Gift Ideas for the Speed Skater in Your Life

One more month of shopping until Christmas.  Have you decided what to get for the speed skater in your life?

Aside from the obvious articles of equipment such as new helmets, gloves, skates, etc I've come up with a list of gift ideas to assist a skater's development away from the ice.  By no means is the list exhaustive.  Skaters and coaches share your own wish list in the comments section below.

$0 - $25

• Spiral Note Book - Sounds simple but is maybe one of the most effective tools an athlete can have when used as a training log.  Use the log to journal goals and objectives and track progress during practices and competitions through the season.
• Hot Hands - To help extend those training sessions on those cold days out on the Oval. 
• In Pursuit of Excellence - By renowned Canadian Sport Psychologist Terry Orlick, In Pursuit of Excellence is a must have for an aspiring athlete.
• Hacky Sack - Yep, the good old foot bag.  Using a foot bag makes for a fun warm-up that develops agility and coordination and is a great tool to meet and engage friends at competitions.
• Skipping Rope - There are several benefits to using this old playground staple for warm-up or training.    There are several ropes on the market that advertise as competition or professional ropes but the best ropes that I have had have just been a length of climbing rope.  I find about 2m of 8mm or 11mm climbing rope from MEC or another outdoors store works great.
• Cables - This is not something that you will be able to pick up at sports store but rather will be something homemade.  About 4m of either seat-belt or nylon strapping, camp webbing, or climbing rope can be sewn or tied into a loop to form the cable.  The cable can then used to perform several technical drills.
• iTunes Gift Card - Us the card to build a motivational soundtrack for training or competition, or use the card to purchase some of the great sport apps available.
• Coach's Eye - Instant video analysis and slow-motion review on your mobile device.
• Ubersense - A personal coach in the palm of your hand.
• Coach my Video - Anytime, Anywhere Video Analysis & Frame-Capture: it's never been so easy​.

$25 - $50

• Foam Roller - Think an over-sized pool noodle that assists with recovery after a workout.  I am not sure why the roller exercises work, I just know they work.  I am sore the next day if I have not rolled after a workout, but I am fine the next day if I have.
• Massage Stick - Another great tool for recovery after a workout.  Again I am not an expert to know how or why the exercises work but it is a staple piece of equipment for many athletes.

$50 - $100

• Sport Watch - A sport watch can come with several bells and whistles but it should really do one thing: tell you how long your workout was from start to finish.  My first sport watch was a Timex Triathlon, which had a stopwatch, and an interval timer.  The stopwatch was great for timing runs, bikes, or swims.  The interval timer was great to setup for sprint or skipping programs because it would beep at the beginning and end of each interval.
• Bike Shoes and Clipless Pedals - Andrew Feenstra, a Cycling coach and proprietor of Cyclesmith in Halifax, advises that "shoes and pedals are important no matter what bike you have".  The advantages of cycling shoes is that there is no flex so that all of the pressure in the forefoot transfers to the pedal.
• Cycling Computer - A must have for training on a bike.  The computer should tell you three things: how far, how long, and how fast the ride is/was.  Valuable information to be tracked in a journal.

$100 - $500

• Heart Rate Monitor - At a certain level of athletic development tracking heart rate will be a valuable measure when training.  Monitoring heart rate is a very useful indicator of the intensity of the training.  Many Heart Rate monitors come as a feature of a sports watch, or vice versa.

$500+

• Road Bike - Biking in the off-season is a great cross-training tool and becomes bigger part of training as a skater's development progresses.  Thanks to Andrew Feenstra at Cyclesmith in Halifax here are some things you should consider when looking for and purchasing a bike; as previously tweeted at Atlantic_LT.
• Girls' bikes are no longer just boys bikes painted pink. Bikes for women are made with shorter top tube, narrower handlebars, & wider seats.
• A bike is an investment. First find one that fits you properly & then keep up with its maintenance so that it will last many years.
• The size, in cm, of the bike is measured from the center of the crank to the top of the seat tube.
• Fit? With seat at proper height & pedal down there should be some knee bend. Too much seat post = too small, Too little post = too big.
• Fit? Comfortable reach from seat to handle bars. The handle bar width should match the shoulders.
• Pedals & Shoes? Important no matter what bike you get. Stiff bike shoes allow all of the pressure in the forefoot to transfer to the pedal.
• Store vs Online purchase? A store can swap parts to fit you properly. Online may require additional expenses to repair & fit for riding.
• Maintenance? Just like a car a bike should recieve a regular tune-up. Eg. the chain will stretch needing replacing after about 3000km.
• Bike Shop vs Department Store purchase? Bike Shop prices begin at $900 which reflects quality of the components & thus long-term enjoyment.
• Components? Brakes, shifters, derailers, etc. Shimano's line of compenents range from low to high = 2300, Sora, Tiagra, Ultegra.

Just to finish off this a personal anecdote of receiving a new pair of Viking Long Track skates for Christmas during my fourth season of speed skating.  My parents purchased a pair of Viking 1 Long Track skates, which were to be my first ever brand new pair of skates, to present to me on Christmas.  That November an opportunity arose for me to train on the Quebec City Oval while other club mates participated in a Short Track event nearby.  My parents gave me the skates explaining that they were an early Christmas gift so that I could use in Quebec.  Then on Christmas Eve they snuck into my room, removed the skates, rewrapped them, and placed them under the tree.  I was certainly surprised to find them under the tree the next morning.  A very happy memory if only the story ended there.  Our family cat made the story a bit more interesting by using my gift wrapped box of skates as his litter box for the night.  Never in the cat's 16 years with us had ever he done anything like that before or after except for that Christmas.  So a happy memory became a very memorable one thanks to Mom, Dad, and Smokey.

Happy shopping!

Canadian Game Changers - London 2012

The theme of the 2012 Sport Leadership Conference this past weekend in Montreal was "Game Changers".  There were three streams, Coaching, Leadership Development, or Education & Research, of workshops and presentations where presenters used the theme as the basis for their topics.  I mostly participated in the Coaching stream of presentations where the workshops and presentations focused on topics such as coaching effectiveness, developing talent, and team management.  I will include a summary of some of those sessions in later posts.  

For now I wanted to highlight the topic of Saturday's keynote "12 Game Changers from 2012".  Canada's Chef de Mission at the 2012 London Olympics, Mark Tewksbury, summarized his experience at the Games by presenting what he saw as the 12 Game Changers for the Canadian Team.

#12

Office of Chef de Mission - Canada is only 1 of 3 countries at the Olympics to use a former athlete as their Chef de Mission rather than a bureaucrat.  Using a a former athlete in the position gives the athletes a sense of comfort knowing their leader has been in the same situation of undergoing what they are now experiencing.

#11

Team behind the team - While the Chef de Mission may not have all of the necessary abilities to fulfill all of the duties there are plenty of support people to support them supporting the team. There are many great people that take care of the behind the scenes issues and duties so that there are no distractions for the athletes or coaches so that they are able to perform their best.

#10

5 words - "World class, Proud, Fierce, Relentless, Unbreakable".  Canadian athletes ranked top 5 in the world were invited to a meeting prior to the Games where they were asked "When the world sees the Canadian Team what is it that they want them to think.  The 5 words chosen were a shift from from the tone of the words used at previous Games.  Over the course of the 2012 Games Mark saw specific instances where the Team exemplified the meaning of the words.

#9

A unified Canadian team - The athletes felt that they were part of the greater team Canada. 62% of the team were first time Olympians.  So marching out for the opening ceremonies Mark formed the veterans of the team into an honour guard to lead the team into the stadium.

#8

Beaver cheer - A team cheer that Mark had created for his university swim team, adapted for his Canadian Swim teams, and reintroduced to the 2012 Canadian Team.  "I'm a beaver your a beaver and when we get together we do the beaver cheer".  When Mark saw team members perform or mimic the actions to the cheer or asked him to do the cheer he knew spirits were up and things were OK.

#7

Focus of attention - The Chef de Mission plays 4 roles: leader, ambassador, mentor, and cheerleader.  Being all 4 but knowing when to be each is important to the position.  After missing the women's Gymnastics team's historic 5th place finish for a press conference Mark made the decision to do no more conferences.  He made the decision to be there for the team and ignore other distractions.  He felt this was a good decision because he was consistent.  Even though he said "no" to interview requests he knew he was visible at the events doing what he was supposed to be doing.  In the end there were no hard feelings from the press because of it.

#6

Twitter - Initially resistant to Twitter Mark caved in because "these were going to be the Twitter Games."  He found it to be an effective tool as Chef de Mission because it allowed him to follow the athletes, know the athletes, communicate with the athletes, and promote the athletes.  There were some lessons learned on the proper use of Twitter.  One of his first Tweets while visiting Halifax in the spring was a comment on his distaste of the McLobster Sandwich.  He was gently reminded that McDonald's is an Olympic sponsor and so he quickly removed the Tweet.

#5

The dark horses - When dealing with the press they always wanted to know who the winners were going to be.  Mark avoided the question by expressing hopes for the breakthrough athletes. He was overjoyed when the first dark horse, Antoine Valois-Fortier and then later Derek Drouin, mounted the podium for Canada.  The dark horses electrify the team because they are unexpected and show the team that anything is possible.

#4

Canadian meeting places - The Moose statue inside the village and Canada Olympic House outside the village provided a place for Canadian team members to congregate prior to exploring the city and other venues and events.

#3

CTV coverage - Any sport could be seen on any CTV channel at any time.  The Canadian public was able to experience the highs and lows along with the team.

#2

Team sports - Teams bring an energy en mass to the larger team as a whole.  A majority of the athletes participate in individual sports and so have not developed a sense of team spirit.  The team sports have that team spirit an inject it into the great group.  For this reason Mark hoped that the way that team sports are funded would be reconsidered.  (ed. My own experience at Canada Games is that the teams are the catalyst of spirit and enthusiasm that spreads amongst the greater team.)

#1

Mark Lowry - Former COC Director of Sport changed the focus of how we fund sport in Canada with OTP.  Though the team fell short of its goal in 2012 it was not because of lack of resources.  There sometimes were outside factors (Women's Soccer) and simple human error (Men's 4 x 100m Relay) that are inevitable.  However, without the resources Canadians may not have achieved what they did.