My first monthly summary of May 2011

So, that's it, closing a full month of hard work and a lot of training as a Professional speed skater :)
And ye, I feel good smiling about it, after all it's my dream getting to this point, there isn't any better feeling than doing this and waking up to living your dreams.

Later on my post, I will summary 2 things :

1. Summary of my training

2. Summary of my Blog

 I'm getting a bit better with my Russian, it's a very hard language but I'm trying what I can on my free time.

I haven't posted this week since it was mainly Cycling and inline training, and I hadn't much to say about that.

I will try to make a 2nd video very soon of the dry land training, and I'll explain later why.

Me and part of team during Cycling training, I said I'm smiling :)

The summary, I'll start from the end :)

I LOST 2kg :))  !

When I came here, I was 67-68kg and today it was around the 65kg, I think it's good since I my legs are getting bigger, the coach says it's normal the when I lift my leg muscle kg it takes the fat out of somewhere else.

Skating training with Boris

My Quadriceps muscle Scope is now 59cm on the right leg and 57cm on the left, and that is very nice for a skater, the coach was sure I'll be like 52-54cm and when we measured, he was shocked ! It was worth all this month just to see his face so surprised that my skinny legs are on the skating standards, so the goal now is until September to get over the 60cm scope on my Quadriceps muscle, wish me luck ! :)



Working hard to improve the endurance

The season is getting close and we started Finlay to have 2 training in a day, morning work of inline or cycling or running, and afternoon training mixed with gym and aerobics work.

I love it ! burning hours of work and feeling the results in the end of the day, makes me feel like I did something...



Lots of dry land work to improve Quadriceps muscle

Total workouts : 75 trainings
 (13 aerobics(dry land), 16 running, 18 skating,9 weight, 7 cycling, 12 spinning)

Hours trained : 112h:35m:38s

Total distance : 931km
Total Cal : 43,601Kcal :)))



Spinning training at the Gym

Blog Summary for May 2011 :

Number of pages views : 2,212 pages

The most viewed page : dry land training - http://itaydrory.blogspot.com/2011/05/roller-dryland-training-1052011.html (That's the reason I'll make a 2nd movie )

Pageviews by Countries (Top 3) -

Israel : 1,182

Russia

: 549

United States :

142

 

Pageviews by Browsers (Top 3) -

Internet Explorer

1,483 (67%)

Chrome

292 (13%)

Firefox

268 (12%)

 

Pageviews by Operate system 

Windows

2,032 (93%) is anyone really surprised ?

My Blog also had been viewed many times at : Germany, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Sweden, Finland, United Kingdom, Mexico, Iran and many more.....

I would like to tell everyone, I love seeing that people are following my post and reading, and it's a great honor to tell my life story and know other people have fun reading it.

So thank you dear readers !

Itay

Does speedskaters need so much cycling ?

This question crossed my mind quite a few times in the past, I decided to start cycling for extra improvement to my endurance like 2 years ago, I bought me a nice Ridley (Italian) bikes and they did the job very nicely in Israel.
The new problem : I didn't bring them to Russia....
For the past 1-2 weeks since the weather got better, I been cycling almost every 2nd day for 80-180km.
I even use mountain bike, to be slower than everyone and chase them like a crazy dog :)
  

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I'm going crazy after the team tail



I believe that all this cycling will do great things to my shape, but there are many speed skaters that say it's not good to cycling and this wasn't made for us, I'll let this argue go on without taking a stand in the speed skating forums.

This was my Cycling plan for the last 1 week :

18.5 - 80km , 28.3km/h avg speed

20.5 - 100km, 29.7km/h avg speed

23.5 - Morning : 60km cycling + 17km inline (78km total), 24.3km/h avg speed

23.5 - Evening : 106km, 28.6km/h avg speed
25.5 - Morning : 60km cycling + 15km inline (75km total) , 27.0km/h avg speed

25.5 - Evening : 90km, 28.0km/h avg speed

I have done like 520km in the last 1-2 weeks, which is a lot for a speed skater....



Me and Viki changing from cycling to inline

 And lately people been asking if I eat enough after and before all this sports, so dear friends, don't you worry, one of thing I love is eating ! I even took a photo :)

Tomorrow It will be 30 days since I been training in Russia, and luckily I found out about an inline open championship in my town at 11/6, I have all the plan to join that and give them some Israeli show :)
I will update about that very soon !

Cycling training 20.5.2011

Good morning, As I promised, today is a day off training, time to rest and recover the body.
I used it to finish some editing on my cycling clip of the last 100km course we did 2 days ago.
Hope you'll like it

Cycling Cycling Cycling

Hi guys ! I hope everything is OK with you all....And if something is wrong, just tell me about it :)
This week the sun came out with great weather, the rain is gone, and it's time to cycle the area with good endurance practices.
The cycling started at 18.5 with a 80km cycling, since I left my speed bicycle at Israel, the coach borrowed me his Merida mountain bikes..I didn't know I'm about to do such a  long distance track with this tank.

Me & Merida tank

 On the 1st day, we did a 80km track with avg.speed of 28.3 km/h, trust me, it was very hard with this bicycle, I'm cycling with 4 more people and they use speed racing bicycles, I had so many break points in my mind during this track, but the mind didn't allow me to give up.



18.5 Cycling map



summary



After this nice cycling, I slept really good, and woke up to a running.

As always, new days brings me new power and I always feel like an Energizer rabbit in the morning, so I left home for a 7km run at 12.2 km/h speed (4:50 min for 1km)

At the afternoon, there was Cycling again, but this time I been told it's going to be shorter (At least thats what I was thinking I heard) In the end we went out for a 100km ride, and this time even faster !

The team cycling on the way to finish 100km

 You can see in the map below, the route we cycled and the avg speed that reached 29.7 km/h....And do not forget I'm using a mountain bicycles :)

2nd day summary



2nd day - 100km map

In the end, very happy and very very tired....

I made a video of the cycling and it's on editing right now, it will be publish in 1-2 days.

Have fun & sport & great weekend :)

Rain is over...Back to working

Opening the morning with my 7-day pack of Mini croissant and a cup of coffee, I like that thing.

I had some crappy days of rain, when it rain I have to run more than I would like.
All this running might injure me and I don't really like it, but I have to run, the endurance work of that is awesome.

On the last days I was taken by a fellow coach here, to see some of the view from a near city, for them near is 100km drive, for us in Israel 100km is like crossing 1/4 of the country...A small difference I would say.
I didn't take too much pic's cause it felt like I'm only watching open Fields and as much as it looked good, It's boring on pic's.

The view in the open field

Today, finally ! the sun came out with a great weather of 12° and that is super for skating.
I opened my morning with a 15km skate at the arena, with avg speed of 30km/h after that I went to the gym and got on the bike for an interval climbing train, a train of 3:40 (mm:ss) hard work and for 00:20 sec I give a great sprint with full resistance, 1 hour for that training is enough.
Than it was time for launch break,  I had 1 hour at home to rest.
at 15:45 I already been back on the track, starting warm up on the bike for easy 20 min, following with a skating interval plan of 5min 80% sprint and 3min relaxation, 4 sets of those.
For the end, I had to jump side to side 2 meters for 30 sec and than do a duck walk for 1:30 (mm:ss) that was 1 set, I had to do 8 of those...Another hard 16 min when you feel your legs are about to blown.
In the end happy...It was a good training for today.
I didn't take pic's from the training, I forgot the camera at home, so today, you will have to forgive me for that.

I been in a local bikes shop to check the stuff they have, I was looking for a race one but they  didn't have any race, mostly Merida...No idea why they like it so much.
The inline area, I think it was a shame, they had some weired company for kids...I didn't like that.


Bikes at the local shop




Inline & skateboard



Celine Dion, Rain & Running

You know how much I love to open my mornings with a good song and I always try to keep you guys updated on my selections, my chosen one for this rainy days is the french one of Celine Dion

I enjoy having my morning coffee while it rains outside and I'm getting ready for a morning run in the rain, I even more like the looks on the people faces when they see me from the car and on the street while they see me running in the rain at 8° outside.(If you think running in the rain is crazy, how about getting married in the rain ? :)

To be honest, I'm not a fan of running, it takes my mind to weired thinking zones like a bad meditation.

But I don't think there is another way to workout on my heart rate & endurance , like running.

I already tested my skills, and I ran 21.2km (half marathon) for 2 times this year, with a decent score of 1:43 for a non runner like me.

I know that in a weired way, back at home (Israel) they had a rainy weekend, and that is very not normal for May.

So I'll put some of my local rainy days pictures for them...At least they have a normal temp.

And for rainy days like these, I got my special Tea set, after all this is Russia, and you have no idea how much tea this guys drink, it's like water here...I think I had more than 100 cups of tea in the last 2-3 weeks. (8 dif kinds of tea, you can come and get some)

My tea set



The training this days was good, we worked very hard on powering our legs and I can feel the legs really good, I hope that around the end of August, when the ice will be back and we will open the ice season, I can make a good racing and have good results on the ice training with all this dry land work.



The dried  Ice rink :(



 



 

For now, the main goal is to workout so much on dry land , 5-6 hours a day of good training, so that I will catch up on the ice technique, so far it has been going great.

It's time to finish writing and go out running, this is how my street looks from my window and I'm going down to run in the rain, that is so much fun fun fun !

Cya laters, wet and happy :)

 

Video training - 10.5.2011

As I promised, A short video clip of our training....
Hope you like it :)

Roller & Dryland training 10.5.2011

Hi guys, Whats up ?
Been working good today, I started to relax too much due to the last holidays.
Today been getting my self some nice practice with the team, and I finally feel good enough about bringing a camera to practice so I can show you some of our workout.
after today's morning, of learning Russian for a bit, I skated to the arena at 15:00 to practice solo some Inline before the team joins me at 16:00.
After I finished my 40min solo practice, I went to the gym to join my team and cycle (Spining) warm up for 30-40 min more, you can see in the picture how hard the kids workout here on dry land technique.


  Kids workout on dry land technique jumping

       

 Gym room with kids on cycling workout          

   That's me working out on cycling before Inline practice

              

When I finished my 35 min of cycling, we started the Inline practice for today.
We trained intervals of 5min speeding hard, and 3 min relaxation after. we did 10 series of that.

Finally a pic of me skating with the team :) 

                   

                                          

As you can see, I love watching young kids doing our sport....It's our future ! 

When Inline practice is over, we work on jumping from side to side, 30 sec of jumping maximum range and after each time we finish the jumping, we run for one and half min. 

Running with my lovely side of the team

            

We take our tired body's and we go jumping in a small uphill floor.

We jump up and down - 10 times, that's 1 series, we had to do 13 of those.
The jump is of course to max range.

The team jumping uphill

  

After all this day.....Making some magic at my kitchen :)
Time to bring back some of the Cal that I left out on our local ice rink.

My kitchen in action

                            

The result of my magic

I took some video's of the training, but it will take time to edit, so for video's / YouTube's your going to have to wait a bit.
Great day ! butn caloris :)

Memorial day & Independence day

Today is the Memorial day for Israel's fallen.

When the evening will come (at 20:00)  it will change to the Independence day of Israel, both sad & happy being "celebrated" one after each other.

I can't imagine how does a family who lost their beloved ones, having to go from sadness to happiness, but that's life in Israel, the bereavement is touching each one of us in some way.
Being so far away from home on this special days, that's new to me, but I feel more connected to Israel now, more than ever.
Being an athlete on a foreign land in the name of Israel....And it doesn't matter if I compete here in the name of Israel or as Itay, they all see me here as the "Israeli skater", I represent something if I like it or not.
I'm sitting at home, listening to Israeli station named "Galgaltz", they are playing sad songs and army songs, in 20 minute there will be an alarm in all of Israel for 2 minute to stand quietly and respect those who died to deafened our homeland.

When evening comes, the wind will change to the Independence day of Israel, everyone will go party and celebrate our country existence  and our victory on those who wished to destroy us, I wanted to put a flag on my window, but I can't seem to find any Israeli flag here in the stores, so that's one of the things to bring on my next viciation.

I think it's interesting that today in Russia, they have a holiday (9th May), the day Russia won on the Natzi Germany in World War 2, and that happens on the same day that Israel have their Independence day.

Hebrew in Russia & The 80's

I guess you been wondering about the title on today's Blog, I had a weired "finding things" kind of day.
The day started at 7:30 to get ready for morning gym training, it seems my ice skating team only trains once a day at this time of the season and I got a lot of catching up to do on the technique side, so I prefer to do a solo training in the morning with a great skater/coach/friend that keeps helping me out (His the only English speaker here)

                         The gym room at Kolomna ice rink

Today I skated to the arena for the 1st time, 2.5Km on road with cars, the Russian roads are pretty bad, tons of hole's and it's totally not flat, the bumpers are nasty, but the main city road is silky smooth, I did there 48km/h of speed along the cars, the drivers were nice ! nobody horn, they were watching me skate nicely without being the typically drivers, this way of behavior was new to me, Israeli driver are not so tolerant.
I got to the ice rink at around 8:30 and did my workout at the gym, a lot of work on "Keeping my ass down".
The coach told me few days ago that I could be a good ice speedskater, if I only learn the right technique of being low with my ass down, inline world is quite different.
After gym I went to the coach room to take my inline boots, and than I found some old Russian history from the 80's, a Russian inline speed skating boot, it was so rusty and old...Funny how people did our sport 30-50 years ago, with this old gears, the frame was attached by studs and you can't move it an Inch.

Old 80's Russian speed skating boot

When I got home, it was time for some shopping at the local center...While I'm doing the shopping, I was quite sure I imagining, because I was sure I seen Hebrew letters in the middle of this supermarket.
You got to understand, I'm 90km away from Moscow, in a small town named Kolomna, anything between Kolomna and Israel/Hebrew is something that is far from happening.
I had to check what I saw, when I got near it, I started to laugh so hard, I was amazed to see "Passover" (Jewish Holiday) food in the middle of nowhere ! And they think it's a chocolate dessert, the Jewish people hates to eat this as part of Passover for only 7 days, and here it's on the candy's bar.

An Hebrew "Matza" package

It was surely nice, to be the only guy in the supermarket (And I guess the only one in all city as well) who can read the Hebrew letters, and really knowing what this "Matza" is.....This was my funny day of finding things....A day with smile is always a good day, so keep smiling, do what you love, and see you laters :)

Great song to open your day

Waking up to this great Bon-Jovi song....I love this song, one of my favorites. (the rest after the link)

After this great performance, making my self a quick breakfast, today I won't photo the result of my cooking so you will have to forgive me for that, but I will show you where magic happens :)

                                    My house kitchen

I'll show you a bit of the city, while I'm going to the bank to change my $ to the local money "Ruble" (рбл).
When I finish my street, I have the local Cinema of the city....It looks nice but the problem it seems that all the movies there are only in Russian....So for now I'll pass on checking the inside part of that.

After I pass the Cinema, I'm getting to nice side walk that kind of remind me of Tel-Aviv sidewalks, with trees and places to sit.

 This path takes me to one of the local small centers, like a mini mall.

 And in the bank they asked me not to take photos...so that part will stay a mysterious.

Now I'm off to test drive the city streets for inline skating, 1st time I'm going to skate on Russian roads :) wish me luck !