June 11th, 2009
My life and thoughts today:
1. My daughters are having trouble sleeping. Somewhat at night, certainly at any time past 5:15 AM, and increasingly at nap time. It makes life stressful.
2. I should not shop after racing. Went to IKEA after this weekend’s race to try to pick up a couple things for the house and just couldn’t deal with the maze and the choices and lack of service. If I had had time I would have written an anti-IKEA rant but I realize it is just that racing hard takes so much out of me I am lucky to be able to drive home.
3. I raced well this weekend. 6th at a New England Grand Prix, 15:12 for 5k, which is 28 seconds faster than last year. Things are coming together well.
4. I have a major paper due in my grad course in about a week. I should be writing that, not blogging.
5. Read the latest string of thoughts about skiing and I have a couple responses:
a. Skiing is not swimming. The longest swim event (1500 m) is far shorter than the shortest ski event (15 km) – and I mean time is way different here, not just distance. Also, just for the record, women don’t swim 1500 m, old sexist policies limit them to 800 m. And all you need to swim is a pool or lake – far easier to find than good ski trails – which is a big factor. You can live in any major city and find a good pool to train in. How many major U.S. cities have good skiing within half an hour’s drive?
b. Our juniors (and our U23s, and our seniors) just don’t train enough hours. I don’t know if that is the problem, but it is a problem, and we aren’t going to get far without addressing it.
c. Our institutions (schools, clubs, regions, USST) have all sorts of stupid issues. Things are worse in Canada, and they are kicking out butts right not. Heck, things have been worse in Germany and Sweden at times. Solving these issues isn’t a bad idea, but it won’t get us any podiums.
d. World Cup podiums = 6 figure income. Anything less and our skiers will be poor. Again, this isn’t something to be solved so much as dealt with.
e. I really will write at length about all this sometime in July or August.
June 12th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Ahh these sports from an athletic/exertion comparison are often times the comparison of the apple, orange and the onion. I think it is also how the Triathlon event originated by some guys who were arguing what is the toughest athletic event. And we all know it’s ocean sail boat racing followed by pro rasslin.
Uuh but Justin if your kids ever become swimmers I pity you. A) HUGE TIME commitment with kids in their teens racking up 20 hours a week. B) 20 hours a week for something less than 1500 meters??? Huh???? C) Most of the kids train for multiple events per swim meet. (Did ya watch Micheal Phelps?) A big swim meet for juniors is 3 days and more events than you can count when the prelims, finals & relays are thrown in. All of it is anerobic. When done they look alot like depleted marathon runners, decathletes and xc skiers exhausted and in need of a few days rest and sleep. You are right though swimming is not skiing in regards to many aspects I won’t go into.
On another note, congratulations on the 15:12 5k , great job! Your level 3 work outs are interesting.
Cheers!