After what felt like the worst May and June weather Vancouver has ever experienced summer seems to finally be arriving. We’re expected to get a minor heat wave this week with temperatures reaching 30c. I’m not a huge fan of hot weather but after the emo-weather Vancouver has been delivering lately I think I’ll live. The nice thing about nice weather is I can skate outside pretty much whenever I want!
Skating Update
I’ve owned my rollerskates for 3 months now and have logged a fair bit of time on them already. Raw Meat Skate Nights are growing in popularity with over 30 skaters at our last session. I’m actually finding the sessions a bit unwieldy and the overall tone changed somewhere between 23 and 31 participants. The novelty of a “free skate” wore off after our second session and it was clear people were interested in a bit more structure. During our last two sessions I’ve led the group through some simple stopping and knee-falling drills. Not that I’m even remotely qualified…
I'm demonstrating how to perform a snow-plow stop with a focus on using your thighs. My friends Dorian and Wendi are behind me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still having a blast. Raw Meat Skate Night is still the highlight of my week and I have a new circle of friends that I just love hanging out with.
PFM + FMW = <3
A couple of weeks ago I sent an email to PFM Practice Squad in Seattle. I have a friend in the group and they were my inspiration for staring Fresh-Meat-Wannabes Vancouver. I wanted to tell them what I was starting up here and to thank them for the inspiration. I must tell you that I did not expect their president to email me the next day thanking me for my letter and asking if a few of us would like to visit. PFM has been super helpful with every random question I’ve sent their way and they seem super eager to help our fledgling group in any way. Four of us are taking a road-trip down to Seattle this weekend to practice with PFM and learn firsthand how they run their successful organization. I can’t even begin to describe how excited I am.
Skating Abilities
Two weeks ago I finally learned how to do a front to back transition as well as a tomahawk stop. It was amazing, as if all it took was a shift in perspective. I’ve been practicing transitions and tomahawk stops whenever I can trying to increase the moving speed at which I can perform them at. My raw skating speed has seen a gradual improvement over the last month. I use my seawall runs as a good barometer here. My best run so far averaged 16.2 km/hr over the 21k course with speed bursts around 23km/hr. My first attempt of the seawall averaged 14km/hr.
I’m doing my best to practice agility and technique as often as possible in the mornings before work. I’ve been pretty good at skating the seawall 2-3 times a week. I still attend 1 public skate (2hrs) a week, as well as the Raw Meat Skate hour. So in total I’m logging anywhere from 6-9 hrs of skating time a week. This is on top of my current running schedule.
Running
I had a really strong 10k race a few weeks ago. I set a new personal best at the UBC Longest Day Run with a time of 48:33.75. I wasn’t expecting a personal best so this was indeed a very good race for me. I’m maintaining a half-marathon level of training which involves 2-3 9km runs a week, plus 12km-20km on weekends. If I can I’d like to gradual improve my running speed this year. I’m really really enjoying keeping my distances at this level as it’s far more manageable.
Gaming
I haven’t played anything lately… Too busy I guess. I also haven’t had much time to think about any of my projects either. There’s a mini-LD coming up in a couple of weeks… I think I might partake just to stretch those muscles a bit.
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