Hi, Folks.
Understanding Time Trials (sorry this is long, but I think many people might be curious).

As most of you know, we hold Time Trials at some of our local competitions for the top skaters.  Following is a fairly comprehensive explanation, as best as I can do, of  Time Trials.

Time Trials during Local Competitions
Because of the very different way of skating in a Time Trial, Vs. a Pack Race, the skaters need a great deal of experience to master Time Trials.  Time Trials are pretty psychologically demanding, in ways that are quite different than pack racing.  Therefore, we hold "practice" Time Trials during some of our local competitions. 

Skaters may skate a Time Trials if they wish, but "only if they have made a commitment to travel to and compete in an upcoming U.S. Speedskating Championships where a Time Trial will be skated as part of the competition", and "Time Trials will only be allowed during meets held one month or less preceding the Team Trails".  (Note: due to the congested National competition schedule this year, the SCSSA Board decided to allow 5 weeks rather than one month).  Therefore, Time Trials will be held this Saturday for those skaters going to the U.S. Junior Short Track Championships in 2 weeks.  At the Thanksgiving Championships on November 13th, and the Santa Claus Open Championships on December 3rd, only those skaters entering the U.S. Championships (aka: the Olympic Trials) will be allowed a Time Trial.

Time Trials at U.S. Championships
When U.S. Speedskating holds a Championships that will select a World Team, a Junior World Team, or an Olympic Team, they need to narrow the field of entrants down to a workable number for the competition.  They do this by holding 1000 Meter Time Trials as the first event of the competition.  All skaters entering the Championships in the category for Team Selection must skate the Time Trial.  After the Time Trials are complete, the skaters are ranked by their time.  The top 16 skaters will then compete in the top group, usually called Group 1.  Skaters not making the top 16 are usually placed in 1 or 2 lower groups so that they can compete too, but not for the Team positions.  Note:  There is no group 2 at the U.S. Championships to select the Olympic Short Track Team.  Skaters not making the top 16 at that meet will then just watch.

The Time Trial
As many of you have seen, a Time Trial is skated 2 skaters at a time, on opposite sides of the rink.  Each skater is just skating for time, that is, they are skating against all of the skaters entered, not just the skater on the ice with them.  BTW: this "other" skater is referred to as their "pair".  Occasionally they will have to skate their Time Trial alone, due to an odd number of entrants.  This is not uncommon.  Also, as you will see on Saturday, since skaters must be matched as close as possible by speed, we sometimes have skaters skate alone here rather than paring them with someone faster or slower, so that there is no "lapping" during the 9 laps.  Since The pairs each take about 2 minutes, then the extra time is minimal.

Skating a Time Trial is very different than skating a race. 
There are no other skaters to help to help the skater judge his/her performance.  They really must totally ignore their "pair" since they are skating against the entire group of entrants, and not just this one other skater.  And, because they are not passing or being passed, they must skate a wider and more efficient track than if they were in a "pack race".  Because of these things, Time Trials are very demanding on the skaters.  They are pretty much totally alone, except for their coach.  Their only reference as to their performance during the 9 laps is their Coach, who yells out lap times and other key words, such as "Too fast", "Pick it up", "Smooth", etc.  The lap times tell the skater how fast they are skating, and they can then decide if they should skate a bit faster or a bit slower.  Kind of like looking at a speedometer.  They often have a "target" lap time that they are trying to maintain.  If they skate too fast early in the 9 laps, they will poop out and not finish with a good time.  And, of course, if they skate too slow, they will get a slow time. 

"Practice" Time Trials
Our practice Time Trials held during a local competition have a specific purpose, to make it seem as close as possible to the Time Trial they will experience in a few weeks.  Starting a Time Trial is a bit tricky, as the starter needs to watch both sides of the ice.  False starts are common, and nerves are often a bit edgy.  To make this Time Trial experience as close as possible to the "real thing", I, as a starter, try as best I can to make the skaters, especially the younger ones, as nervous as possible!  Why?  Because they will certainly be nervous at the U.S. Championships!  That is why you will see false starts when there was no false start.  It is done just to shake them up a little, and to help them train to recover from that and get their mind focused back as quickly.

Well, that's about it.  Sorry if this was a little long (I hope you got this far).  One other quick note:  The Time Trials in no way affect the results of our local meets.  In other words, there are no points earned in the Time Trials skated here.

Cheers!

Jerry