Even though it was wet for most of the race, and the rain really came down hard for a few laps, I had a really fun race. Doing the full 100K actually felt easier (and was actually faster) than the 70K training skate that I'd done a week prior to the race ( Read more... )

Prudence or lack of will? I was halfway into a planned 80K skate today, when I decided that I was starting to feel pretty cold, and that my boot -- which is brand new and not broken in -- might end up bruising my foot. What went through my mind was: "I don't want to get sick again" (I had a cold over the weekend, which I'm just about over) and "if ( Read more... )

Body image: The way I feel about my body's aesthetic depends a lot on what I'm doing with it. I hadn't trained athletically much between may and September, and as a consequence, I started feeling pretty icky about my body. It felt (and looked) frail and too thin. To add a strange bit of insult to that injury, I don't have much body fat (usually a ( Read more... )

Inertia is more exhausting than actively moving forward. This is clearly true phsychologically, but as far as climbing hills on inline skates is concerned, I experience it at a very real physical level; if I decide I'm tired and need to slump down and take it slow up the hill, that takes way more energy than actively skating up the hill either by ( Read more... )

Did a single 9.6K lap today, 25'30. Slower than last night's 24'54, and much slower than my P.R. of 23'32, set on 6/16/08, when I was training more consistently ( Read more... )