makes you better as a person and as an athlete so search how to challenge yourself every day. And learn something new every day.

Back in Helsinki

Four walls and a roof, guess that's home. Few days behind with working back in the moving company and today is the first day on ice after Christmas break. Looking forward to getting back in training and next Wednesday Finnish runner-up team will travel to Norway to race in Hamar next weekend. Time to sharpen the blades again and remember to go fast and turn left..or was it right. Gotta find out today!

Peace and Christmas

Home in Oulu, -24 Celsius and snow. My trip home went well and it seems like again the advice by my old friend worked like a charm "just don't sleep when you travel". Afrer staying up for a bit over 30 hours I didn't wake up a single time last night. Resting heartrate 49 so even that sounds good.

If the weather warms up I'm gonna visit ice tomorrow. But more updates after holidays. Have a merry Christmas :)

Boot camp number 1 completed

So last training behind. Tempos 28,4. 28,5 and 29,2-31,1. Good amount of training and I'm happy with this last month. And I'm happy with myself and I was hoping maybe a bit more but you have to be satisfied at what you achieved or otherwise it won't have any meaning.
It was something completely new for me and to see how to train "amerikan malliin". More coming in but that's a secret for a while.

Next hoping to make it home for Christmas on time since they promised a snowstorm from midnight until Friday morning.

If you want to be like the best..

..you have to train like he did. Ice session including easy one lappers as a short and fast interval plus few starts and 100m flying accelerations and they felt nice. Tomorrow is tempos again. So it is only one ice left before heading home for Christmas and stay in Finland for a while. More about that in incoming updates.

Today I actually noticed myself thinking on the ice when was the last training when I actually felt overly good in a training and that was atleast one month ago. On the other hand with speedskating there really is no training when you feel good at the end of it. Though it's the same with every sport when you want to build up all the time.

We got snow also today!! A refreshing experience to drive with all-year-round friction tires without ABS or slide prevention system. It's so easy to drive with studded tires and those two in fresh slush, I'll tell you, you could climb a wall with your car compared to driving without!

They say more snow coming in on Wednesday and Thursday but I'll make it home on time I'm sure.

7 days till Christmas. :)

A week until Christmas

Sunday was traditionally a day off ice and a complete day for resting.
Monday yesterday held a double ice session, in the morning more technical and fast stuff, and in the afternoon 12x250m as an interval. Maybe the most enjoyable training on ice.
Some stiffness again after Saturday and because of this whole last month has been tough training all the time. I calculated from my training journal that a year ago I trained within these five weeks for 30 hours and during this last five weeks over 90 hours. That's an increase for sure.
Yesterday I had also a massage therapists appoinment between training for just a recovering 40minute easy massage. It helped a lot with my hip area which has been the worst area tightening up.

Now two ice sessions left before heading home to Finland to spend Christmas with my family up North in Oulu. It will be a blast to go there again after a while to meet all my friends and family. And to rest before hitting training again. Looking forward to first races a week after New Year in Hamar, Norway, where we will be travelling with the Finnish national runner-up team.

Remember to be nice, the elfs are working! ;)

Rave day? No, race day

38,60 and 1.20,"toomuch". Best 500m over here so I was able to progress, but the last inner slowed down again, drove in at the same time as my pair and lost by coming up at halfway of the turn. One thousand also gets a lot slower when you skate the second last inner turn on the outer lane. Right skate outer edge cut in and I almost fell.
After beginning to recover physically the next step is to feel your nervous system is recovered. You can do sports pretty decently if your muscles are trained but after your brain gets tired it's over.

As before, skating and training after racing but now ditching the weights. When using weights you have to feel explosive and sensive to build more strength, feeling tired with weights only makes you train how to be slower than before. It's bike sprints for 40 minutes, first 20min 30sec on/30sec recovery and the next 20min 15sec/15sec. Keeping the speed up better.

Good luck for my friends in Finnish runner-up team travelling to Zakopane, Poland for student speedskating olympics!

Back on track...almost

Three sessions past now after hitting the limit. Easy ice, yesterday 6x600m progressive, today tempo. 28,5 and 29,0 so not much to tell for the coming generations from today!

Too stiff and out of relaxation. Just a bit still in the mode where you just fight the fatique, and then you won't recover. It will come back by time and the limit drifts away a bit further until next time. But the training done so far has not been a mistake. It has been a lesson. A new experience by which I will grow on. Sometimes you just have to train f****ng hard to go faster!

Tomorrow again a new chance to race faster here at the Petit than before since times have not been so good so far.
I got my blades also re-rocked now they are 24 meter shape and with the most excellent bend that I could imagine. First time trying to have a bend on the left skate (bend means that we actually bend the metallic blade towards the turn). That just takes a bit of time to get used to because now I can actually create a lot more pressure from the ice and the turns just flow effortlessly through.
Again about recovering the day off ice on Wednesday snapped the tiring out phase and now I'm just recovering day by day. It still takes a while to get back up from the bottom.

So wait for the results from tomorrow. At this point it's a bit like picking a ball from the lottery machine and seeing if its even or pairless number.

The wall

Last week I talked about going on until you find your limit. Today was the day when I reached it.

It's a limit both mentally and physically. That's all I'll say about it.

Few days rest and back on ice to see how it feels.

Of course I need to be happy because I was able to work my way up here but now I'm just tired. See how I feel after resting a bit.

Only 13 days until Christmas! So be nice ;)

Tuesday morning

Tuesday's seem to be the worst days of the week. Morning heartrate 68 so we're starting to be on the zone where it gets exciting. In Finnish: Ollaan jännän äärellä. Yesterday the illusion of speedskating - recovery work-out by skating session two hours less than 30 laps in all so not bad. Enjoying weather since it's nice -6 in Celsius.

Race day Lauantai(Saturday)

Second time trials through. Almost fell on 500m in first turn after 10,4 opener still ending with 40,4 time. On 1000m again shaking in the first turn but opening 18,0 which came as a small surprise but blacked out after that finishing with 1.19,8. But we have trained only slow laps and technique - so you skate slow. And still on such tough training it will take more than few days to recover properly. To give some comparison so far over four weeks I've been skating almost 60 hours.
Today 35 min Fahrtleg circuit and White elephant gift thingy with other skaters. It means that you buy a silly gift, wrap it and then everybody sets their gift on the ground and you take turns picking up a gift. The gift I brought was a beanie with honk-horn you usually see on childrens bikes screwed on top of the beanie. And in return I got two cupcakes.

Also today I was invited to have dinner with a man who works at Petit taking times during time trials. His grandfather came from Finland and such he knows few phrases in Finnish. It should be fun.I'm psyched about Pekka's huge recovery in Japan WC and everybody here sure knows how he did I'm taking care of that. Congrats to him also through here!

Independence day

What goes down seems to come up too. Now talking about skating fitness.
Really good training today. I don't remember ever being able to just keep on trashing laps on an interval like today.
I felt really good and relaxed right from the start. We skated 400m intervals with short recovery. Eight of them to be clear each going under 32 seconds. Usually I've started good and started getting tired in the end and the laps start going way up. But today I was able to keep them more consistent. And my technique did not fall apart until the last 10 meters of the last pull.
Easy day tomorrow on ice and then back to race line on Saturday morning.

El tiempo Wednesday

Okay on the contrary to what reads up there this was not a day for wine drinking!
Today we did tempos, 2x400m and once 800m. I proved myself wrong thinking of how I felt yesterday morning. This days laps were faster than a week ago. Both one laps were 27,8 and the two lapper 28,4 and 30,0.
So it is possible to improve but I have to admit, don't ask me how.

Stairs workout afterwards to keep physique from dropping as it is still only the beginning of December. Four months left out of this season. Keep on going, we might be getting snow over here during the weekend.

Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää kaikille kotona! Yritän löytää tuntemattoman sotilaan jostain ja täytyy varmaan pari kynttilääkin polttaa. Aamu alkaa varmasti Maamme-laululla ja tottakai huomennakin treenataan Suomi-trikoossa.

Once in a while I'm getting confused with what conversations I've done in Finnish and what in English but it was really nice talking some Suomea to Oulu today. And Finnish country is only getting better for ear to listen, Eppu Normaali has been listened to numerous times.

Tuesday 2nd ice

Telling yourself to keep on going. To enjoy yourself and smile while working...and all of a sudden, you start doing it just the way you want it to be. Such the saying "have faith good times will roll" sometimes holds true.

That happened to me today. I'm not even guessing how my body recovered since this morning was the worst ice session within last week, and the afternoon was to become the best.

For some reason training with a looser skating suit has felt a lot better than using my Finnish skin suit. Tighter suit gets me all wound up and stiff but I decided to work with it so that I'd get comfortable to race with it. Today it succeeded in the afternoon. In the morning my hip was so stiff and tangled that I couldn't get any feeling driving into the turns and on straights my rhythm just wasn't matching with my body. But all that was gone when I went on to the ice again. I tried solving the stiffness with streching my hip and butt area really well after the first session and before the second one and that might've helped. Skating felt again as it should relaxed, flowing nicely through with good pressure all the way through.
Top most thing I got over few major moments of fatique and now rolling on towards tomorrows tempo session.
In the morning there's no ice and in sprinter style I don't hurry anywhere during the day until I get on to the ice in the afternoon. We had sunshine here today but I hope everybody is enjoying actual winter at home! I'm sure I will while I get back for Christmas.

Tuesday 1st training

Easy morning with 3x600m around 30 second laps. Same again in the afternoon. This training works as wam-up for tomorrows tempo day.

Luckily this will be the only two session day left for this week.

There's some weights for you by my skater friend Chris! 850 pounds. Not for me right now.

2nd week starting today

Day to celebrate! I guess today I made a new record in most skated laps during one day. Lap count: 70 +/-. And most fastest with speed across the amount of skated laps. Fastest laps 30,8-31, slowest 36.

Here I start noticing that being, and becoming a superb athlete, really doesn't have that much to do how you train. Or that's half of it but the part that is unseen by the public and crowd is how thick your skull is; how much mental stress you can endure while training. When your coach pushes you to keep on going and it is the thing least on your mind, that's when the real training starts. That's when the fun ends, and work begins.
Afterwards you can and of course you have to be proud of how you managed today, that's what motivates you to do sports, but then the training is already over.

I've worked hard before and pushed myself. But never like this. This gives me strength to go on and start searching where my limit really is. Because when you're at breaking point, you can really tell that you know yourself.
And as they say the golden chest is at the end of the rainbow you just have to go there first.

Weekend first advent one month until Christmas!

Hey again,
Yesterdays racing wasn't the best. Stiff and tired 39,26 and fall at 800m in 1000m and second try finished only to 1.22 so nothing special. Easy laps to build technique back together and 30 minute dryland circuit afterwards.
Rest of the day resting and Sunday completely off. Double session coming in on Monday so today just good streching nothing else.
Weather warmed up again with spring-like feeling 15 degrees Celsius and sun shining- grass growing.