Nancy, Brian And I all Made the "Senior Cat 1" List (of top US speedskaters) for the First Time Together

(I know, Nancy's has made it the past like 8 years and Brian the last 3, but now we're all ready to represent!)

"I walk to the beat of a different drummer because most success stories are not conceived in the realm of the ordinary."

          -Coach Nancy Swider-Peltz Sr 

I'm blessed she's our coach because otherwise there is a good possibility we would have been caught in the uncompromising and egotistical desires of other coaches and furthermore, institutions, and we would not have grown to be who we are we are today. And I'm not merely confining that to speedskating...She is uncommon, and therefore her method of coaching disagrees with conventional knowledge and rather draws from intuition, research and experiential wisdom-areas of expertise that cannot be measured or written in some scientific manual. The best push the boundaries. She has proven successful time again, even in the faces of those who say she doesn't know what she's talking about. People often laugh at those who aren't afraid to be uncommon-to make they're own way-but they will never live to know what it's like to "dare mighty things and win glorious triumphs."

Living Life On The Edge (Of Blades)

During the begining of Thursday's practice, I skated a little to close to the skater in front of me and all of a sudden I had a speedskating blade in my shin as she kicked back for her crossover. I am super thankful though because the cut went through all layers of tissue above my muscle but not into it, which would have made the cut way more serious. I got stitches, took the day off, bought shin guards, skated a tough practice the next morning and lifted weights afterwards without the cut being irritated at all. So it looks like I'll be OK and...it's going to be a sweet looking scar!

What Do We Do After A Rediculously Hard 6am Skating Practice?

...burn our legs up with a turnstrap workout. Yeah baby!



So much lactate that has cycled through my legs today so thanks Extreme Endurance for helping me fight the pain!

Shoot the Duck Exercise

Here's a tough body weight exercise we do to improve our strength in the really low speedskating position. We're lifting weights at a warehouse gym by Long Beach after an ice workout and everyone there is super serious about weight lifting because they're all jacked out of their minds! Then us speedskaters invade the place and start doing our funky little dryland gigs. Oh yeah, and the graffiti on the walls was awesome, #LAstyle.