Still in SLC

I've been in Salt Lake City for a little over 2 weeks now.  PROGRESS.  I really couldn't have gotten worse, but I've gotten a lot better.  By no means am I off to a new career in ice skating, but I've for sure improved.  It's really fun to get better, and everyone has been so helpful... I even fell one time doing short track.  I wasn't going super fast, but I was happy to find the pads are very soft.  Kinda sucked that you get soaked(I never really thought about getting wet when you fell, but looking back I should have realized that would happen).
Overall ice skating has been fun, but I really don't think I could ever have packed up and just decided to be an ice skater.  I don't know how everyone could get through all of the frustration of having to learn all over again, but maybe the transition was easier for some.

The best thing for me about this whole trip has been the people.  It's great to see so many of the people I've skated with on inlines all in one place.  There's over 20 former US world team members here, several members of the New Zealand team, and a ton of other people I've met in inlines.  Everyone's training schedules are so different, but I've gotten a chance to hang out with a lot of different people.  This weekend are the World Sprint Championships and I'm really excited to get to watch.  Everyone cross your fingers, and maybe we can get an inliner to win both the girls and guys events this weekend.

One last note.. Can't help to think what it must have been like when KC Boutiette first stepped on the ice.  His name isn't brought up as much anymore but he's one of the main reasons a lot of people are here today.  For those of you that don't know he was the first inliner(as far as I know) to make the jump to ice and qualify for the Olympics, and he did it in a matter of months.  Now when inliners come to skate ice they're accepted pretty easily, but for KC they must have looked at him like a crazy person.  But knowing KC he probably didn't care and just kept working hard, and because of that he opened up the door for a lot of inliners.

That's pretty much life so far in SLC.  Training and trying to find things to do to kill time.  Oh yeah, it's cold here.. Like really cold.... Like coldest I've ever been for this long a period of time.  I'm ready to get home just so I can remember what it feels like to be warm again.  I'm gonna go get some hot chocolate or something, and catch up with everyone later..

Day 1

After a few days of getting things sorted out, I finally stepped foot on the ice for the first time.  I spent about an hour and a half skating long track, then switched my blades to give short track a try.  Fortunately for me the first time I stepped on the ice for the first time there were only national team members from about 4 or 5 different countries(for those who don't see that I'm being sarcastic, I am).  Also, several of my great friends from inline stuck around and got to watch the debut as well.  Luckily Kalon Dobbin and Reyon Kay were both on the ice when I got out there and they helped me out as much as was possible(there was no sarcasm in that).  Now everyone has always tried to explain what it feels like the first time you skate on ice, but they always end it with a side not "you just have to feel it yourself".  I would like to tell everyone that they were most certainly right.  It's like starting all over again, but at the same time it's not.  My feet just wouldn't do what I wanted them to do, and I was getting pretty mad at them.  They didn't much care however, and just continued to do whatever they wanted.  Well after some work and some experimentation I got decent enough I could throw together a few decent crosses.  By no means was my brother, but I could go faster than a snails pace.  So I would put together a corner, get my speed up, and then I would get to the straights. Yeah... the straights..... The best thing I can say about my straights was at least I didn't fall down.  I don't know if the loud noises my blades were more embarrassing then how a terrible I was, but neither was very good for the ole ego.  I'd like to say I figured out the entire sport of long track speed skating in the first hour and half, sadly it didn't happen like that.  However, I did improve.  And that's all I can ask for on day 1(ok I could ask to be amazing at it, but that wouldn't be very realistic).

    After my hour and a half of long track was done, I quickly switched blades and jumped out there for a beginner short track class.  Now switching blades(clap to non clap) and frame position basically started me all over again.  So I was struggling a lot at first, but I got more comfortable a lot quicker.  Quick note; one thing that really stuck out to me was how narrow the track is.  I knew it wasn't super wide, but I felt like it would be a lot wider than it is.  I feel like it's got to be just crazy to go around the corners at sub 9 second laps.  And I could only imagine how fast those pads come up when they crash.

   Well day one on the ice... I survived.  And the good new is it can only get better, unless it gets worse, and in that case it's going to be a long few weeks.  Catch up with you guys in a few days.

off to the other world

What's up everyone.  Hope everyone had a great holiday/New year season.  Mine has been pretty hectic, which basically means normal.  A lot of running around things of that nature.  After New Years I was off to Seattle for the first NSC of the season(which went well for a lot of guys, sadly I wasn't one of those guys but that's life).  I wanted to do something different for a few weeks.... So I decided to do something I thought I'd never do, run off to Salt Lake City to train with some ice guys.  Obviously I've been to SLC before, my brother has lived there and I have a ton of friends there, but I've never been there with intentions of training.  By no means does this mean I intend to compete on ice, nor live there for long periods of time.  I just wanna play around with it, and see what I can learn.  A lot of inline guys have gotten a lot stronger skating on ice, I think it's going to be interesting to get up close and personal with it.

Tomorrow I'm off to the other world.... Check back for updates on training and what it's like in Salt Lake City.