NEW PROGRAM

It seems to me every one has all the complaints about the results of the US on the world level. It's like everyone thought our country would dominate like they did in the early days of inlines. Well the sad truth is the rest of the world got really good really quick. The opportunities in the US dried up quickly, and we lost all of the funding for the world team.

Well fortunately for us Spanky took over as executive director for USARS. Since then things have drastically improved. Suddenly we've gotten a lot of the funding back. Spanky also started having 2 "National Team Clinics" a year, which gives a lot of younger kids a chance to learn tons. We also now have apprentice managers and coaches for the World Team , giving more coaches experience at worlds. Which brings us to the next advancement for US skating, and hopefully another step towards getting us back to the top spot at the world championships.

Starting basically immediately, Spanky arranged for the first short term residency program at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Basically what that means is that for 3 or 4 months, starting June 1st, 4 athletes will be allowed to live on campus and have full access to the complex(including the gym, track, recovery center, sports med, etc). The program is fully funded and a huge step for inline skating and it's relationship with the USOC. Hopefully this program will be successful and get larger in the near future. Think how much the world team would benifit if 10 members lived togather for a summer of nothing but training. I know there will be bumps in the road, but i honestly think in the long run this will help get the US stronger on the world level.

I know there's prolly gonna be complaints about who gets to go and who doesn't. But right now we're just getting our foot in the door. This is a first for our sport and hopefully it won't be short lived. I'll let you guys know for certain who's going to be involved in the program for sure, but I want to make sure everything is official first(I know myself and Mantia for sure).

I hope everyones training hard for regionals, trials, and indoor nat's. Talk to you guys soon

I'm back

Ok, remember when i started this thing how I said things would get hectic at some point. Well they did. I got sick, then i started traveling and training, it's pretty much been non stop. But i have a few weeks till regional and trials so i thought what better time to catch everyone up on what's been going on.

So there's been 4 or 5 big meets since I last checked in, so i'ma give the short short version of the 2 big ones i went to.

TAMPA-Great meet, even though i was still too sick to skate division indoor. It was sick to see the foreigners skating indoor, and they all did really well. Novice sophomore really sticks out to me, b/c the racing was sooo sick. They passed like a million times, it was nuts. Outdoor Joey was just ridiculous. Gotta thank Bobby, Joe, and Samie for being great hosts while i was there.

SEATTLE- Another awesome meet. Kinda weird the meet is called the Battle in Seattle, and it's not in Seattle. But hey who cares anyway. The racing was really good. It was great to see Miguel Jose skating. It felt like I was young again hanging out with him and Jeremy. Mike always puts on a great meet, and the floor was fast as always.

Also Linda Wood put on a meet in Cali I had to miss, but i heard that it was well run and everyone had a really good time. And ofcourse Mr. B put on an amazing meet that I had to miss AGAIN. I always end up heading to the west coast at the same time as Mr. B's meet, but i promise before i stop skating i'm going to go to one of his meets.

Then following those meets it was off to clinics. Now for those of you who have never been to a clinic in Colorado or Florida...... GO. I promise you'll learn a lot, you'll get in shape, and you'll have a blast. When i showed up to the Colorado clinics this year I was TERRIBLE. By time i left i looked like an athlete again. So, next fall i expect all the clinics to be filled.

Alright that was just a quick lil thing... Depending on a few things, i don't wanna talk about quite yet b/c i don't wanna jinx anything, I may have another blog in a day or 2. So check back when you can. Talk to you guys soon and skate hard.

Oh the cleverness of me...

Ok.. this is a quick waiver... I'm not an idiot. I have this fear of doctors. I know I'm old and I prolly should have gotten over this at some point, but I didn't. You know that feeling you get before a big race, where your stomach hurts and you get all shaky.. I don't get that much when i race.. But one quick mention of going to see a doctor and I turn in to that guy. Prior to this little incident i hadn't been to the doctor in 4yrs, and that was b/c they had to put screws in my broken hand. Hopefully I wont' be heading back to the doctor for at least 4 more years.. Anyway lots of people told me not to write this, b/c it's gross, but hey i had to put up with being sick.. I'll leave out some description though.. and it's my blog, if i write about the cool stuff I do, I have to write about some lame stuff too.


So the story starts with a stupid little NIRA pylon. I step on it the last corner of the 5 lap at Roanoke..BOOOM... So, i get your normal little burn. Nothing worse than any other fall. Except I got a safety pin pretty deep in my leg(I have no idea if this had any impact). As far as burns I get, I actually cleaned this one way more than normal. I left for Colombia the day I got home and everything was still pretty normal. I started to get a few little bumps around the burn, but that's really not abnormal after a fall on roll on, especially titanium. In Colombia, other than feeling like i wasn't recovering at all, everything seemed normal. So I get home and the little roll-on bumps started looking worse. A day or 2 later one of them started to get really swollen. It didn't take long for me to figure out it was staph infection b/c i got staph when I was playing basketball about 6yrs ago. As the swelling got worse, basically everyone said "go to the doctor, go to the doctor." Like stated earlier going to the doctor isn't my favorite thing to do, so I didn't. I decided just to ride it out. Then the bad part hit me. The fever, the pain in the leg, and a huge lump in my leg. After a day or 2 of a pretty serious fever the lump burst and started to drain. Gross, I know.

Long story short I layed around for like 4 days, in that 4 days I should have gone to the doctor at some point. After the 4 days i went to go skate practice, and at the strong suggestion of all the parents and coaches on my team(understatement) I went to the doctor. Turns out my little staph infection is MRSA, which is a type of staph that can be deadly. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I was close to dying. But, just to make sure I had to lay around for a few more days. I get to take medicine for like 3 more weeks(just to make sure it doesn't come back). And i have this cool new hole in my leg(about the size of a dime). I prolly coulda knocked this out in a few days if i would have gone to the doctor earlier. But you live and you learn.

So, I wanted to give my story of how I had staph, but i wanted to wait till it was all the way gone. Just wanted to make sure I didn't jinx myself into it coming back. I'm not really looking for any sympathy or anything, I just wanted to let everyone know how stubborn i can be. Now I'm all healed up, and getting ready to go to Tampa. Of course I haven't done much of any tying for 2 weeks.. If my first practice or 2 is any sign, it might not be too pretty. But hey, last year I was terrible and they let me come back again this year... Hope to see you guys there, and it's cool you can come talk to me you won't get staph from me. And kids if your sick.. go to the doctor, better safe than sorry... I guess that's the moral of this story.

4person

I'm sure almost eveyone who's ever skated regionals/nationals has been in this situation before..About a month or 2 before regionals everyone starts to hate everyone because there is 5 or 6 people fighting for a spot on a 4 person relay. 4man or 4girl, it really doesn't matter, for whatever reason people HAVE to be on the top 4person. Then someone gets left off, someone makes it.. then they hate each other. Their parents hate each other. Everyone on the team pretty much takes sides. A lot of times one person is basically isolated from the group. Then they get to nationals and realize they actually have to skate the race. They soon figure out that they were so worried about beating the people on their own team, they forgot to get ready to beat people on other teams. The skaters that didn't make the relay team get to sit back and say "i told you so" and "if i was on the team i would have...". Basically 4 persons for whatever reason tear a club apart. And i guess I do understand the competitive part of it, no one wants to not be one of the top 4 people on their club. However, it just seems to me like 4persons are really good for one or 2 clubs, and bad for all the other clubs.

Don't get me wrong.. I don't think 4persons are completely bad. Watching them is super exciting. Also, some of my most memorable races have been 4man races(or should that be 4men races.. o well). The first year we won, with myself, Harry, Matt Halbreich and Brandon Andrews; a race we dedicated to Johnny Patterson months after he and his father died in a car crash, is still my most favorite race I ever skated. And no offence to that sick federal way team, any of frenchtowns team, or any other team that's ever won, there was no team that was going to beat us that year. Last year was pretty cool, getting up after a fall and winning, missing the record by only a second(we'd fallin in the final 3 straight years). I won 4man with 3guys, then a whole new 3guys.

Basically where I'm going with all of this; after last year I told anyone that would listen that I was done with 4man. And i'm still at like 90% sure that I'm not skating 4man this year. I think piedmont still has a better chance than anyone of winning it, with or without me skating. I kinda wanted to split teams this year and see if we could get first and second, but with chad switching teams, that seems unlikely. The main thing that would make me want to skate the race again is if they made it first at nationals. Think about how much more exciting 4persons were when they were before division. Now it seems like everyone just wants to get them over with. Maybe someone important will read my blog and say to them self.. you know 4persons were exciting first.. and they'll move them around by next year(ps i know why they're at the end now, and it does save people money).

Ok that was my ode to 4person relays.. Next is the story of how i got sick... Ok talk to you guys soon...

CARTAGENA

First I want to say how much i love Colombia. I've been there 3 times in the last year. The people are so full of passion, and all treat us amazingly. If you ever get the chance to go there.. Jump all over it.

So lets explain the whole set up. Basically, they fly in people from all over the world to compete. Take care of food, hotel, and flights. Then.. they call up sponsors and say, hey we got people from all over the world here, would u like to sponsor this event. Pretty smart stuff.

So, free trip to go skate in Colombia, that's the good part. Here's the bad part. This race is the last qualifier for their national tryouts. So they have to be training pretty hard. However for us, we're basically sitting in the middle of winter, and outdoor training is little to none. So, i read online how joey lost and all sorts of other stuff. Joey skated very similar to the way he skated last year, maybe a little better, and yet somehow he snuck out 7 golds medals at the last world championships. But don't get me wrong... The Colombians are amazing. There's several things that really stick out. First of which being depth. From top to bottom they're all good. There's no one that just can't keep up. The 2nd thing that really sticks out is they're technique. They all skate right. In the US you see people out there and sometimes think, did they ever get coached?? In Colombia even the slowest skaters skate the right way.

To me skating is a lot of times way more than winning and losing. This is the 2nd year we've gone to Cartagena to race, and I haven't skated good either time, not even close to skated good. But this trip is so great b/c of the people you get to meet. The Colombian people are some of the nicest on the planet. They always seem to be happy that you are there. Also, like I said they fly people in from all over the world. They brought skaters in from Venezuela, Italy, Argentina, New Zealand, Chile, Belgium, Korea, and the USA. The first few days all the countries pretty much just hung out with the people that spoke the same language as them. However, after a few days, we sorta got around all that. By the end of the trip we seemed to be eating every meal together, went to the beach together, and even played a game of mini water polo with something like 5 countries represented. One cab ride someone brought up how amazing it was that people from 3 different countries were riding together in a cab, in Colombia. It's super cool when u sit back an think about it, but when your there, your just sorta hanging out with your friends.

Of all the cool things we did, and all the cool people I met there's one thing that really sticks out. On the way to skate the road part of the competition we drove through an area of "houses" that made my jaw drop. These one room houses were probably about the size of some of you guys bathrooms, smaller than some. They were basically built around a swamp. Mostly the walls seemed to be made of plywood, some were made out of old signs. There were some houses with wholes in their roofs. Any house that had electricity had it run directly from the power line into the house. But it looked like not many of them had electricity. There were times when my family struggled for money. But we didn't miss meals, and my parents had an opportunity to make sure myself and my brother were provided for. Seeing how bad some people have it puts into perspective how much we take for granted. So next time you get mad at your parents b/c they didn't buy you your new shoes or cell phone or whatever.. just realize that there are people in this world who really do without. And your probably not one of them.

Ok That was posted a week later than i wanted. I'm pretty sick right now, and that's gonna get explained in a blog or 2 but i want to wait till I'm all the way better(yeaaah i'ma loook like an idiot).. i got 1 more I'ma try and finish 2night.. but it might be 2morro before it's done. Talk to you guys soon

Roanoke-Blue Ridge Challenge

I think everyone has a favorite invitational. To me that's Mary Almonds Roanoke(formally Philly) meet. I always enjoy they way she puts the meet together. I love how she treats everyone. The numbers are always good. And it doesn't hurt that I usually skate well there.

This year proved to be no exception... I have no idea how many people were there, but there was a lot. There was something crazy like 45 sophomore men. There were heats in almost every division and the racing was super entertaining. Almost every vendor had a booth set up, so there was plenty of stuff to look at. Basically the meet lived up to the nickname of "winter nationals". I know it's hard for a lot of west coast people to get all the way to Virginia for a meet, but next year if you can make the trip, you won't regret it.

I prolly forgot like a million things since the meet b/c I've been in Colombia for a little over a week, but here are some things that stick out. I have to give credit to all the people who challenged up. You guys skated SOOO much. I think your crazy, but good for you. Has anyone watched the primary/juvenile divisions lately. They're REALLY good, especially the girls. You see groups of kids out there that could be racing each other for like 10 years, it's really cool to see(and really weird to think I used to race as a juvenile).

Quick little name dropping... Andrew Shatzer and Justin Mannon(whom i've never really spoken to), they both skated Sophomore and Junior division. They both skate pretty technically sound, and both like to lead, hard. So I defiantly expect to see big things from them in the future.

OK, i gotta give credit to guys on my own club which i forget to do a lot. Hank Galbraith, Kimani Griffin, Matthew Miles, and Jake Powers have all been my teammates for like 3+ years. I hardly ever give my guys credit b/c i expect so much from them. But man they've all improved so much in the last year.

Alright time for good bad and ugly

GOOD-MAAAN so much good. The meet was packed. The competition was awesome. There's really nothing else you could ask for. Prize money for all divisions. Well run. All the NIRA races were really cool

BAD-We did spend all day in the rink. Plus everyone had to bail on Monday. I guess that comes with such a big meet, when you have to add an extra day.

UGLY-ummm nothing really.. I crashed on the last corner of the 5 lap when that pesky pylon reached out and grabbed my foot. That was pretty ugly.


OK i'ma put up a lot on my trip to Colombia in the next day or two.. so stay tuned.


PS.... If you noticed i took down the whole pro men review of Roanoke for 2 reasons. The main of which being it was rushed and really poorly written. The other reason being that I jumped to defend myself when i should have just let it go.

A message to today's youth

OK.. Before i start this post. It's been brought to my attention that I have friends from other countries who read my blog. Who'da thunk it. Anyway... I just wanna say ciao, hola, bonjour and hello in any other language if your reading this. With that said.. I'm going to write a blog that basically applies to all of the young American skaters. This is pretty easy to write b/c i basically got all of this advice at one point or another. And usually I just did what I wanted to anyway(like all the teenagers who read this are going to do also)

Now before i begin this there has to be a quick history lesson as to why I can say this stuff. When i was around the freshman division I was SLOW. And to make up for being slow i would be extremely lazy also. I really only skated b/c I had lots of friends that skated. (Now don't get me wrong, if your gonna skate b/c you enjoy it and you have lots of friends that skate, awesome. There is nothing wrong with that. I think lots of people who really enjoy this sport get out of it b/c it's a little too competitive sometimes). Since then i have been on all sorts of levels. I've been a guy "that's could be really fast". I've been a guy that's wasting his time skating. I've been called someone that was really fast but didn't know how to race. Been called the guy that wasn't that fast that just knew how to race. I've won meets that i wasn't the fastest guy, and lost meets that i was the fastest guy. I've gone to regionals and not made it out in division, and I've won a gold medal at worlds. I've asked almost every top level coach in the sport for help(thanks for letting me bug you) and tried to remember everyone that ever helped me(ex. that's right Mr. B i still remember in 99 when you had me skating warm ups with my hand on my hip, even if you don't). Basically I've been everything in this sport except a superstar. And everything I'm about to say i heard from someone before. I'm not perfect and I'm never going to be. So I still do dumb stuff(A lot). But I just wanted to share some stuff that I learned through the years skating.

-When you go to practice, try as hard as you can. If your going to spend time at the rink, track, park or whatever you might as well not go out there and play around. Despite what people say, you can go places in skating, it just takes a lot of effort.

-Speaking of practice, it's OK to lose at practice. If you go as hard as you can, and someone sits on you till 2 to go and beats you. That's how i got better indoor. I just led until i couldn't anymore. Eventually I got to where i could lead the whole race.

-Stop telling everyone how tough you are, and how your gonna beat up this person. Usually people just SAY they're gonna do this and that anyway. When you tell people how tough you are you don't really sound tough.. You just kinda sound like an jerk.

-Skate outdoor. If i could change anything about my career i would have started skating outdoor earlier. I still enjoy skating indoor more than outdoor, but skating outdoor will open so many more doors. Plus it will make you faster indoor. So even if you just plan to use it for training, learn how to skate outdoor when your young.

-If your fast... It's OK to talk to someone that's not as fast. At the end of the day we're all part of the skating family. Just b/c your faster than someone doesn't mean your too good to be their friend. In fact if you see someone struggling, why not take a few minutes and help them. Even if they look silly when they skate, you can help instead of laughing.

-Fellas.. I realize there's 10guys to every girl at a meet. But stop chasing them around. Go train hard and become the best, and let the girls chase you.

-Guys stop hating the fastest guy and girls stop flocking to the fastest girl. It's so weird, all the guys hate the guy that always wins. And all the girls will do whatever it takes to be best friends with the fastest girl.

-Remember where you are and what your saying. Don't act like an idiot in public. Realize that you don't just represent your self. You represent your parents, your coach, your team, and you represent speed skaters. So take some pride in the way you act and carry yourself.

-STOP DRINKING AT MEETS!!!(i know i know I probably broke this rule more than anyone) When your older and you can do it legally, by all means go for it if that's what you want. But when your 16 and running around the hotel drunk, nothing good can happen. You usually look stupid, and will most likely do something you regret. You might get in trouble or someone might get hurt. OO yeah, if you just turned 21.. don't buy kids drinks... If something goes bad, your gonna be the one in trouble. So kids just wait a few years, you can still have fun without drinking, and you won't feel as bad the next day.

-Cherrish the friends you have from skating. You will meet people in skating that you will know long after you quit. In this sport your only as good as your last race. So no matter how much you win people forget really quick. But if you make real friends, they'll still be there.(and you can remind them of how good you were)

-No matter what your goals. No matter how long you've been doing it. No matter how much you've won, or how much you've lost. How much Money you make, or how much you spend. HAVE FUN!!!! Almost everyone that i talk to that used to skate, always starts the conversation with "I wish i never would have stopped skating." So enjoy it while your able to(especially if your parents pay for it). Regardless of what happens with skates on, if you have fun, it's worth it.