During a normal training session at the Park City track, most sliders will do somewhere between two and four runs. Any more than that, and your body usually starts to complain. Lately, I just can't seem to get enough. I have been taking five runs most sessions this week and only stopping because everyone else has left. Tonight I took eight, and it was probably one too many. My neck is a little sore as I sit typing this out, but the ice was so beautiful I couldn't resist.
Our training session started at 6pm with eight sliders. I was trying another set of borrowed runners. Out of four runs, I had one okay run, one mediocre run, and two downright scary runs. I just couldn't dial them in. Meanwhile, teammate Matt Griff had established that this was fast ice by throwing down a personal best of 50.06 seconds. The US session ended, and the international session was set to begin at 7:30. As I suspected, Yuuji Takahashi from Japan was the only slider for the two hour session. I had promised him I would slide in his session, and I had another set of runners I wanted to try out. Besides, Griff had just put down a great time and I wanted one as well. What I really wanted was to get into the 49's - uncharted territory for me.
Our training session started at 6pm with eight sliders. I was trying another set of borrowed runners. Out of four runs, I had one okay run, one mediocre run, and two downright scary runs. I just couldn't dial them in. Meanwhile, teammate Matt Griff had established that this was fast ice by throwing down a personal best of 50.06 seconds. The US session ended, and the international session was set to begin at 7:30. As I suspected, Yuuji Takahashi from Japan was the only slider for the two hour session. I had promised him I would slide in his session, and I had another set of runners I wanted to try out. Besides, Griff had just put down a great time and I wanted one as well. What I really wanted was to get into the 49's - uncharted territory for me.
Yuuji went first while I fussed with getting my runners changed. I made my way to the start hoping that I wouldn't be bouncing off walls as I had in the first session. As I got underway, I could tell that these runners were really responsive. Much better than being our of control, right? Well, there is such a thing as too much control. I managed to keep things more or less together, but did get into trouble a couple of times due to to the excellent steerability. As I flew up the outrun, I could see the clock showing a personal record! A 50.17. Still shy of a 49, but close enough that I had to go again. Ice like this doesn't happen every day. Next run was a 50.14. Even better, and a good enough reason to go again. I took two more swings at it and started doing worse. I was beat by my last run, and called it a night. I will resume my pursuit on Tuesday only because the track is closed on Monday.
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