2006 - Outdoor

2006 and 2007 were huge years for me in and out of the sport. If I had to pick a time period that shaped me it would be these two years. So let's jump into it.

If you saw my last blog, you read about 2005 the single most disappointing season I have probably ever endured. I guess that probably helped what happened in 2006 but I still don't think I've ever needed motivation, that I've had enough of it to begin with. But 2005 taught me a few things. First that I never, ever wanted to fail to reach another goal. It makes me feel weak, made me look back and wonder what I didn't do. Back in 2004 I set a goal that I wanted to qualify for the Jr World Team in 2007 and 2008. I felt like a lot of people qualify for it there last year of junior but not as many can do it more than once, with that being said I realized after getting destroyed in 2005 that I was in trouble if something didn't change. On the indoor side of things it's hard to say what the goal was at the beginning of the season. I think I just wanted to win and not just because I love winning, I had other motives.. It was time to shut people up.

In 2006 I switched to a long mount boot, switched over to 100mm wheels. Every year I trained with Jeff there was someone better then me, or at least around my level for training at least. In 2006 I think it started changing a little bit. I still had my best training partner, Justin Foster. Mostly because when it came to racing we did a bit of the same things and he was two and a half years older then me so most of the time I was chasing him. But he started missing some practices because of school sports that he was doing, and doing well. So when he wasn't there I had no idea how to judge how hard to go, how fast was too fast in a 15lap drill or 10 lap drill so I would just go hard.. and then try to keep going when I blew up. 2006 was the first year we really started getting a little serious about outdoor skating too. I think we probably skated everyday, twice a day if we had indoor too.

At the beginning of every season I try and set goals based off of where I want to go and where I was the year before. For outdoor, in 2006 I decided I wanted to be competitive at outdoor nationals.. a modest goal. In 2005 I wasn't just terrible, I was really terrible, like getting lapped out of the 10k points elim maybe 1400m in, that terrible. So in 2006 I wanted to be competitive, I didn't want to embarrass myself.

When outdoor nationals rolled around I got nervous, a very, very new feeling for me. I never got nervous and quite frankly, no one expected anything out of me so there wasn't a reason to be nervous. I was one of the last ones to go in the 300m so I sat through everyone watching there times. Everyone seemed fast, I remember watching some people go and I knew I should be able to go that fast but the time seemed so fast. When it was my group I remember taking a deep breath, shaking off the nerves telling myself it was time convincing myself into confidence, something I often did.. especially before time trials. The actual race was a blur, but my time was incredible, 27.376 I was in second place I couldn't believe it.. I took a double take at the clock to make sure. I finished third in the 300m behind Chad Horne, and Terrell Bradley. That was probably my most surprising medal I've ever won, I never expected that one. The 200TT I got second, missing an automatic spot on the team but just .03 (then the winner of the 300 and 200 automatically made the team). After a little controversy in the 20k elim it came down to the final race for me.. whether or not I would make the jr world team.

The final spot was going to be between Colin Thomas, Greg Gorman, and Me. I made through to the semi where it was Greg, Kevin Quandt, Christian Lavelle, and me with the top 2 moving on to the final. I knew if I made the final and won I would be on the team but it feels different when someone mentions it.

Jeff pulled me aside before the semi and it was just me and him around, talking. He told me how he had this kind of conversation with Steve (Carter) plenty of times. He told me he wasn't going to sugar-coat it. If I win I'm in. And I went on to try and tell him if I finished second in the final depending who won I could still make it. But he said, listen win or go home it's that simple at this point.

My semi was a challenging thing for me. I was pretty sure flat out I was fast enough to make it. But I also knew that Greg was a great 500m skater, and Kevin was willing to help him because they were such good friends. I won the start but it was windy so I didn't want to sprint through the wind to have them sit behind me so I waited a little. I remember Greg followed by Kevin came along the side of me but I didn't panic because I had time and speed. As soon as they got by Kevin slowed down, effectively letting Greg get a little gap on us. It killed my speed and I jumped inline to accelerate. Out of the final turn I started going wide to try and drag race Kevin to the line but he started drifting outward pinning me with little space. The hawk at the line fell in his favor.. my championship was over. I was disappointed again but in a much different way. My goal was never to make the team that year, I just wanted to compete. I competed for a spot on the team, just barely missing out. Missing out still sucked but everything changed after that.