100 Laps

In honor of the 100th (!) drill posted on All Derby Drills, we are skating 100 laps together.

Alternative names: 5 km skate-a-thon

Objective: To build up endurance

Typical length of drill: 20 mins

Materials needed: A WFTDA regulation-size track (or a taped down track that's as close to the measurements as possible, but know that the distance skated might not be accurate in that case)

Skill level required: None

Description: The name says it all: Skate 100 laps.  It sounds like a lot but it's really not, and the skaters will feel proud of themselves after this drill for having been able to complete so many laps.  In this drill, all the skaters skate 100 laps around the track, at their own pace.  The skaters are all in charge of counting their own laps, and once they have finished they take a couple of slow cool down laps and then move to the inside of the track to cheer on their teammates.  IMO the best way to do this is to skate 4 x 25 laps, with a short, 30 second water break in between each set of 25 laps.  This helps skaters stay on track with the counting and keeps them hydrated, plus it gives them achievable goals throughout the drill ("I can totally make it to 25 laps, that's no problem" -- makes it easier mentally to complete the challenge).

If the skaters "skate the diamond" or "the perfect circle" while doing this drill (as in, edging the inside track boundary on the turns and going out to brush the outside track boundary in the middle of the straightway) they will have skated 5.07 km (or 3.15 miles) by the time they finish their 100th lap.

To avoid injury, you may want to have skaters change direction after 50 laps, or run the rest of your practice in the opposite direction.

Additional notes: This is my favorite endurance drill at the moment.  It's so nice to just skate and to focus on just one thing for a change, and when we did this recently we had a stereo playing some fun music to skate to and zone out to.  It was challenging and relaxing at the same time.  A skater even thanked me for this drill after we finished.

I came up with the thought of doing a 100-lap skateathon for a regular practice drill after hearing that a teammate of mine skated 30 km this summer outdoors.  My first thought was "Holy crap! That's crazy awesome!" and then I started to wonder how many km we actually cover in two hours of practice, and how we could probably use an extended skate drill to get skaters on our league to realize that 30 km is an achievable goal (and then we could ALL be crazy awesome).  We all know how to sprint for minimum 25 laps to do well in time trials, so why shouldn't we be able to skate 100 laps in 20 minutes at a normal skating pace?  Thus the 100 Laps -drill was born.  And I've since found out that many leagues have a habit of skating 60-70 laps just for warm-ups so hell, 100 laps is a piece of cake :) and it's a good building block towards being able to skate 30 km in one sitting.