Skater's leg?

Ruri's (and my:-) first race is set for the 18th and 19th of Feburary in a place we will probabaly never visit were it not for speed skating. Merced, California, near Yosemite national park. We'll have to be there on Friday evening as the race starts 6:30 am the next morning. Ruri will race in both JO elementary division (beginner) and Standard (graduates of JO either by the three year time raced, or by results like placement in JO nationals). I'll race the JO master division. We'll report back on how we did:-) Hopefully with some photos or videos. Oh yes, we just bought a new iMac (Intel Duo Core:-) so I'm hoping this blog will be more interesting with some action/video.

Ruri seems to be improving a lot but the coach is not sharing the time with us yet. Yesterday we had a very intensive Sunday session (4 hrs). We started with two sets of 5 lap move ups, the second one was for 150 laps. I believe it's the first time I went about 100 laps. The second drill was for the dreadful ladder: seven 15'' laps (called recovery laps) following by one fast laps (<12''), then 7+2, then 7+3, 7+4, end with 7+5. That's 50 laps with increasing speed. I did pretty well but exhausted afterwards.

Ruri complained her leg sore/pain in the evening. When mom tried to put some cream to relieve the pain, she noticed that Ruri's upper leg has become noticably thicker (or what I call more toned:-). It's amazing just after 3 month of skating without any land excercise, that she is developing the muscles she needs quickly. I hope this also means she is doing the right drills. We have to watch it though, there is a fine line between toned and too thick:-) However, judging from the appearance of other girls who are older than Ruri I don't see any disproportionally thick legs there, and actually to the contrary. So I don't think I'm too worried about it yet.