Club ST practice & Guy Thibault

A little late in posting but last Tuesday night I had the pleasure of skating with the club ST. It was nice to not be hanging on for my life with the New Edge ST in the morning. We did some flyers early. Had the pleasure of skating with Guy Thibault (US Speedskating Director). It's great to see an ex-Olympian skating out there. I think he's just skating twice a week but he can bring it. He did a super smooth 10.4 flyer first one then I led a 9.8 i think. Might have dropped him but not sure. He must have got reved up after that one. We did some laps then he put the hammer down in a flyer and did a 9.9 and dropped my ass as I wasn't expecting it. It's like a race horse coming out of the barn after a long layoff. He didn't miss a beat. Pretty impressive on some blades that weren't glued on all the way. I asked him when he skated ST last what were they doing for fast laps. He said 8.7/8.8 but on the old 100 meter track. He said the last time he skated ST was in 1984 when he broke his leg. Then he switched to Long Track and made a couple of Olympic teams I think. It's great to see him skating with his kids after work and still laying it down. My back has been bothering me so I didn't do starts but Andrew Love was on the ST blasting off the start and Guy would pass him everytime at the 1/2 lap close but effortlessly and so smooth. You could tell this guy had done ST a few times before. So cool to watch great passing on the Short Track....Not that Andrew is slow either. I love skating ST.