Sam 20 year old Canadian speed skater
I did some long track this past weekend! If you know me or have been following either of my blogs you might know that last season I focused mostly on long track as I had been doing for a couple season by that point.  Last season, unfortunately, was probably the worst season of my life.  It seemed like every thing that could have gone wrong did.   I had some issues at the beginning of the season where I might have been over trained, I would get so tired in races that I would completely lose my technique and I had a hard time getting it back.  When Canada Games trials rolled around I thought I had recovered enough to pull off making the team since I had easily been in the top 3 of Ontario the season before, no such luck, I ended up 6th which wasn’t even good for an alternate spot. By the last competition of the season I was finally feeling good and I was preparing myself to go into it putting no pressure on results.  I then got extremely sick on the plane ride over and spent most of the week at the doctors and on antibiotics so I was unable to skate anything except for the 500’s and even those were not skated very well because I felt like I was dying. Even at this point I was just trying to focus on the next season.  Next season I was going to move to Calgary, I was going to train long track and every thing was going to be better.  Then, just to kick me while I was down, they changed the time standards to get into the Oval program in Calgary and I no longer had my qualifying times.  I did however, have my short track qualifying times so so far this year I have been training short track and it has actually been going really well, I have made huge improvements which is something I’m very happy about. The week I returned to Calgary from Christmas marked my first week of the season really training on the long track ice.  Our short track group skated long track every day and those of us with qualifying times were encouraged to skate  Canada Cup 2.  The competition was this past Thursday-Sunday and overall it went pretty well.  Some races were better than others and I didn’t hit any of my personal bests but all my times were better than last season’s times at least.  I still love long track but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy to get back on the short track ice this week.  I’m hoping our group will skate some more long track though and then hopefully I can aim for some new pb’s by the end of the season.

I did some long track this past weekend!

If you know me or have been following either of my blogs you might know that last season I focused mostly on long track as I had been doing for a couple season by that point.  Last season, unfortunately, was probably the worst season of my life.  It seemed like every thing that could have gone wrong did.  

I had some issues at the beginning of the season where I might have been over trained, I would get so tired in races that I would completely lose my technique and I had a hard time getting it back.  When Canada Games trials rolled around I thought I had recovered enough to pull off making the team since I had easily been in the top 3 of Ontario the season before, no such luck, I ended up 6th which wasn’t even good for an alternate spot.

By the last competition of the season I was finally feeling good and I was preparing myself to go into it putting no pressure on results.  I then got extremely sick on the plane ride over and spent most of the week at the doctors and on antibiotics so I was unable to skate anything except for the 500’s and even those were not skated very well because I felt like I was dying.

Even at this point I was just trying to focus on the next season.  Next season I was going to move to Calgary, I was going to train long track and every thing was going to be better.  Then, just to kick me while I was down, they changed the time standards to get into the Oval program in Calgary and I no longer had my qualifying times.  I did however, have my short track qualifying times so so far this year I have been training short track and it has actually been going really well, I have made huge improvements which is something I’m very happy about.

The week I returned to Calgary from Christmas marked my first week of the season really training on the long track ice.  Our short track group skated long track every day and those of us with qualifying times were encouraged to skate  Canada Cup 2.  The competition was this past Thursday-Sunday and overall it went pretty well.  Some races were better than others and I didn’t hit any of my personal bests but all my times were better than last season’s times at least. 

I still love long track but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy to get back on the short track ice this week.  I’m hoping our group will skate some more long track though and then hopefully I can aim for some new pb’s by the end of the season.