Off Season Day 53 - Week 7 Summary

Aug 21 Ice
Aug 22 Wheelers Game

On August 21 I went down to the Arena for an hour's skate in the afternoon.  Had half the ice due Ice Factor team practice on the other half.  Shared the space with a couple figure skaters.  I spent about ten minutes in recovery time.

Individual drills which I did were sideways walking, stops, first 'stride' backwards, first stride from transition (backwards to forwards), power stride recovery action, pivots.  Most technical was the exit from forwards transition onto the left leg.  Most measurable gain was power stride recovery. Least satisfactory were the pivots.

On August 22 I played in the Wheelers' Round 1 win in winter season finals.  We played with six skaters and thus were able to avoid double shifting.  Had a lot of energy left in the tank for the final minutes, could have played out another period.  Very physical game where strength on puck came into it, leg and core up to the task.  Several comments afterwards about apparent increase in my 'speed'.  I didn't think this while playing. 

What was noticeable to me, however, was that I spent more of my time in a 'high energy state' than is usual (ie. race to shut down uncontested space, open up a lane, etc).  This elevation in intensity came about due to increase in ability (physical strength and first step technique) as well as willingness to do so (no holding back energy for potential double shift, fact it was a final), wasn't an increase in speed per se.  That's what I think, anyway.

Week 7 Summary

I have only given myself an 'orange' rating for this past week.  Again, I didn't make quota on anaerobic conditioning (interval training) nor on Off Ice Technique (stickhandling).  I did make the cut on everything else, however, which wasn't too bad considering it was a rather busy week.

Ice 29