Regional Student Champs 2010

Reporting in short, newspaper-style :)

After some re-scheduling turmoil, the Student Champs regional races were held early May here in Szeged. Only held for the smaller age categories, so there were quite few participants, all the usual faces :) Oh not all, our ex-club KDE decided to skip this venue for whatever reason...

There was some timed drills race beforehand, where Peter fell once but still managed to post 2nd best time of all the Cat E & F boys and girls. Then he had 3 challengers in the 700m and had no trouble finishing ahead of them, in fact he didn't even skate fast the first 3 laps, only sprinted the last one to make it look like a race:

Cat E boys 700m

Then an interesting idea came up from the organizers: start all the kids at once, young or older, and make it a 8-lap elimination race. At first I was a bit worried there would be many falls but then it proved a nice and good idea. Peter skated clever and tactical and was fighting for 2nd place. Only 2 older boys could finish ahead of him, here's the video (he is #61, in dark blue t-shirt):

1500m elimination

Nationals are due this weekend in Tatabánya.

Intersport Tour de Tisza-tó 2010

This "tour" is a 57-km ride around the Tisza lake, which is an artifical lake and also a natural park. It's completely flat around there so you won't need to climb any hills or roll down slopes. And it is called a tour, as - while some bike pros are racing hard - the main aim is to get people moving and make them cover the distance either on bikes or skates. This tour-ness is what greatly describes the friendly attitude of the event.

We have travelled there by 2 cars, 3 bikers and 4 skaters. The drive was rather uneventful as SSz and FT spent most of the time asleep and Feri spent the time fighting the GPS that seemed to decide 3 satellites are too much :) We got to Tiszafüred quite early, registered and drove some more, as the skaters started from near Poroszló, 8km from the start of the cyclists. We parked the car and had some lazy time, then put up our skates and began waiting for the cyclist.
And there they came, all 1000 of them. Young & aged, racers or tourists, on many types of bikes, we saw even a velociped, a handbike and many many kids, too. After they have gone, we had to stop by a line and an organizer started us, syncing the start with the chip timing system via radio comms. We were about 15 at the start line, later it turned out there were yet more who arrived bit late.
So we started and as there was a light breeze from behind we had quite an easy and comfortable ride southwards. Feri has dropped in the first few km, in fact I didn't even notice as I wasn't looking back - it was such an easy ride I did not think he would drop :( So we rolled on with SSz, as FT and the 'more advanced ones' from Budapest has started out so much faster we lost their sight within minutes. We changed lead in about each 4-5 km for the first 20 kms. RT was following us closely, we talked a bit and agreed to stay together as there would be headwind on the way back.
Apart from the ambulance dealing with injured cyclists every 5 km this part was quite uneventful - nice clean and smooth asphalt on the top of the dike, lake to the left, trees to the right. I kept on eating some glucose every 15 minutes and swallowed a magic energy gel after 1 hour. Then we arrived to the dam near Kisköre where there was a refreshing station (water only) and some concrete surface. SSz and myself eased up a bit, stretching our backs but RT kept on skating the same speed and disappeared quickly. We thought we would catch up with him later but that never happened...
Then we had to climb up the dam, cross it (no big problem, but had to care for the dilating elements) and then came about 2-300m of really bad surface rolling down from the dam, where the safest method was to skate right at the edge of the concrete, almost in the dust. Well that did not do any good to my knees and the left one began to hurt a bit. After that it was a nice ride again eastwards but we knew something bad was still ahead.
And there it was, after 31 km, near Abádszalók. There were 3 kinds of cracked asphalt (bad, worse and even more worse), patched on each other in random order so you had to take every step with caution. I couldn't push a normal push sideways, I was 'tiptoeing' for the next 2 km. This part of the route was tough, mainly for the brain, exhaustive with constant awareness.
From km 35 it was smooth again, but turning North we met some headwind now. Luckily we could use a cyclist to rest behind him for some time, and according to his meter we were travelling by 25 km/h. Both SSz and me were happy with that as we knew this was a really big plus for us. Sadly enough I forgot to eat properly during the rough part and following the cyclist, so all of a sudden, right after 2 hours, all my power was lost, I couldn't even rest there. So I told SSz to go on with the cyclist and I pulled out.
There was about 15 km left - I ate some glucose, consumed another energy gel and tried to get in some rhythm, but I wasn't feeling good. Then I saw OB sitting in the grass (he was travelling with the 'pros' from the beginning), asked him what was wrong but he told me to go on, as he was only waiting for his support cyclist to get him some water. Murphy hit again: after only a few kilometers there was the next watering station (at km 48 or so) where I stopped for a glass of water but then continued without rest. Then came the 'low hit', there were some gravel on the road after about 500m, and I did not notice it in time, caught a stone and couldn't avoid falling. It was no big deal but there was blood on my right knee and my left hip also hurt, though I did not see anything on it from a quick glimpse.
2 cyclists came past me just then, one of them asked if I was OK and I managed to get in their draft. I was suffering badly and didn't have power to skate properly, so I rested there for a bit. I tired to speed up and left them 3 times but failed and slowed down again. Then OB came past me in the draft of his support cyclist, yelled at me to jump over there but I simply couldn't :(
No problem, there were only 5 km left - but what a 5 km. I thought they would go down fast but it was horribly slow how they passed. I've managed to get away from the bikers and skated alone the last 5 but it felt incredibly slow. However I arrived to Tiszafüred at last and crossed the finish line after some zig-zag, in 2:48:05.
I felt completely empty. I rolled to the water, drank some, got rid of my skates and sat there for 5mins. Then phoned home to tell Aniko I was still alive, then sat there again for 5 mins, listening to the speaker announcing the cyclists in the ceremony. After some time I managed to get on my feet and walked to the podium to meet SSz and the other skaters already there. Friendly talk, etc, socializing. Then we saw Feri arrive, just a bit above 3 hours.
Then I caught a ride in a complete stranger's car back to my own car (8 km from the finish line, remember) and during that a heavy thunderstorm hit us. So I was completely soaked when I got in my car, drove back to Tiszafüred and when the storm has gone, we packed up and started driving home. And we felt really grateful that the storm did not come 1 hour earlier :) During the drive - guess what - SSz and FT were asleep for most of the time...
Interestingly I did not feel tired the day after, only felt a little muscle burn. So by Monday I was thinking where to go skating.

Looking back to the event, it was surely fun. Organizers deserve a big bravo, everything was OK. I've never covered such a distance on skates before and I clearly hit some inner barrier at 2 hours, but I want to register for next year's tour again ASAP. It simply felt good skating there!

Transfer

Peter has left his old club and transferred to another one.

This simple sentence above is the result of several nights' bad sleep, a lot of brain cells damaged and weeks spent in anxiety. All of which could have been avoided of course.

Why?
Well that is the question that is still bugging us almost every minute these days. It is one month now that we've made the decision but still it echoes in our mind. I did not want to write about it earlier, letting time to settle things and look back from a distance, but it is still hard to put it down correctly.
If I try to look back from a distance, it all started last October when coach TT was contracted. His main job was to deal with the kids in the club who wanted to race short-track. Coach E told us he had other things in life that took his time and he would be teaching the small ones, who started out discovering skating. This setup seemed fine for us and we knew coach TT was in the national short-track team until recently, so we expected up-to-date knowledge that he could transfer to our kids.
And he did so. He sketched plans and after the initial training sessions told us that our kids lack a lot technically so he could only promise to make them really competitive for the Junior Nat. Champs late in the season, in February. We've accepted this and he began working with them very hard.

And when I say very hard I mean this for real. There have been trainings when the kids almost threw up, when I had to take Peter up the stairs home on my back, when he almost fell asleep on the drive home that is about 10 minutes, etc. According to Churchill: 'blood, sweat and tears'. Okay, blood was not too common :)
After about 2 weeks the first cracks opened. Those (few) who couldn't stand the idea of hard work declared they did not want to race short-track and wanted to do inline only. So they went back to coach E and began some 'base building' period which, to tell the truth, wasn't hard at all. And from then on coach E became more and more jealous(?) about coach TT, it seemed. And of course dirty materials were involved, too, as the club leaders began to complain about coach TT's salary - that was quite strange as it was them who've contracted him...
Months passed, work was on and results started to come. In the championships those who worked hard for real under coach TT posted wonderful times, scoring PBs in all distances. Once again the old wisdom proved true, hard work yielded good results. But then there was another race still in the calendar, late March that we've planned to visit. But all of a sudden the club leaders decided they would not pay for the ice in March. We were shocked - how do we race then if we cannot train on ice?

We swallowed the bitter pill though but our kids were in some kind of 'punishment'(?) - they had to share the training hall with the absolute beginners, but coach TT tried to work it out so they did a lot of dryland and some tech drills. By the end of March it became clear this was not leading anywhere.
And then we suffered a big slap in the face. Coach E posted the groups' timetable for the trainings and coach TT's group had no time reserved for the trainings in the local skate track. We parents decided to meet the club leaders and question their decision, when they told us that they've fired coach TT and his group will be trained again by coach E. Bit strange that coach TT did not know he was being fired...

We were shocked. Really shocked. This all happened on a Friday eve and you can imagine what our weekend was like. We've seen coach E train Peter for years however he has developed in the last 6 months more than ever under the direction of coach TT, so we were sure that returning to coach E was a no-go. Just exactly that time I've read Susan Ellis' article about coaches telling 'do 10 laps of this or that' vs coaches teaching the correct position and technique above all. Coach E is of the former, coach TT is of the latter type for sure.
We talked a lot. We phoned a lot, then talked a lot again. One thing was clear. We wanted to leave the club that didn't even consider what was good for our kids, just their own personal greedy ambitions (maths is simple: ice is expensive, renting a gym is not). After 4 years they just threw away our kids, several champions, hard working ones.

There were 3 clubs in Szeged: one for short-track only, one for inline only, and the one we were to leave, doing both. The obvious would have been to transfer to the first. But after several days' thinking and asking Peter, too, we decided to stay with coach TT. He decided to start a new club and so we joined it.
There are only 5 kids in the club now, but I hope it will grow soon. What are they doing these days? They train 5 times a week, 4* inline and 1 time dryland, as there is no permanent ice available. Sometime during the summer we plan a training camp to gain some ice time, then in October it will be available here, too. If we can find free slots in the ice schedule... Generally speaking we are looking forward racing short-track, but we may visit some inline races, too - just to keep racing spirits high.

So you won't see Peter in black/orange in the future. I think the skinsuit will be green/black/silver. With a silver lining.

Random

I do some running and just found this link about lacing up a running shoe. Wow never thought it would be such an interesting reading...

I am planning to skate 57km on the Tour de Tisza-tó this Saturday. Weather forecast: wind, clouds and rain. Splendid!!!

When you stand by the window and look at the rain outside, eating huge doses of chocolate, can you call that a perfect taper?

The LIL schedule is finalized at last. They parted with Nestle and got a new sponsor LIGLASS who deals with solar energy systems. Last year the winners received huge packs of Nestle products, mainly chocolate. What will they give now, solar panels? :) Hmmm not  bad idea - a solar panel fitted on the helmet and your back, you get home and feel 'energized' :)

Back to taper.

Dom VSI Cup 2010

The season opener for track racing in Hungary was held last weekend here, in Szeged. Peter was not racing (more on that later) but I had the chance to race 2 short distances.

We were only 2 in the senior amateurs 'field' and at first the organizers wanted to make us run together with the pro adults. That didn't seem like a good idea at all (we could have been gapped 3 times in 5 laps...) but then the main referee opposed it so we got our own time-slot. \o/

The first distance was 300m and we started fine but then clicked frames and that made me loose one step. OB went ahead and I was right behind him for most of the distance - he was not doing any crossovers as he does not have any experience with banked tracks and I guess he feared it a bit. That made me think I can overtake him on the exit of a turn. So I was gaining speed in the last turn when *something* happened and I found myself flying in the air and crashing. It wasn't a bad crash, I only hit my right hip, elbow and hand a bit (minor bruises) and got up rapidly to easy skate to the finish line. I have a video of the race and looking at it frame by frame does not show what was wrong at all. I'm puzzled...

Then we visited the McDonald's nearby to have dinner with the kids (promised long ago and somehow they don't forget these things...) and I think it was a big mistake, having a quarter and chips and coke :) When we got back to the track we were due to race in 20 minutes - erm I saw well ahead that was not going to be my best race... 

We started and OB got ahead very soon and I couldn't even get close to him. I was suffering badly and looking for a place to throw up safely and secretly :) So I finished with a bad time, about 100m behind OB, feeling lucky to even survive. Stupid stupid me grrrrrrrrrr

It doesn't look like I'd be attending more track races in this year, maybe the local one here in the autumn so no championship hopes are alive. However it would be good to run at least one more race to have more decent PBs for this year.

The event was well-organized and weather was good, bit too windy but nothing serious. However there were many crashes in the pro races and that is simply no fun. Too bad to see many kids around with bandages and scars and road rash.

Peter's age field was not a strong one at all, he could have grabbed gold or (worst case) a silver medal if he raced. I am really sorry he couldn't enter.

Results here: amateurs young pros older pros.

Base Zero?

If I look at my skate calendar for 2010 I can see the main Base (both 1 & 2) period is over. It is the time of the year where you should do long, steady & slow kilometer hunting, staying in aerobic heart-rate zone, to build up endurance. That is the theory at least.

Now let's take a look at my skate log: so far in the year I've skated 121 kms and run 196 kms. I don't remember where I've put my totals for Base 1 - but in Base 2 (that means the last 5 weeks) I've spent 33h 48m, burning 22192 kCals during 31 training sessions. I think it is a bit low but let's be fair, the last few weeks (since the start of April) I had a quite good schedule training-wise, 31 sessions in 35 days is not bad (88%).

I had two disappointing races during this period, first the Bratislava HM and then the IV. Dom Cup (more on that later). Yes there is a silver lining to every cloud, I am looking very hard to find it :)

Now come the Intensity training weeks, I expect to gain some speed during that and do many drills as recovery. What's in the plans? I'd like to skate a tour around the Tisza lake (55km), then run a 4mile race called Cora-run in town. And after the intensity phase I'll have 2 half-marathons in Slovakia before summer, to prove I can make a new personal best.

Bratislava 2010

After taking part last year I wanted to go again. This year the weather was changing a lot, it was about 12C but the clouds were travelling quite fast in the sky so it was quite obvious we would meet some wind. And yes there was wind with some stormy gusts from N-NW. But it did not rain at least :)

Right after the start the field climbed up the New Bridge (the one with the UFO-like restaurant on top), it was here that I said farewell to any hope of a good result. I could climb very very slow only, although I had no problem with that last year. Cross the bridge, then descend on the other side, you roll & roll and take care of the dilating elements and any road cracks. Here the route goes across a very dull part of the city (Petrzalka), a real socialist concrete block building quarter, 4 lane road of which 2 are closed for us. Organization is great, you see a policeman or a volunteer in every road crossing, water stations every 2.5 kms, refreshing stations every 5 kms.

As there is nothing to see you can observe the opponents, get ahead a bit, ride at a nice & steady pace etc. An ambulance car gets ahead (later I've heard a girl crashed and broke her arm). Monotone skating (that goes well) and then we turn left in a big radius, climb up an overpass - this one went thousand times better than the bridge. Here I pull up to M from the team, who is suffering badly, her legs hurt, her shoes are bad etc.

We team up and shortly after the overpass the route turn left sharply and bad asphalt begins. It worsens slowly, first there are more and more road cracks then comes 'peanut choc' surface the whole width of the road. Best tactic here is the get to the edge of the road, to the dusty part and try one-legged roller technique. Reaching the dikes we turn South, good asphalt feels like salvation. You can see the top riders on the dikes going the opposite direction already, with some brutal speed. M is still suffering but I keep telling her to use backwind here & now (nearby plants show the wind direction clearly), take some rest as there would not be any time for that later.

We reached the turning point and I literally dropped dead. We should climb up the dikes to the left - my waist is stiffed up, I can hardly produce a push. Somehow I creep up the climb but the group with M is gone already. Stiff & hurting waist, headwind, alone - sound like fun, right? :) I start to flounder ahead, gain some speed but trouble has hit. Getting low my waist cries loud. Standing up headwind blows me to a stop. Well... I've never ever in my life gave up any race, but here and now I am broken mentally. Was there a car coming from behind I would have got in it for sure. But there was none and the bus was waiting for me behind the finish line :)

So I creep ahead slowly - after some time there is some woods next to the dike, the wind gets lower there and I can gain some momentum. But as soon as the wind grows stronger I get slow again. Damn, I deserved this, why do I do things like this in my age :) After all the ex-cyclist experience helps a bit: head down and push it, the road will end sometime. At one moment an older, lean man overtakes me with a young girl behind him, I pull up to them to travel in their draft a bit. After some kilometers comes a refreshment station and I almost fall on the water splashes, then comes a bit of rough asphalt and I am dropped again :(

But by then I can see the first bridge across above me and from that I know the finish is getting closer (it is the finish getting closer to me, not me approaching the finish...). I roll below 2 bridges then down to the park and I am facing the next climb 270 degrees to the left, up to the Old Bridge. Here I perform another Oscar-winning death-scene but can gain a bit of speed on the bridge itself. I know I know there is only one obstacle left, a tram line across the route when dropping down from the bridge. I solve that without any problem, last straight and I roll to the finish at last.

Total KO. I planned to get below 1 hour but managed to skate 1:13. Let's forget this fast!

I roll back to the main square, the cheerleader girls caress me (almost), I receive a nice medallion and free chocolate & refreshment.

There is one positive thing though - when we start driving home after some walk and lazy time, the main part of marathon runners are still running :)

A very late early-2010 post

Well it's time to update my own sport-related things. I haven't done a decent yearly sum-up of 2009, nor a pre-season expectations post and now that Bratislava inline race is here to come I really should do something like that...

Sum-up 2009

(I'm skipping this for I'm lazy)

Expectations for 2010

Race calendar

The track racing calendar in Hungary is still only a plan, no firm dates are set. Those signed red are Cup races so if one wants to get a medal at the end of the year in overall, he/she should attend most of them - or skip as few as possible. Then there is the LifeInLine.cz series, particularly the stages in Slovakia, that would mean 3 half-marathon races this year (Prievidza, Michalovce/Trebisov and Poprad). Add Bratislava HM late March which is out of the series this year for reasons unknown to me. Maybe Kosice HM in October? I've also found race schedules for the Croatian Inline Cup series of which Slavonski Brod is quite close to our hometown. And then there is the Austrian Inline Cup that has 3-4 races quite close to the Hungarian border.

Races to attend

So that is the menu to choose from. Now what do I want? I'd like to skate as many HMs as possible, given the usual restrictions of time & money. And of course I'd like to race as many Hungarian Cup races as possible. This one is tricky, as it closely matches Peter's races up until mid-July where those team members wanting to skate shorttrack during the winter will have to decide if they follow the Cup races or begin getting ready for ice - and he is one of the latter group for sure. That means it is quite unsure if we will attend the track races in the second half of the year at all.

Goals for 2010

For the half-marathons one goal is set: improve my times. I wanted to buy a real speed skate but am lacking the financials nowdays for that, so it means I'll have to stick with my 'old' skates with 84mm wheels.  I'd be glad with *any* improvement but secretly look at 5-10% of time cut.

The 'But' section

Yes, there is always at least one 'but' section in planning. I've been able to skate only 14kms this year so far. That is... very low. And due to bad weather and various illness-like situations I've been able to run only 2/3rd of the amount I had done until the end of March last year. That is... very bad. So I don't seem to be set up for Bratislava correctly this year, however as I'm no professional who cares if I score a bad time? (Only me.)

Spring is here, jolly-ho... (that was the positive message of the post)

ST Junior Championships, 2010

Junior Championships - the race we've set to reach the goals for this season. Coach TT had 5 hard months behind him and a lot of technical aspects where he found our kids were lacking. But he told us in November that by February they will post remarkably better results than we hoped for, so we were eager to see.

Uneventful travel to Budapest, lazy afternoon and a 40-minute training on ice was the programme for Friday. Peter looked focused, 'on a mission' in his brand-new bicycle long sleeve shirt. Coach TT was very satisfied with his approach.

Saturday morning they started with the 500m semi-finals and finals. In the semi he started from lane #5 but reached the first turn in position 2 - really caught the gun well and cut his way to the entry point nicely. Then he skated a bit wide track and the guy in 3rd position (TA) almost got up to him but it never happened luckily. Peter has skated a PB, cutting almost 2 seconds from his previous best.

500m semi-final

Then after some rest he raced in the 500m Final A, starting from 5th lane again. Good reaction time again but now he failed to get close to the first buoy on the corner entry, opening a door for others to slip in there and so settling in position 5. In the 3rd corner he was lucky to prevent tipping over the guy falling ahead of him and so moved into #4. He was almost caught in the last lap by TA but managed to finish 4th, improving his personal best again.

500m Final A

When we re-watched the video at home we saw that TA finished with a Kick-Out, ie with skate in the air which should mean a disqualification. It proved important later in the overall results but we did not see it there & then. We all (Peter, we parents and Coach TT) were very happy to see Peter skate the way he did, and with proper speed.

Then came the 222m races: in the quarter-final he started well and defended 1st position for more than a lap, but then lost it on a wide exit in turn 3. No big problem, he qualified as second, posting 3rd best time in the complete field.

222m quarter-final

In the 222m semi he came off of the start line as 2nd and managed to hold that position until the finish. He skated the 3rd best time again, and a fantastic PB, just under 28s. We did not expect him to slip under 28s so we were all very happy with the fact. Interesting though that he made a wide exit error again in the 3rd turn.

222m semi-final

Then came the 222m Final A and Peter came off as 3rd and finished as 3rd, too. He did not have a chance to move forward but again made the same error of wide exits. Still a 3rd place is a 3rd place and those ahead him are 1 year older than him...

222m Final A

The last heat for Saturday was the 333m quarter-final. They are quite tired by then, I really don't understand why the youngest ones have to do the most heats in the first day - but it is usual...  Peter exited the first turn as 2nd and from then on it was a clear run onto the finish. He ran a PB again so it was a very very successful day.

333m quarter-final

As the races finished at about 5PM we had time to gather in a nearby pizzeria for a carb refill :) Although service was a bit lagging the spirits were high and we had a fun evening.

Next morning Peter was getting ready to skate the 333m semi-finals when he slipped during the warm-up sprints and smashed his face quite a bit. All this happened in the worst moment, about 10 minutes before he was due to skate. To our luck the Zamboni went wrong and produced some awful quality ice and we had a 30-minute delay in the program. We tried everything to help Peter forget about his aching nose and forehead and re-focus him on racing but we were only half-way successful with that.

He entered the rink still upset and that could be seen easily on his performance in the semi. He did a false start and then failed to do a good one. He came off 3rd and while tried to stay in touch for 2nd place he later missed it by skating wide, far from the corners. This made room for the 4th guy, JP to advance and so Peter has finished this heat 4th. That meant Final B - but seriously, who could blame him knowing the circumstances? And he skated only 0.3s slower than the previous day, so it wasn't a bad effort at all.

333m semi-final

In the Final B he was in 2nd place for most of the race and when the guy ahead fell in the last lap, Peter had to fight off an attack from JP in the last turn from the inside. He was tough hard but still clear of fouls and grabbed 1st place - 5th on this distance.

333m Final B

Only one race was left - the SuperFinal, in an unusual distance: 666m. By then Peter was quite tired and he really did not show his best form. He was skating in 4th place with TA behind him when 2 guys ahead of him fell and they were suddenly fighting for 2nd place - in the last turn TA managed to do an inside pass and won by a blade's length - that is 40 cm. With this unexpected result TA and Peter had the exact same amount of points but as TA has been better on the last distance that meant he became 3rd overall, while Peter had to resort to 4th. Detailed results here.

All in all Peter has managed to skate personal bests in all his distances so we are happy with that. Later, re-watching the videos we could see many technical aspects that can be improved but it will be the subject of the whole year ahead. Coach TT was very much satisfied with Peter's performance and now is planning all the mid-year work to make Peter compete for gold in the next season.

(This photo was shot in Spisska Nova Ves

but still it shows the relation between racer and the coach so well)

Kalokagatia 2010 - Spišská Nová Ves

Coach TT told the team there was a competition in nearby Slovakia we should visit, for the ice is very fast there. It was quite unclear until the last days if the younger skaters (cat E, F) could attend it but it all turned out fine. Kalokagatia is some kind of a mini winter Olympics for kids, with races in 6 sports. It was based in Spišská Nová Ves, which is a little town in the Eastern region of Slovakia. The town itself lays on both sides of river Hornad and has a beautiful, lens-shaped main square with a pretty church on one end, but the outer districts are quite grey concrete block houses.

We set off from Szeged at around 07:00 and had 530 kms to cover, which went quite uneventfully. Two cars, 6 kids, 4 adults- 'thankfully' also in our car was SzP, a 10-year old telltale who kept on talking for the whole trip, expect for 20 minutes when she fell asleep. In fact it was better to have a trip loaded with laughter than driving in total silence...

We arrived at around 14:00 and found the hotel after some hassle, with the help of a friendly local guy. We stayed at Hotel Preveza, a 2-star but very cosy and tidy hotel situated on the banks of the river Hornad, quite close to the city centre and lots of sports facilities, and it also has a 25m swimming pool. I definitely would rate the hotel one star more, for its tidiness and enormous sized dishes for lunch and dinner.

The first day also saw races - after all, that's what we went for... The Zimny Stadion looks good inside but it is COLD!!! After the technical meeting at 17:00 there was some time to train on the ice, before the races started at 18:00. The races were held with cat E+F racing together, also cat C+D together, but ranking was done separately. Peter started with the 500m as usual. The ice was really fast and he visibly had difficulties negotiating the turns that fast. However the biggest problem he had was overtaking a guy. When at last he managed to do that he was quite tired already and lost a position in the last turn so that meant he did not get in the Final A. Damn... it was so close :( In the Final B he moved much better and relaxed, but still fighting the turns because of the higher speed.
Then came the 222m where he qualified for the Final A having fastest 3rd time. In the final he was the only F cat racer (all 4 others were cat E) so he finished 5th but skated well. Our other racers were about 50% successful, CD was also skating well, grabbing 2nd-3rd places while the others usually got in Final B.

It was quite late when we got back to the hotel, ate the huge dish, had a shower and went to sleep. The next morning Coach TT went to ski some with his friend (coach for the team from Budapest) while we had some lazy hours with the kids. By noon Coach TT got back all tired and we had a video analysis of the races so far - but only after having another huge dish :) I think it was quite useful for the kids to watch themselves in the videos, and also hearing the coach's comments about their pros and cons.

The second day saw the races start at 15:00. Peter had the 333m, where in the semifinal he spoiled all but one turns - that meant he went into Final B, where he raced well and won it. He also improved his best time on this distance \o/. He also was ranked 6th best (4 cat E and 1 cat F was above him in the ranking) and that made him able to enter the superfinal 500m. He finished 6th there, again spoiling some turns - nice ground to improve further... Our other team-members were running as previously, CD got hold of a 2nd position overall, just like Peter. The event finished at about 17:30 as there were no relays.

The awards ceremony was back in the hotel and so we've collected 2 nice silver medals (I mean, they are really nice ones). And - guess what - another huge dish awaited us, which posed some difficulties for us as we've already had pizza on the main square - you know, the obligatory post-race pizza or hamburger :)

In the evening Coach TT again held video analysis. I really hope these occasions plant some urge in these kids to get better...

After another night and a huge breakfast, we dig our cars out of the snow and headed back home, this time we chose a shorter, but more mountainous road that was quite nice and also pretty cleaned up. We arrived home quite early, by 15:00 or so.

To sum it up, as Coach TT told us, the ice was very fast and it made our kids error-prone. So I hope they've learned from it and will fight to learn more. And if there is a similar event the next year, I definitely will vote to come back, as it was a nice, well-organized and friendly event.

Two galleries to surf some pictures: CR and FGy.