One Thousand Shots

Since I last blogged a skating episode I have been down to the primary school four times in my Vapors (on their new bearings) with stick and puck.  It's primarily shooting practice on 'my' own drill, sets of 25 shots from the netball circle at the target goal post..  I do it in rotating sets of different types of shot and tend to zero in on one or another aspect of shooting technique or mindset.

In between sets or 'circuits' (one hundred shots) I tend to do something totally different for a few minutes.  It might be a simple skating drill, stickhandling, shots from way out, dynamic snaps.  The only limit is my imagination.  I usually have no idea what I'm going to do for these drills when I arrive and tend to work it out as I go, though I do try to stick to a theme for the 3-5 drills I work into a session.

The skate home is almost all up hill, with the final climb being the steepest.  My benchmark has been 83 strides on this stretch.  Sometimes up to 90, sometimes as low as 79.  With the new bearings it was never higher than 79 and as low as 70.  This is partly due the fact that I am relatively healthy in playoff season and so am at a competitive peak, but is more due the new bearings.

The improvement in my skating due the new bearings became all of a sudden noticeable on the third session.  Maybe it took that long for the lubricant to achieve its functional status?  Whether or not that's the reason, it's added a bit of pace to my strides (especially as I need to use correct technique more at higher speeds to keep better control, adding to performance even more) and a lot of ease to my gliding (is good for energy conservation).  I've had to slightly change how I approach some of my skating.  I think it would be difficult to go back to my old 'precision' bearings.

For the record, here are my shooting results for the four days:

Tue 17 March    8/2/9/1, 8/10/6/2 (23%)
Wed 18 March   1/6/7/4, 6/7/9/7 (23.5%)
Sat 21March      7/3/10/5, 7/10/9/4, 7/11/9/4 (27.7%)
Sun 22 March    6/7/8/5, 7/10/9/6, 5/5/11/2 (27%)

It will be interesting to see how I go on the next thousand!

Inline 16-19.