Morning Skate

I put on the inlines and went for a 50 minute morning skate at about 8am this morning.  I didn't want to push myself too hard.  Afterall, the Grand Final game was in about six hours and I still had to have a main meal.  So, I collected stick and gloves and headed to the primary school.

It felt a lot less exhausting on the way there than it had last Saturday, so maybe my minimalist increase in skating time over the past week is paying off afterall?  Down at the school, I did the usual 100 shots, ended up with a fairly low score of 3/4/6/1.  To be fair, however, I didn't concentrate at all on technique except incidentally.  Rather, my emphasis was banging in sets of four shots as quick as I could (I have four pucks left that haven't yet shattered).

I capped it with 25 shots taken in a nominally shootout style, skating in from the half way line and banging at my target from no closer than 15'.  What's interesting is that when I did it with multiple deking beforehand (and more slower and deliberate) I put in only one out of 20, yet when I skated in at speed (maybe throwing in a deke, maybe not) and shooting from 5'-10' further out, I got 2 of 4 on target.  Food for thought as I skated home up the hill, taking advantage of what is definitely a more powerful stride than a couple months ago to do it in 10% less strides than has been the norm.

Muscle memory reminded of what it needed to do later in the day, a good morning stretch to finish it all, and it was into doing stuff before heading up to Gawler.