I can't describe the complete roller coaster of emotion I had this weekend. I've never been through anything like it. As much as I try to remember it's just never happened before.
But where do I start.
Several weeks ago, I finished up a practice and just didn't feel like myself. It was just hard. Not just a hard work-out (it was) but it was just hard for me to do anything. I skated poorly. Afterwards I talked to my trainer and coach, we decided to take the next day off. The next week it was more of the same. I just couldn't do anything. I'd show up and literally not be able to warm-up for practice. I didn't have the energy to do anything. This was an issue, I have a very demanding schedule with work and skating. After about a week and a half I started feeling like my old self again. I was worried that I missed too much training. Getting that close to trials. Two weeks before trials I started skating better almost everyday, somehow I figured out the simplest of technical things that helped put it all back together. The week of trials my concern was gone, I was skating great.
Fast forward a few days, Saturday morning. It was an early start for me. I'm not a huge morning person. The very first heat of fall trials I always have a tiny bit of nerves. I just have to get that first easy heat over with and I'm fine. Except I wasn't. The semi I deployed my usual strategy, and it worked but it didn't feel great. I tried to block it out. In the final I again used a strategy I've used a number of times and it never failed me. But this time it did. I actually died out in a race. That doesn't happen to me. Nothing changed that day for me and it felt way too much like the issue I had several weeks earlier. For my 1000m semi I went it with the mind set that it was my A final because I knew if I could get through it I wouldn't have anything left for the final. I fell with 7.5 laps to go while leading the race. It was a big disappointment. I left that day feeling as if everything went about as worse as it could have, but I was also afraid I wouldn't wake up feeling any better Sunday.
After cooling down and chatting with my coach, I was driving home when I heard a song on the radio I had never heard before and something about it caught my attention. I downloaded it, listened to it a lot.
The next morning I woke up and felt better. Tried to pack more calories into my breakfast to get me through the day. I left for the rink, plugged my phone into the car and turned that song on repeat. Time after time it just kept hitting me hard.
In the 500m I was able to skate my own race, something that sounds easier said than done when it comes to the 500m for me. I was skating very, very well. In my semi while in first place, I fell down. I didn't slip and didn't see it coming. I just put my blade down while crossing over and it didn't grab the ice. I went down fast. I've never.. ever had a fall that just sucked the life out of me like in that moment. I was skating so well, definitely on a high note thinking I was turning my trials around for the better.. That I could right the ship from yesterdays turbulent waters and then in the blink of an eye it was completely gone. Now I was in extreme danger of not even making the team at all.
The 1000m I didn't know what really to expect. I knew for the most part, it would come down to me and another skater and I wanted nothing more than to have an opportunity to race that person in the deciding race. In the semi that's exactly what happened. I skated a good race, not spectacular but mistake free and qualified for the A final.. giving me that final world cup spot. In that very moment the largest weight I've ever actually been able to feel came off of me. The expression is there, we've all heard it and probably have used it.... But in that moment it wasn't just an expression I actually could feel it come off of my shoulders.
In this crazy, wacky, and unpredictable sport I compete in anything can happen. It doesn't matter how good or bad you feel. For the overall point standings at the end of the competition I sat in third place, by the criteria they use to select our world cup team I finished 6th.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Sunday, July 24, 2016
I Can't Keep Quiet -- Let Me Explain
I sat down the other day and read the entire McLaren report. The entire thing, you know, the report implicating a mass state-wide doping scandal in Russia. It's a pretty remarkable thing, at some point when this story has an ending I'm sure a movie will be based off of it (or maybe an ESPN 30for30). Reading the report it just sounds like something out of Hollywood.
Furthermore, today the IOC (International Olympic Committee) announced it would not exclude the Russian Olympic Team from Rio despite the suggestion from WADA (world anti-doping agency), and numerous other anti-doping organizations. Let me explain, should every single Russian athlete be banned? Probably not, but I don't have all of the details. If you are Russian, train outside of Russia for a length of time, and have a history of being tested out of competition by a non-russian anti-doping agency then you should be allowed to compete.
Again, I am no expert, I only have knowledge of the media and the McLaren report. But, if the allegations are true, which evidence and logic suggest they are, a state-sponsored doping program means that as an athlete you could have been exposed to forms of doping at a young age, it could be all you know as an elite athlete.
The allegations are so intense, so mind-boggling that a strong rash punishment is needed. It isn't as simple as going back and retesting samples. Thousand(s) of samples have been destroyed, samples switched with the presumable positive tests being poured down the drain, samples being found with multiple DNA's in them. These types of corruption do not deserve a benefit of the doubt.
Today the IOC made a decision to balance responsibility and "individual justice to which every human being and athlete is entitled to." Individual justice to several hundred Russian athletes instead of the individual justice of hundreds of thousands of individual athletes worldwide, both Olympians and Non-Olympians that have spent there athletic careers competing clean and doing things the right way.
Don't get me wrong, for the most part, I have sympathy for the Russian athletes. I really do. If your country, government, NGB (national governing-body), and organization tell you to 'take this' or 'drink that' because it will help with recovery, or help you.. You probably trust them and just do it especially if it starts at a younger age. But when they ask you to swish a PED cocktail around in your mouth and then spit it out that seems strange. Or when they test you before leaving for a competition and then decide to not send you that also seems strange.
My entire involvement in sport from the very beginning, was in search of proving I could do something. I want nothing more then to earn a medal every competition I attend, to stand on the most elusive podium in sport, as an Olympic Champion. But I could never look at that medal with an asterisk. I could never do anything to compromise my raw ability to possibly earn a medal it wouldn't be worth it. The whole concept for me is if I make an Olympic team, and I earn an Olympic medal it will be because of the hard work I put in. And if I fail to meet either of those objectives I will be able to walk away knowing I gave it the best chance I had.
Furthermore, today the IOC (International Olympic Committee) announced it would not exclude the Russian Olympic Team from Rio despite the suggestion from WADA (world anti-doping agency), and numerous other anti-doping organizations. Let me explain, should every single Russian athlete be banned? Probably not, but I don't have all of the details. If you are Russian, train outside of Russia for a length of time, and have a history of being tested out of competition by a non-russian anti-doping agency then you should be allowed to compete.
Again, I am no expert, I only have knowledge of the media and the McLaren report. But, if the allegations are true, which evidence and logic suggest they are, a state-sponsored doping program means that as an athlete you could have been exposed to forms of doping at a young age, it could be all you know as an elite athlete.
The allegations are so intense, so mind-boggling that a strong rash punishment is needed. It isn't as simple as going back and retesting samples. Thousand(s) of samples have been destroyed, samples switched with the presumable positive tests being poured down the drain, samples being found with multiple DNA's in them. These types of corruption do not deserve a benefit of the doubt.
Today the IOC made a decision to balance responsibility and "individual justice to which every human being and athlete is entitled to." Individual justice to several hundred Russian athletes instead of the individual justice of hundreds of thousands of individual athletes worldwide, both Olympians and Non-Olympians that have spent there athletic careers competing clean and doing things the right way.
Don't get me wrong, for the most part, I have sympathy for the Russian athletes. I really do. If your country, government, NGB (national governing-body), and organization tell you to 'take this' or 'drink that' because it will help with recovery, or help you.. You probably trust them and just do it especially if it starts at a younger age. But when they ask you to swish a PED cocktail around in your mouth and then spit it out that seems strange. Or when they test you before leaving for a competition and then decide to not send you that also seems strange.
My entire involvement in sport from the very beginning, was in search of proving I could do something. I want nothing more then to earn a medal every competition I attend, to stand on the most elusive podium in sport, as an Olympic Champion. But I could never look at that medal with an asterisk. I could never do anything to compromise my raw ability to possibly earn a medal it wouldn't be worth it. The whole concept for me is if I make an Olympic team, and I earn an Olympic medal it will be because of the hard work I put in. And if I fail to meet either of those objectives I will be able to walk away knowing I gave it the best chance I had.
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