Night School

Due to the oppressive heat yesterday, practice was
pushed back an hour. The humidity is what makes
conditions ugly and we seem to be in a spell of it.
As I type this, the dew point is 75 and with a
matching temp. The rain moving through is not making
a dent in cooling things down.
It "is" a jungle out there..
I woke up at five to the local country station, shut
my eyes for a moment, and woke up forty-five minutes
later.
Guess I was tired.
Last night the pack I was in did seven laps on the big
track before moving over to the shorter flat track.
Keeping pretty much to my own pace, I felt good and
questioned being called in after seven.
After a rest, coach called for us to head across the
street. Learning from last time, I'd only taken a sip
or two of Gatorade.
Divided into two groups each began the pass up drill
where the skater in the back of the pack moves up to
the lead position,and done right, it's a constant flow
of skaters passing up the line.
Our pack had the younger kids and a new woman on
fitness skates and the pace was kept slow for them.
After several accordion style pile ups, everyone got
it together better and when the slower skaters took a
break, the rest of us picked it up.
The faster pack passed us several times, and at one point
with our pack in disarray, I was tempted to join them.
Hesitating briefly, the next time they went by, I thought
what the heck, I can try to catch them at least.
So that's what I did, getting lower and picking it up.
Skating in the dark, with only parking lot lights here
and there illuminating the blacktop, is very cool.
It's a trust thing, you can't see the ground well and
you just hope you don't run over any junk and crash.
It's exciting!
I didn't think anyone in that pack saw me, as I was
at the tail end when I caught them, and stayed there.
And I only hung on for two laps, but until the very
end, those sprint laps felt really, really good.
Later Coach Bob, who was pacing that group on his bike,
told me he'd seen me in the back for those laps and
that at one point we were doing 20 mph.
Very cool...
I want to do it again :)