Spring and summer, 2011

Well I did not write too much about Peter's training during the spring or the summer... I'll try to recap a bit now:

There was a slight rest after the last race (Celje, Slovenia, end of March), then came training on inline skates (the ice rink in Szeged closes by April). Long steady distances and lots and lots of technique. Although there were 3 inline races in the spring-summer interval that our club wanted to attend, but none of them were given top priority. Luckily enough, 2 races were held here locally, so we didn't even have to travel at all :)

The first race, the student's olympic brought only fair success. I know, we did not prepare much for it, but in several cases our girls or boys missed the podium only by a narrow margin. It was very disappointing but we must learn to get over it, like some bonze in meditation, because the kids had a long and tiring shorttrack racing season behind them. Peter came in 4th both on his distances, and it was clearly visible that he got unused to the harsh and violent races in inlines, like getting a push or knock at the start... instant penalty in shorttrack...

Early June our club was given the opportunity to show off skating in a big multi-sport festival in Szeged, where several thousand people could see and several hundred could even try out skating (on inlines). Well we tried, but it was quite hard to promote ice skating in 30+ Celsius... :)

We were on holidays in the second half of June, in turn the second local race was held in that time. So I cannot even tell much about that - but the sea is nice and good :) Only 1 week after we've gotten home, there was an Europe-Cup race in Tatabánya, but it would have been useless to race there after 2 weeks of lack of training.

Mid-July the kids attended a dryland training camp in Budapest-Normafa for one week, just like in the previous year. It was brutally hot then, Peter fell every 2nd day and earned war scars during the forest runs, so he did suffer this time. :( Then came 1 week of well-earned rest and again a period of 5 trainings per week.

We've managed to travel to hols again early August for a week, then Peter attended a 5-day training camp on ice in Budapest. From this point inlines were forgotten, just to not mix the two different skating styles. At the end of August, yet again 2 days on ice in Budapest, only to make school start easier :D

September was very tense and intense: 5 dryland trainings each week with running, working on stairs, imitation, cord-assisted imitation... and on 2 weekends head to Budapest, the ice rink, 2 ice sessions in 2 days. This is how we've reached the end of the month and today, when we start and drive to Zagreb, Croatia for our first race of the season.