Clara and skating God Eric Heiden
BELLY-SLIDING IN THE NETHERLANDS
Being prepared for competition means not only a solid physical base but also, and perhaps more importantly, strong mind. To be able to deal with anything thrown one’s way in a heartbeat is crucial. I found myself repeating words such a these over and over in my head during the warm up just hour before today’s World Cup 5000m race. We’re in Heerenveen The Netherlands, a place I like to refer to as the ‘center of the speed skating universe’ for the third stop of the world cup circuit. This is THE place to be as a skater- the fans are wild, passionate and informed. They live for skating and are on fire when there is a World Cup in town. We, the Canadian team, have been on the road for three weeks now and tempers are beginning to flare, patience is running thin. I think everyone is ready to go home. Anyway…back to the ice…
It was during the last full-ice warm up session before the first pair was to start, and I was half way through my warm up feeling good about my technique, though a little nervous for the afternoon’s race. Well, to be totally honest I was really nervous. Where these nerves were coming from I did not know and throughout the duration of the morning I tried to ease the tension by thinking calm thoughts, relaxing in the room, studying for Tuesday’s Art History exam…watching TV (maybe I was watching a little more TV than studying…).
Skating down the backstretch I was focused on skating low, with strong pushes- thinking ‘this is how I want to feel in my race’ when, BOOM, in the blink of an eye, I was sliding down the straightaway on my stomach. I had tripped and fallen on my face in front of a stand filled with crazed Dutch fans, in front of the German coach (I was paired with a German skater and I was sure he was thinking, ‘she’s nervous, she’s nervous…), it felt like I had the world as an audience and I was so embarrassed!
I picked myself up; I was fine in terms of bodily harm, the aftermath equaling a more serious case of a bruised ego. Slowly I skated around to the Canadian coaches, asking them if they had seen me fall (inside I was pissed off that they had not come to my rescue!) and they looked at me in confusion, saying ‘you what?’ I took a deep breath, and commenced my warm up. I had to feel good and confident before stepping off that ice.
After a lap of self-pity, I began to realize my nerves had calmed. I thought of what coach Gregor Jelonek said in reaction to my fall, ‘better now than in the race’, and realized he was right. My mind was not clear and that is why I fell. I was too nervous, focusing on the wrong things, and this little tumble threw me right back in to reality. I knew from that point on I was ready to race.
My pair was three-time Olympic Champion and world-record holder Claudia Pechstein of Germany. Now it may become evident why I was nervous after reading her stats, but really I have raced against the best before in cycling, and dealt with that pressure time and time again. In retrospect I think it was more the shift in what I thought I was able to do. I went from ‘wanting to be my best’ to being ‘one of the best’ in a short time, and became confused as to what my goals were. Falling put my feet back down on the ground and my goal became clear again: excellence. Personal excellence that for me is leaving everything I have on the ice. With that in mind I did my final preparations and made my way to the ice.
Race after race I saw the death march continue. The ice was slow, soft and one had to work for every ounce of speed there was to gain. I knew this race was going to hurt, and I knew Claudia was going to go out hard as she had something to prove after losing the 3000 m to me on German soil the weekend prior. She was out to beat me.
I was ready to race and when the gun went off we were head to head. Well, at least for a lap, after which she pulled away from me. I gave everything I had to stay with her but once she got that 25m on me I could not close it. That did not mean I was going to give up- on the contrary, it made me work even harder. So hard that with 7 laps to go when I knew I was finished, I dug even deeper. I was hoping for a second that she would falter. It was then that I realized I had fallen into the trap again- of focusing on someone else, losing contact with myself. From that lap on I began to focus on rhythm and technique, my lap times evened out, and I even began to gain on her. In the end I finished 1.3 seconds behind Claudia, with a silver medal in the World Cup, and many valuable lessons I shall never forget.
On another note, during that race, I had another form of excitement. Claudia’s coach has the bad habit of skating too far in the track in the section on the back stretch that is designated for coaches (it is about 100 m) and each time I switched from inner to outer her was directly in my way as I was trying to enter the turn. He would barely move to the side when I was about ten feet away and I nearly hit him more than once. I was so angry that I thought of hitting him- I mean HITTING him as hard as I could- a nice cross check would have worked well…but I thought why waste a race on such nonsense.
Instead, I waited until the race was over. I was so cooked I could barely stand, but still I skated by him really close, seething with anger (exaggerated by pain and fatigue) and swearing like a truck driver. I’m not very proud of the things I said and am a bit relieved that he does not speak much English. But still, what he did was very bad and it was a lesson learnt. Next time our coaches will be ready to complain during the race and if he continues the skater will be disqualified, simple as that. Nothing like a little excitement during twelve and a half torturous laps!
And now, there is one day of competition to go. I am paired tomorrow with my American training partner, Catherine Raney. We agreed before the first 1500 m race in Norway that we would ‘have fun’ with the distance, not put any pressure on ourselves, and we have managed to do this thus far. We both still cannot believe we are in the top twenty in this short distance. I guess there is something to be learned from this as well: RELAX, and good things will happen!
