New Personal Record in the 3km

Written by T Dobbin
This morning was the second race of the pre-season for Shane in Salt Lake City. He decided that he would race a 3km as he is still in the middle of a hard training phase so this race would be better suited. Shane managed to skate a good race finishing with a new personal best time as well as a new, New Zealand National record in the 3000 meter distance. See his lap times below:

Opener: 19.40
Lap 1: 29.55
Lap 2: 30.03
Lap 3: 30.22
Lap 4: 29.84
Lap 5: 29.32
Lap 6: 29.56
Lap 7: 30.20
Finishing time: 3:48.12

For now it's back into another week of training and another race next weekend.

What's been happening

Written by T Dobbin
It has been a while since any posting on here, but thought it was time to get back into the swing of things and keep everyone updated on the upcoming 2010-2011 winter. With only five weeks to go before the first World Cup of the season, Shane is hard into his training phase and getting ready to hit the season in shape.

After last winter, Shane decided it was time he needed a change and a refocus so that he can prepare himself not just this winter but hopefully many more. Shane left Netherlands where he had been basing himself and in March went back to Australia, for yet another Winter, and get back into basics. Spending six months basing himself on the Gold Coast of Australia training many hours a week on the bike and in the gym as well as inline skating.
"Even though it's winter in Australia, the weather on the Gold Coast is perfect for training. Most of the days as sunny without any clouds in the sky, as well as temperatures always in the mid to low 20's in degrees C. Some weekends even managed to get up to the high 20's which was starting to get a little too warm when you spend many hours on the bike".
However it was a great off season for Shane and he is now ready to refocus his ice skating goals and ready to hit the ice.

Shane is now currently basing himself out of Salt Lake City in the USA. He arrived four weeks ago and got straight onto the ice. It took a few weeks to get back the feeling on ice and to gain a new feeling when he put on his new ice boots, his Marchese's. He has already competed one race, two weeks ago in Salt Lake where he raced a 3000 meter just getting the feel of getting back into race mode again and was only one second behind his personal best time. Below are Shane's times for his race, raced on the 25th of September (just two weeks after getting back on the ice):
Open: 19.16
Lap 1: 30.2
Lap 2: 30.52
Lap 3: 30.73
Lap 4: 30.25
Lap 5: 29.99
Lap 6: 30.07
Lap 7: 30.46
Finishing time: 3:51.39

Shane is set to race again tomorrow in Salt Lake City.

Keep posted for more updates throughout this upcoming winter.

Off-Season Update One

Written by T Dobbin
After three weeks off training, yesterday was Shane's first day back on skates and back into training. Not having his inlines skates on since the end of August last year, it was time to put them back on and start preparing for this coming winter. "I felt good for the first ten minutes on my skates, then the remainder of my skate I was in the hurt box".

Having re-located for the European Summer to the Gold Coast in Australia where he has the chance to get away from the inline & ice scene and take the opportunity to get much needed training done rather than always having to try to fit training around his inline races. Living close to two short track ice rinks will hopefully give him the opportunity to learn something new on ice to help in the future.

Currently the weather still extremely hot on the Gold Coast with temperatures hitting 31 degrees C, 4 degrees above average for this time of year. Although Winter will be approaching soon the temperatures during the day very rarely go below 20 degrees C with mostly sunny days. "For the past three weeks it's been a great time to rest in the perfect place. Saturday i'm back on the resort golf course followed by our coming home celebration and then it will be back to full time training as of next week".