Applauding the Clap Skate

BIG NEWS FLASH

(If I could make this blink to really get your attention, I would)

Kellen and I have heard back from Pat, and we're going to Salt Lake City to go for a ride! Wahoo!!!! I'm so excited!!!! I haven't stopped smiling since Kellen called me on Friday with the news. You can ask Kat., I do a little dance and go into sing-song mode every time I talk about it. We just booked our tickets, and we're headed out right after the first of the year. The third member of our Midwest, rower clan has just moved to Salt Lake City. So excited for you Duffy! She'll be right there with us for this crazy, cool experience. I can't wait! We'll have 2 full days to slide, and I'm sure we'll find something else to do while we're there. I'm positive this will rank up there with one of the greatest vacations ever, just like the last trip!

On another awesome weekend trip note, Dad and I are going to a Bobsled & Skeleton World Cup event in December at Utah Olympic Park. So excited!!! We're going to see 2 full days of World Cup sliding. Mom and Dad went on a trip to Salt Lake City a few weeks ago. They went to visit the Olympic Oval and Olympic Park, checking out all the places I went while I was there. When they were checking out the Olympic Park in Park City, their tour guide said that the event is only attended by about 200 spectators. Can you believe that? If I lived anywhere near Olympic/World Cup sporting events, I'd be all over that. The event is free too. Who could pass that up? Apparently a lot of people. Anyway, with so few people, we'll see the action up close and personal. We'll get to see lots of athletes, and since Dad can strike up a conversation with anyone, I'm sure we'll meet lots of new people. This is my first vacation with just Dad, and I'm really looking forward to it! We're going to do some skiing too while we're there.

There are three major resorts there in Park City, which also hosted the 2002 Olympics skiing events. I've only been skiing once. I was pretty young, and we were visiting family in Colorado Springs. It's funny what things you remember from family vacations. I suppose those traumatic life events really stick out the most in your mind. I believe I'd done fine in ski school that morning, and I remember I had this awesome mac 'n cheese at the ski lodge for lunch. Of course, I remember the food. After lunch, Mom and I took off down the mountain together. We were doing great, until we met Little Joe. I can laugh about it now. In fact, Mom and I get to laughing pretty hysterically, with tears involved, when we talk about it now. At the time, though, the tears were not from laughing on my part (I can't speak for Mom on this one. She may have cried from laughter or frustration.) Anyhow, we took this offshoot and met up with Little Joe. Now, Little Joe was the name of this hill covered in small moguls. There was no way around it. Couldn't ski down the sides. Couldn't ski down a flat, straight shoot through the moguls. Our only options were to take off our skis and trek a considerable distance back up the hill or make it down Little Joe. In reality, I don't think the stretch of moguls to the bottom of the hill was that long, but I was terrified. I stood there and cried for the longest time. All I could see was that top picture with moguls stretching on for eternity, when in reality it was probably much closer to the bottom picture. As you can see, small children are capable to getting down such a hill. Well, after awhile another little girl, about my age, and her dad happened upon us. This little girl obviously grew up around skiing (just like the kid in the picture), and they just zipped right past us and down the hill. I can clearly remember Mom saying, "See. That little girl can do. Come on. Let's go." I'm so sorry I tormented you so, Mom, but I was terrified for some unknown reason. She finally got me to sit/ski my way down. I'm laughing really hard right now just thinking about it. Good times. Let's hope this skiing experience isn't quite as traumatic. I count it a blessing that I am much more adventurous now. Bring on Little Joe! It may not be pretty, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

In other news, I had a big high and low at Zoom this week. We'll start with the good news. My running has vastly improved in these 7 weeks since I started training there. In only 7 training sessions, I've almost doubled my speed. I started out struggling to run 8.5 mph, and this week I ran for 8 seconds at 16.0 mph. 16 miles per hour! Wow! I'm so impressed with myself. I remember John telling someone that really good sprinters, as in top collegiate and world sprinters, run in the mid-twenties range. He said I should be up around 19 mph by the time the combine rolls around in May. He and Vince are very impressed with my form now. From here on out, the improvements will not be as drastic. Every tenth is an achievement.

I'm learning to enjoy the last few sprints of a workout now. Most all of these sprints are done on an upward incline, some more severe than others. Sometimes when I get off the treadmill, it's hard to walk on flat ground. It feels like I'm going to fall on my face. Your legs are so used to stepping up, that walking on a flat surface feels like you're stepping downward. The last few sprints are done with the treadmill flat., so it feels like your barrelling downhill. It's such a great feeling! You just feel so fast. It's a good thing too because when I got on The Beast flying at 16 mph, it was tough to keep up. Vince was doing a lot of encouraging and his arm was definitely getting a workout keeping me on. I can see how it would be easy to fly off the back.

It never gets easier, you just go faster.

-Greg LeMond

Now for the bad news, I did a superfluous amount of leg exercises after my sprint workout. One of these was 2x20 single leg calf raises with about 100+ lbs on the machine. I made it through the first set with just a couple breaks. The second set was a different story. I was convinced there were flames shooting out of my legs. It felt like I would've gotten third degree burns if I'd touched my calves. It took me a lot of breaks to breath and stretch, but I made it through all 80 reps. I knew it was going to hurt later, but I didn't fully comprehend how much.

Tuesday, they were sore, but it wasn't that bad. I went for a run and did some sprints at the end. I thought that would work out most of the lactic acid, and I'd be right as rain the next day. WRONG! I woke up Wednesday, swung my legs over the edge of the bed, went to stand up, and I almost collapsed. Good thing the wall was there. So much pain! I don't think my calves have ever been that sore in all my years of sports. It hurt to stand up straight, so I kind of shuffled around hunched over the whole day. I know I looked ridiculous, but they hurt so bad! I tried to rub them out, but it made me scream just to touch them. There was a lot of grunting, moaning, and jaw clenching involved throughout the day. Thursday wasn't much better. Friday I started to feel some reprieve. I went for another run/sprint workout, and I think that helped. The right one is still a little sore, but I think I'm almost fully recovered. Right in time for another session at Zoom...

   

Thank goodness I never had to take Human Body in college like all those kinesiology majors on the team, so I don't know any technical terms. I just know pain. So I did a little research, and here's what I found. All muscle strains are graded from 1-3, with grade 1 being a minor tear, with up to 10% of fibres involved. A grade 2 tear involves up to 90% of the muscle fibres and a grade 3 is over 90% of fibres torn, or a full rupture. This usually occurs at the muscular tendinous junction or the achilles tendon itself. The arrow in the picture is the junction between the gastrocnemius muscles and achilles tendon.

Symptoms of calf strain include:

Grade 1:

• A twinge of pain in the back of the lower leg.
• May be able to play on.
• Tightness and aching in the 2-5 days after.

Grade 2

• Sharp pain in the back of the lower leg.
• Pain when walking.
• There may be swelling in the calf.
• Mild to moderate bruising.
• Pain on resisted plantarflexion (There was a video attached to this of a guy pulling the foot down till the person's toes were pointed and pushing it up so the foot was perpendicular to the leg. If anyone would have tried to do this to me, I would have round-house kicked them in the head with my other leg!)
• Tightness and aching for a week or more.

Grade 3

• Severe immediate pain.
• A sudden pain at the back of the leg, often at the muscular tendinous junction (see image below).
• Inability to contract the muscle.
• Considerable bruising and swelling.
• In the case of a full rupture, often the muscle can be seen to be bunched up towards the top of the calf.

A calf strain may be more likely in athletes who have tight calf muscles. (I'd like to point out that I definitely fit in the tight calf category, so my odds weren't great to begin with.) Now, I'd like to shrug this off and say it was only a Grade 1 strain, mostly because saying more than 10% of my muscle fibers were torn kind of freaks me out. I know the point of lifting is to tear your muscles down so they grow back stronger, but I just choose not to think about it while I'm participating. In reality, I'm pretty sure I was in the Grade 2 category. The whole "pain when walking" thing sounds pretty familiar. Hallelujah is wasn't a Grade 3!


Now that I've caught you up on the big news in my life, we can learn about another sport. This week we will be learning about (drum roll please)...

SPEED SKATING

Now, I know everyone is jealous of our outfits. I mean, Shani and I look awesome, but only the few and proud get wear this flattering attire. I've got some other pictures, but you'll have to stick with me to see the rest (or you could cheat and scroll down to them now if you just can't wait). I'm sure Sweeney and Steph did not know that all that rowing gear could be so versatile. I think I wore at least one piece in every picture we took for our Olympic tribute. I don't know of any countries that wear purple, which is just a shame. Purple often represent royalty. You'd think someone would utilize that. So, I'm not sure who I'm representing here, but I sure had fun.

History

Now, let's head to history class. If you read last weeks post, you might remember how skating was developed as a practical way to get around on ice. The Dutch were arguably the earliest pioneers of skating, and they are by far the most avid fans today. They began using canals to maintain communication by skating from village to village as far back as the 13th century. Iron skates on wooden soles served as a mode of transportation. 

The first known skating competition is thought to have been held in the Netherlands in 1676. However, the first official speed skating events were not held until 1863 in Oslo, Norway. In the early 19th century, the Dutch shared the concept of speed skating with their European neighbors.  In 1889, the Netherlands hosted the first World Championships, bringing together Dutch, Russian, American and English teams.

Speed skating has been part of the Olympic Games since the first Winter Games were held in Chamonix in 1924.The picture to the right is the U.S. men's speed skating team for those games. Here's a fun fact for you: the first gold medal in Winter Olympics history was won by an American. Speed skater Jewtraw, face shot in the upper left hand of the photo, took the 500-meter event on January 26, 1924 with a time of 44.0 seconds. Alas, it was the only U.S. gold at those Games. Jewtraw also finished 13th in the 5000m and eighth in the 1500m. Originally, only men took part in competition. At the Lake Placid 1932 Games, however, women’s speed skating was a demonstration event and became a full medal event at the Squaw Valley 1960 Olympic Winter Games. The events almost always follow the European system, which consists of skaters competing two-by-two. At the 1932 Olympic Games, the Americans organized American-style events, i.e. with a mass start. This decision brought about a boycott by many European competitors, which allowed the Americans to win the four gold medals. This system would give birth to short-track speed skating, which was added to the Olympic program in Albertville in 1992.

How It Works

Speed skating takes place on a 400 meter oval ice rink. Timed to one-hundredth of a second, athletes compete in pairs, skating counter-clockwise around the oval and changing lanes once per lap, to equalize the distance covered. The skater in the outside lane has the right-of-way at the crossover if the skaters arrive at the changeover point at the same time. Speed skating is the fastest human powered, non-mechanical aided sport in the world. Skaters can reach speeds of more than 60 kilometres per hour. That's 37.28 mph. FAST!



Equipment

I think we'll start with the most obvious piece of equipment that everyone picks up on, the uniform. Skaters wear skin-tight racing suits with hoods to decrease air resistance. In the men's 500m race, air resistance is equivalent to a force of 5kg which accounts for nearly 70% of the physical resistance to overcome. Friction between skates and ice accounts for the remaining 30%. Hence the reason these suits are so important. Racing suits must conform to the natural shape of the skater's body. Insertion or attachment of forms or devices to create a different shape is not permitted. I suppose people would try this to become more aerodynamic, but I wouldn't want to be adding any extra lumps to my body in that suit. You look strange enough as it is. Canada had THE WORST uniform design these past Olympics. Could you make a less flattering design? I propose you cannot! Putting shiny material on the middle portion of your body, horrible plan. And needless to say, that X across the chest was not doing anything for the ladies. It's just wrong. The fashion police must have been out on a donut run during this design disaster. Now that I've got that off my chest, we can move on.

If you noticed in the video, the skaters had on armbands over their uniforms. Skaters in the outer lane wear a red armband and skaters on the inner lane wear a white armband. Lots of skaters wear glasses to protect their eyes from the wind and ice chips. The lens reduces glare and improves visibility of the track. And last, but certainly not least, is the skates. If you'll remember, you heard Bonnie Blair talking about clap skates in the video. Unlike conventional skates, the heel of the clap-skate blade is not attached to the boot, and the toe of the blade is affixed to the boot with a hinged apparatus. At the end of each stride, as the skater picks up the skate, the blade briefly disconnects from the heel of the boot, thereby keeping the blade on the ice longer and increasing the skater's pushing power. When the blade has fully extended, a spring mechanism mounted on the front of the boot snaps the blade back up to the boot, resulting in the clapping sound that gives the skate its name.

The part of the blade that comes in contact with the ice forms a straight line. Men's speed skating blades are generally 42-46 cm (16.5-17.7 in) long. The longer the blade, the faster the skate up to a point where length would become an obstacle. The underside of the blade is only about 1mm thick. Going around a curve, the skater is pushed outward at a force of 60kg in the inner lane and 52kg in the outer lane. To counteract this centrifugal force, the skater leans 45° when in the inner lane and 49° in the outer. This results in a gravitational force equivalence of 90kg on one leg in the inner lane and 76.5kg in the outer.

I've come to realize that all these Winter Olympic sports are completely ridiculous. I mean, so decided to try and make sharp turns on ice with a tiny blade, hurl down an ice chute on a sled face first, or launch themselves up in the air to spin and flip tons of time? What kind of crazy people were they? All these sports have aspects that are seemingly impossible, but you just can't defy physics. This video shows a few examples of that.

If everything is under control, you're going too slow.

-Mario Andretti

Fans
Let's take a small break from all this learning to talk about some fans. All I know is, those Dutch people are crazy about speed skating! All that orange you saw in the clip, all Dutch fans. They pack arenas world wide, and most competitions are regularly televised. It is their national sport, and they dominate. They bring bands, everyone wears something outrageous and orange, and they are always loud. Remember all those rabid European fans at the World Cup this summer, only instead of soccer they're cheering for speed skating now. Here's a clip of some of them in Vancouver after Sven Kramer won the 5000m gold medal. I think the guy with orange spikey hair and the orange Harry Potter glasses looks like Alton Brown.



But even if you're not Dutch, fans go wild for the sport. It's all about making lots of noise and being very flamboyant! Paint your body and dress crazy. What sports fan wouldn't enjoy that? I know I would! Alright, you've had your fun. Make a little noise like a real speed skating fan if you need to get a some more fun in before we head back to the classroom.

Events
There are 12 events between men and women, ranging from 1 1/4 laps to 25 laps. I think I'm ready to join the ranks of these Olympic skaters. Below are my wicked, fast speed skating photos. I didn't quite do 25 laps, but I sure worked up a sweat. I'm surprised Katy could even catch me on film. I was a blur. Ok, I'll stop lying now. The pond outside our apartment froze over this winter, like everything else in Manhattan. I'd never seen all of Tuttle freeze before, so that was pretty cool too (that's where we row if you don't know that). Anyhow, Katy and I happened to be up late one Friday night and saw a bunch of drunk college students out on the pond. Now, there are all these signs posted around that specifically tell you to keep off the ice. We are rule followers, so we had not ventured down to the water's edge. These crazy kids were out in the middle jumping up and down as hard as they could, so we figured we were safe to strike out ourselves. So I put on my awesome speed skating apparel, and we headed down to the ice. I slid around for awhile and Katy shot these pictures. I tried to show off my speed skating form, but I really wasn't that great on the ice. As we were finishing up, some guy across the way came out on his balcony and cheered for me. It was like I was actually at the Olympics! I had a fan! It was awesome! It's funny how much fun Katy and I can have doing the simplest things. Mom got a kick out of this story. I remember her telling me she'd shared the story with a friend who had responded, "If that's the worst thing she's doing at college, you should be very happy."

Can't you see the resemblance here? With my amazing, natural form, I could make the Olympic team right now. Who needs training? Ok, I've come back to reality, so let's get back on track (no pun intended).

Here are the list of events:
Mens: 500m, 1000m, 1500m, 5000m, 10000 m, Team Pursuit
Womens: 500m, 1000m, 1500m, 3000m, 5000m, Team Pursuit

All races consist of one heat except the 500m, in which there are two heats with competitors taking it in turns to start in the outside lane. The athletes change corridors each lap on the back straight. The skater passing from the outside lane to the inside lane has priority. When the lap count starts to climb, skaters sometimes forget which lane they are supposed to be in. If a skater crosses over at the wrong time, they are disqualified. Bummer! That happened to Sven Kramer this past Olympics. He'd already won gold in the 5000m. He was on track to win gold and set an Olympic record in the 10000m, but his coached waived him back into the inner lane on the lap 17 of 25. He finished the race, thinking he'd won gold. It was then he found out he'd been disqualified. He was really angry, but who could blame him?

If you follow the links above, you'll see some awesome pictures and a graph on each event's time improvements between Olympic winners. Mighty impressive! I know the skates and body suites have improved over time, but training had to have lots to do with those time reductions. Long track is right up there with swimming and rowing in my humble opinion. It's one of those sports when you're muscles are completely deprived of oxygen from going all out, but you just can't stop to take a breath. You just will your body to keep going. You go till you collapse. It sounds so twisted to say it, but that's just what you do. No time outs. No breaks. Just long laps of torturous amounts of pain. You can just tell from looking at their faces midway through a race. PAIN! Just look at Chad's face at the end of this race. The race is 6 minutes and 20 seconds long, and I bet his legs started burning about a minute in if this is anything like rowing.

As I said before, each lap is 400m. Skaters are either pumping both arms flying towards the line or just trying to get across the line before they collapse. Skaters most often specialize in one or two of these events, likely leaning towards short or long distance. Anything above 1500m is considered long in this sport, and the granddaddy of them all is the men's 10000m. I'm starting to hurt just thinking about it. The sprints are always a white knuckle event since they are so short.



Team pursuit was first introduced as an Olympic event at the Torino 2006 Winter Games. In this event, two teams of three athletes begin, simultaneously, on each side of the track. Team members take turns leading, with the remaining athletes following closely behind the leader to take advantage of the air currents. The team completes the race when the final team member crosses the finish line. The competition consists of elimination rounds, leading to a final race. The U.S. upset the Netherlands in a shockingly, amazing race. I was yelling at the TV the whole time. There was just no way we were supposed to even come close, and we beat them. I couldn't find a clip of that race, but here is part of the Canadian vs. Norway preliminary race so you can see how team pursuit works.

The U.S team pursuit crew featured three first-time Olympians all under the age of 20. Chad Hedrick, the lone veteran, woke up the morning of the finals with sharp pains in his hip and wasn't sure he'd even skate. And against the Canadians that set Olympic records just a day earlier, they lost by a respectable 0.23 seconds to get a silver. In no way should the U.S. men have been where they were, dispatching the powerhouse Dutch a day earlier and vying for gold in team pursuit, so a second-place finish to Canada was a fate greeted with smiles and jokes about how heavy medals actually are.

Athletes

I don't know a ton of speed skaters, and I Jen Rodriguez is the only woman skater I can think of off the top of my head. I do know about a few of the men. Mom, Dad, and I have determined that Shani Davis looks like the character Frozone from the Disney movie The Incredibles.  Obviously we're not the only one because this picture pops up when you google search his name. Funny. Shani is very talented, winning Olympic and World medals on a regular basis.

I do have my favorites though. Chad Hedrick is at the top of that list. He's from Spring, Texas, and he has competed in the past 2 Olympics, winning a gold, two silver, and two bronze medals. He converted to long track from inline skating.With 50 World Championships and 93 National Championships, he is the most accomplished inline skater ever. He even originated an inline skating technique called the double push that revolutionized the sport. I had no idea what this was, so I did a little digging. This video is a slow motion clip of a top Swiss skater named Roger Schneider. He's also a crossover skater who now holds the world record  for marathon inline speed skating.



In 2002, shortly after his 50th world title, he switched to the ice partly because inline skating wasn't going to become an Olympic sport and partly due to the motivation of watching former inline rival Derek Parra win gold at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. He climbed to the top of the world championship scene faster than anyone could have imagined, and he picked up the nicknamed "The Exception" for his seamless transition from inline to ice. He became a household name during the 2006 Torino Games, going on every talk show and media circuit there is. Then, somewhere in the four years since, he received Christ, got married, and had a little girl. I remember liking Chad in 2006, but I really like watching him in 2010. You could just tell he was a different person.


This video clip was done for his church, and it's so great to see how his life has changed. So awesome Chad!
I really liked this clip too. His little baby is just adorable. I love the huge bows!


I really like that these are a few of the videos posted on his official site. It's great to see that even though he still trains ridiculously hard for thousands of hours a year, he is a husband and father first and foremost. So, if you couldn't tell, I really like Chad Hedrick. Here's one more pre-Vancouver interview. I really like the questions near the end about what goes through your head competing at the Olympics.



On to other skaters I like. I wasn't old enough to see Dan Jansen compete, but I love this Visa commercial they had running during Vancouver. All the Visa spots were great, but this one was really special. If you read the post about figure skating or watched any this past February, you'll remember Joannie Rochette. She also lost a loved one very close to an Olympic games. I remember an interview NBC did with her after she won the bronze, and she said that Dan had called her. I can't even imagine how hard that must be, but he offered her some advice and his condolences. That's just another great example of what the Olympics is all about. It doesn't matter what country you're from or how old you are. As one of those Visa commercials said, "Go World."



So that wraps up all I am going to tell you this week. Check out this link for a video review of all you've just learned. The graphics are helpful.

Wow! This was another marathon of a post. There's so much I didn't even get to put on, if you can imagine that. I just kept finding great videos, pictures, and articles that I couldn't stop myself. As Anne Shirley says, "I know I chatter on far too much... but if you only knew how many things I want to say and don't. Give me SOME credit."