My Decision

At the end of this blog.. look back at the title and let me know if you get the pun. lol.

Alright, So it looks that I can say with around 96% confidence that sometime this Winter, most likely November.. first week of December at the absolute latest.. I will be making my move to Salt Lake City to make a full-time switch to short track AND long track speed skating (at least for the time being). It's a move I contemplated last year around this time and decided the timing was not right. This year, I went a little of a different route.

First, I realize that although I am switching to ice, Inline is and always will be my passion. With that being said I came to the conclusion that I will never decide I am ready to switch to ice. Once I realized I will never be ready to I figured that if I don't do it now, I have to wait 3 or 4 years which is too long for me. What I realized is that I'm never going to be completely satisfied walking away from my inlines but it is a decision that I would always regret if I never did it. With that being said everything just seems like it is right for me to go now.

Secondly, I am making a full-time switch to ice.. BUT I am still an inliner and I am still skating inlines throughout the year and throughout the ice season. I still have full intentions on skating every race of the National SpeedSkating Circuit along with a few other meets. I plan skating on my inlines every week even during the winter if possible.
One reason that I am doing this is because the concept that ice skaters can't skating inlines is Bologna. The Canadian short track speed skaters skate inlines multiple times a week and they do it very well in fact. If it doesn't hurt them then it isn't going to hurt me.

Third, when everyone in the inline community realizes how many of us are switching this year I think they are going to be devastated and blown away. But at the same time I think they are going to see that it can be done without sacrificing inlines completely it just depends on how much you really want to do it. Hopefully with so many of us missing from various races even though we do plan on skating inlines it will open up the door for some other skaters to take over and steal some of the spotlight.

I plan on skating ODN, qualifying for the world team, skating worlds and then after that it will be November and time for me to move. I plan on using my blog for a weekly update on how myself and my peers are doing on the ice. We are all starting halfway through the ice season which might make the first season a little rough but I think that will be okay in the long run.