NW Regionals 2007
May. 13th, 2007 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trilliumgrlThis weekend was regionals, aka "national qualifiers", aka "longest weekend on the planet. Here's a redux.
Friday: Cleaned the house and packed. Teammates (Amber and Matt) arrived to carpool down. Barley managed to shove out our junk into my Jetta, since skaters are notorious over packers. Avoided some ugliness on I-5 by cutting through Renton and continued on to Portland. Went straight to the rink for some floor practice. Nice, but hadn't cured long enough and was laying dirt down on wheels like nobody's business. Checked in at hotel and had dinner with teammates at the Spaghetti Factory.
Saturday: Was at the rink at 5:30 AM. Raced. All morning.
1000m: Really good start. Tagged right into the pack with no problem. Then I made a dumb choice - I didn't go for the pass. Instead I sat behind April and lost my momentum, which caused me to stick and feel like I was skating through molasses and lead to me locking up mentally and physically. Lesson learned: a little slick is better to deal with than stopping and the floor trying to eat you.
500m: Beat Amber and held off Serena for almost the whole race. Awesome start and just kept running. Gods, I love the sprinting.
1500m: Hung with the pack an amazingly long time, especially since Shauna led and afterwards was saying that "I didn't meant to lead it that fast. I kept waiting for someone to pass an slow us down." I (of course) died out, but later than expected.
After racing, we found an awesome little Mexican place near the rink and chowed down. Then back to the hotel for a nap. Ate a bit, ran up to Safeway for supplies and then I went to the mall to spend money at the Body Shop. Mmmm 10% discount, plus no tax. Went back to the room at TRIED to go to sleep. Unfortunately, a prom was going on in the hotel, whose ballroom was 2 floors below us. Worse than being below Biohazard at con. My bed was shaking from the bass. We had to call the front desk twice to complain and the music only got worse. NEVER staying there again (for multiple reasons, but this was the final straw). Eventually I fell asleep.
Sunday: Got to sleep in a bit, but headed in early to cheer on our Novice teammates. The weather was bleh and the rink was freezing.
Classic 2 Mix: got DQ'd off out 2nd tag for distance. With 8 teams on the line, they were cutting out the first 3 teams that got lapped. Not a very good start on my part. Okay tags. Nearly kicked Jeremy when he took an outside pass to lap me.
Classic 2 Lady: Federal Way team dropped, so there were only 3 teams. Bad start and I couldn't seem to get the line-up for my tags. I was way early every time. Amber was on fire though. Had a few moments of calling position to a few people, including telling April that she was clear (she doesn't see all that well) and getting Amber out for a tag that she wasn't sure what to do on (we had been blown over, but both teams had been tagging)
After racing and awards and pictures Amber and I headed out. The drive home consisted of the Columbia outlet store, driving, Dairy Queen (Amber had a craving), more driving and unpacking the car.
* Best/worse News Floating Around: NE Region only has 16 skaters, so they didn't hold regionals, everyone automatically qualified into Nationals.
* Personal (non-race) Lesson Learned: Make sure you eat enough breakfast, you were shaking after every race. Do not try and substitute granola bar and grapes for the typical pre-meet bagel
* Funniest Thing: The girls from Southgate telling me about the kid who supposedly I am his "idol". All the time.
All told, it was a good weekend. I raced better than expected, had some fun, got to know my teammates and hang out with the old ones. Now I am exhausted. Work tomorrow will be tough, as is the thought of having to start going outdoors. I loathe outdoors, but Amber swears she's going to make sure I go skate outside this summer. I know I should, I just dislike it so much.
That though, is another worry for another day. Sleep now.
Friday: Cleaned the house and packed. Teammates (Amber and Matt) arrived to carpool down. Barley managed to shove out our junk into my Jetta, since skaters are notorious over packers. Avoided some ugliness on I-5 by cutting through Renton and continued on to Portland. Went straight to the rink for some floor practice. Nice, but hadn't cured long enough and was laying dirt down on wheels like nobody's business. Checked in at hotel and had dinner with teammates at the Spaghetti Factory.
Saturday: Was at the rink at 5:30 AM. Raced. All morning.
1000m: Really good start. Tagged right into the pack with no problem. Then I made a dumb choice - I didn't go for the pass. Instead I sat behind April and lost my momentum, which caused me to stick and feel like I was skating through molasses and lead to me locking up mentally and physically. Lesson learned: a little slick is better to deal with than stopping and the floor trying to eat you.
500m: Beat Amber and held off Serena for almost the whole race. Awesome start and just kept running. Gods, I love the sprinting.
1500m: Hung with the pack an amazingly long time, especially since Shauna led and afterwards was saying that "I didn't meant to lead it that fast. I kept waiting for someone to pass an slow us down." I (of course) died out, but later than expected.
After racing, we found an awesome little Mexican place near the rink and chowed down. Then back to the hotel for a nap. Ate a bit, ran up to Safeway for supplies and then I went to the mall to spend money at the Body Shop. Mmmm 10% discount, plus no tax. Went back to the room at TRIED to go to sleep. Unfortunately, a prom was going on in the hotel, whose ballroom was 2 floors below us. Worse than being below Biohazard at con. My bed was shaking from the bass. We had to call the front desk twice to complain and the music only got worse. NEVER staying there again (for multiple reasons, but this was the final straw). Eventually I fell asleep.
Sunday: Got to sleep in a bit, but headed in early to cheer on our Novice teammates. The weather was bleh and the rink was freezing.
Classic 2 Mix: got DQ'd off out 2nd tag for distance. With 8 teams on the line, they were cutting out the first 3 teams that got lapped. Not a very good start on my part. Okay tags. Nearly kicked Jeremy when he took an outside pass to lap me.
Classic 2 Lady: Federal Way team dropped, so there were only 3 teams. Bad start and I couldn't seem to get the line-up for my tags. I was way early every time. Amber was on fire though. Had a few moments of calling position to a few people, including telling April that she was clear (she doesn't see all that well) and getting Amber out for a tag that she wasn't sure what to do on (we had been blown over, but both teams had been tagging)
After racing and awards and pictures Amber and I headed out. The drive home consisted of the Columbia outlet store, driving, Dairy Queen (Amber had a craving), more driving and unpacking the car.
* Best/worse News Floating Around: NE Region only has 16 skaters, so they didn't hold regionals, everyone automatically qualified into Nationals.
* Personal (non-race) Lesson Learned: Make sure you eat enough breakfast, you were shaking after every race. Do not try and substitute granola bar and grapes for the typical pre-meet bagel
* Funniest Thing: The girls from Southgate telling me about the kid who supposedly I am his "idol". All the time.
All told, it was a good weekend. I raced better than expected, had some fun, got to know my teammates and hang out with the old ones. Now I am exhausted. Work tomorrow will be tough, as is the thought of having to start going outdoors. I loathe outdoors, but Amber swears she's going to make sure I go skate outside this summer. I know I should, I just dislike it so much.
That though, is another worry for another day. Sleep now.
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Date: 2007-05-14 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-15 02:38 am (UTC)