What a day! What an amazing day! On October 1, 25 skaters took part in the second annual Turkey Roll, with the number of skaters up from 8 in 2004. The Turkey Roll is all about getting out and enjoying the beautiful city we live in, doing our favourite sport and supporting the Ottawa Food Bank. By all accounts we excelled at all of these objectives and we have donated about $700 (which translates into about 5,000 lb of food) to the Ottawa Food Bank!

Question
A few days ago, I was doing some squats and the gym instructor told me that I shouldn't position my kneecaps past my toes. He told me it would gradually damage the knee joints. He told me I should position my kneecaps no further than my toes, or slightly behind the end of my toes. Does this make sense?

In order to increase your muscle mass you have to incorporate some weight training while you increase the amount of food that you eat - otherwise you will put on excess fat. It is the weight training that stimulates your body to use the extra calories from food for muscle building. For a healthy weight gain you should aim for 4-6 pounds of muscle gain a month. To do this you need to do muscular strengthening exercises as well as follow a sport nutrition diet.

Last Sunday, October 2, OISC hosted 16 inline skaters of all speeds, enjoying a warm day and friendly competitions in 1,500m time trials, 500m and 10km ability group races on the amazingly well swept Aylmer track.

A few words about the Series: The grouping and ranking system used allows skaters to compete with each other based on ability and not age or gender. This is particularly important considering the relatively small size of the local skating community as well as the differing abilities of skaters. It's a fun format that everyone should give a try in 2006!

On November 4, 2005 starting at 6:30 pm our annual awards dinner and dance and Annual General Meeting will get underway. This year we will host the event at Sala San Marco at 215 Preston. Club members, friends, spouses and volunteers are all welcome.

Please note the official AGM business is open to all voting club members (those who joined as regular members, rather than value members). Pre- registration ($25) is required for the party!
Click on image to enlarge - on air presentation of proceeds from Turkey Roll

Get the low down on Barry's extensive and varied training opportunities over the fall and winter. From the 10 week BootCamp (dryland rocks!) to the Level 1 Speed Skating Coaching Certification course, October 23-24, SkateEtrain and much more.

I was invited to a Long Track Olympic Camp, while at our Ottawa Inline Skating Festival in early September. This camp was part of a new program launched for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, entitled Own the Podium. It consists of identifying athletes with potential from different disciplines, and introducing them to the sport of long track speed skating. There will be several camps and the organisers may select a number of athletes, who they will train to eventually become our future Canadian Olympic medalists.

I was thrilled to be invited to the first camp, and here's my report of what the 4 days in Calgary entailed.

Click on image for more ... over 2,000 skaters party together post-marathon

What do you call a 42.2 km single loop course with icy smooth pavement, thousands of screaming fans along every metre, live TV coverage, with 9,000 comptetitors skating? I would call it the best inline marathon in the world!

The Berlin Inline marathon was held on Saturday September 24, and I was inspired to try competing in it, largely as an excuse to see a city I had never been to, but also intrigued by the idea of being a part of the biggest inline skating race, in terms of numbers of participants, anywhere in the world. This was the last event of the Inline World Cup, so it also attracted an elite field of top competitors. I was not one of those. However...