US Single Distance Champs

Here's my observations after two days. These kids are flying on the 500m. Brent Ausspring got the short end of the false start rule today as he false started only once and was DQ'd. That rule sucks and I believe is not fair. We should go back to the old way 2nd false start and you are out. I had this happen to me at the Master Worlds last year as I falsed once and was out of the overall. No fun at all. Brent would have punched a ticket to the world cup most likely with a fast race today. Chris Needham was his pairmate and it was going to be a good race. Chris had a faster 500 than yesterday after all the commotion. I'm sure it wasn't easy with the DQ and not having a pair mate but who knows. I know he had a slip on Friday and I hope the RED SOX cookies I gave him helped. This sport is so weird sometimes. You win some and you lose some and it evens out in the end. It looks like Chris missed out on the 1000m World Cup on Sunday by .01 seconds but I'm not sure if he will get to do some 1000s anyways???

The 5k was hard for a lot of skaters today. The Swiss guy made it look easy but there were a lot of guys carrying refrigerators on their backs for laps at a time myself included. I just wasn't feeling it today. I looked up with 9 to go and was hurting then I mentally was out of it. Going a little bit over you threshold can really hurt on a 5k. I went for 32s and embarrassingly did 38/39s at the end. I was ready to pull it in a couple of times but thanks to everyone who cheered me on. It wasn't easy today. My new boots have put my blades in a different position and I have been struggling with that physically and mentally.
Chad won the 5k with a 6:32. I'm sure he's not happy with that but I'm sure he will be skating a lot faster at the World Cups. He's just getting back into training again I think and he's got the heart of a lion so I wouldn't count him out. There are a lot of new faces for the US team and good luck to everyone.
It's funny but not really funny..... that when you are not near your personals or how you feel you should be skating you can get really frustrated. There were a lot of disappointed skaters I'm sure and some happy ones (who skated PBs). It's hard to sacrifice so much (in training and time commitment) then not skate your best when it counts. I find for myself that if I just let it happen it happens but when I force it it doesn't.