Now That's A Lot Of Races, Ho Ho Ho, Skate Mexico 2008 Update, Skating Lower, Blog News, Schwierz Hospitalized

Now That's A Lot Of Races: When you decide to check out Speed Skating Results, you'll see a whole bunch of long track results from a whole bunch of recent national championships as well as other races- Canadian distance champs, USA JR sprint, Italian JR allround, Italian allround, Dutch allrounds, Sweedish allround, Asian single distance champs, and US long track champs.

You can find some reports from the Canadian single distance championships thanks to Speedskating-Online- see the December news for more. Flyin Brian wrote about the USA long track championships in his entry called US Long Track Champs where he talks about 'blowing up'- I have limited long track experience myself, but I can honestly say that the majority of my limited experience has been spent in that state...

Andrew Love provides us with more reporting from the USA ltc's- see 2400mg and Blogging or sleep?. Some of Andrew's words that you'll find include 'robots don’t skate these times, a unqiue collection of people do' and 'I asked Dr. Eric Heiden what the legal drug-test limit for ibuprofen is, he said it’s 2400mg, in 3-800mg doses. Good to know, otherwise Kip & I would be tempted to marinate ourselves in a 55 gallon drum of the stuff.

So many stories happen, even in a sport as simple as skating a 400m frozen hamster wheel as fast as you can'.

And an interesting side-note on the question about the Viking sticker being backwards- in the post's comments, Jenny wrote 'The Viking is that way so that it looks like the Viking is in forward motion cause if it was on the other way the Viking would be going backwards. A skater a while ago discovered this and made Viking but it on this way'.

To finish the US long track champs portion of this update, here's a thread from Hyper's message board- US Long Track Championships- and you'll find a link to the article U.S. Speedskating Championships: Former inline skater makes mark about Justin Stelly.

Ho Ho Ho: I missed this one a few days ago; Ho ho ho, hehehe. Check out Chucky's ODE TO THE PLANETEERS- it's the 3rd post- he writes;

'To all the great skaters on the Inline Planet,
With protuberant butts and thighs of granite,

Those hearty souls who keep on rolling,
and have no time for online trolling,

Yes, all you skaters young and old,
Who brave tarsnakes and bitter cold...'

Skate Mexico 2008 Update: Skate Mexico 2008!- this sounds still too good and I really wish I could go; Sergio writes 'There are 4 spots left for the Yucatan Training Camp... I will be booking the 16 confirmed participants now (and if you are registered you will be getting an e-mail from me).

If you haven't registered yet but are interested, I would suggest that you let me know asap. It won't be easy to slot people in at the last minute as things will get booked up'.

Skating Lower: This is a thread that could soon contain some good advice for advice-hungry readers; Tips on being able to skate lower.

Blog News: Zigrid Ziegler's blog contains her latest entry called Air Canada, Nova Scotia and the YMCA- it's kind of funny because like her, I am out east (in Moncton), I am frequenting the YMCA (but not for as many hours as she is), and I was delayed in my travels (by car thanks to a snow storm)- her flying adventery sounds like not fun. When I was stuck in Thunder Bay a while ago, I logged onto MSN and chatted with her while she was stuck at the airport.

I'm a fan of what and how Aaron Arndt writes, therefore I must point out that he published a new entry- Holiday Party @ Barry’s.... Have you noticed that Aaron always finishes his 'titles' with ...? It's like he's using his titles to say toread on my friends.

Schwierz Hospitalized: Andrew's Speed Skating Blog is reporting that Germany's Mathias Schwierz was hospitalized after slicing through his calf with his blade during a long track race. Read more details in Erik Sünder Interview + Matthias Schwierz Hospitalized. I'd like towish Mathias a quick and prompt recovery.


Mathias Schwierz in his 500-meter heat on the road at the 2006 world roller speed skating championships in Anyang, Korea