Give Up and Go Faster (A New Personal Best)

Sat night watching the Red Sox win again I spent 3 hours tinkering with my skates for the magic formula. I hate messing with my skates but something had to be done. I had been not skating up to my potential the last two days and something was wrong. I was not rocking the turns I was trying not to hit the blue pads in the turns. I noticed that my blades were not quite centered with the new custom boots I had. I moved both blades a few millimeters to the left (significant). I still don't know the best way to set up your blades on new custom boots because it's so hard to see the center. I had a few coaches look at them and they said it looked right. What I did Sat night (because I was desperate) was to use a T allen wrench and center that over the middle of my achilles tendon which I marked on the boot and make sure the blade was lined up with that (also used a level to make sure T wrench and boots were perpendicular). I also found out on Friday after my 500 that my diamond stones were toast. I had sharpened alot Th night and really had no edge Friday morning in warmup. Thankfully Mark Chrysler noticed that my stones were gone and I used my black stone!! for 10 strokes before my 1500 and then polished with my blue, red and green diamond stones. Talked to some other skaters at the oval (include Izzy) and they said Diamond stones only last for like 3-4 months. I'm back with the traditional stone stones. Some times the old way is the best way and alot cheaper. This is such a process that you would think after doing this for some time I would have figured out my stones were crap. Don't ignore the obvious. It's the same in what I do for a living (programming).

Anyways, as in life, I finally let go and raced my own race on Sunday. I had been trying to go fast and trying to beat people the previous days and today I just skated and let it happen. Man it's funny what happens when you just go with the flow of life. Good things happen. I equate it to if you are in a river and trying to swim upstream and you keep banging your head on the rocks. If you have spirituality which I heard yesterday is believing in something other than yourself. I see the mountains and the beautiful valleys and know that I didn't create those. Someone or something great than me did. If you just accept lemons and make lemonade with them life will be alot easier. I've learned as I get older to try to "go with the flow". It's the same for skating around in circles fast. We had a delay of 4 minutes they told us after John fell. Then I did a lap it's like hurry up your up and it's 2 minutes later. You can't always have everything the way you want. God gave us control over one thing in this life and it's our thoughts. So it's important to keep you though process pure and on what you want in your life. Also if I just get my ego out of the way I will go fast. "Don't think just pitch" like in Bull Durham and wear a garter belt....lol. I can tell you it's such a good feeling to just shut that brain off for 1:13 in my 1000. The only thoughts I had was at the end I was leaking oil really bad trying to get to the finish line. The key to 1000m races are those final two turns. If you can really build speed the 2nd to last turn then survive the last turn you can get a good time. I was just thinking stay down....stay down and finish your turns. The very last one I almost fell in a lactate haze. It's funny because Teri had a picture of me and I asked her if it was during the race because I was standing straight up. That pic was of my last turn and I recovered quick and just kept pushing to the line. There no better words than to hear from John McClennan "and that's a new Personal Best for Brian Boudreau". I hadn't heard those words in a long time. Thank you God for the blessings I have in my life.

PS- one other thing that made this a special race was my wife was there to see me. She hasn't come to many bike races or skate races. The last bike race she saw I won $80 then the one before that I won $200 for 1st and she won a bike in the raffle.


Teri's photos are here and Andrew posted a great video that gave me goose bumps watching it.

http://www.ipickphotos.com/

http://andrewlove.org/blog/?p=497#comment-63687

I guess the moral of this post is that good things come to those who wait. I really wanted to throw my skates away after racing Saturday.

Also, change is hard but a neccessary part of life. Change is good but I always don't like it. The boots have been an adjustment for sure and everyday my body feels different. It's funny how even in a long track meet things are constantly changing. It's small changes but change nonetheless.