Home club skater Kristofer Ogren with pairs partner, Ainsley Peterson, of All Year FSC, preparing for the 2016 Prudential U.S. Figure Skating Championships held in Saint Paul, MN from January 15, 2016 - January 24, 2016.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Just getting settled down from our free skate this evening! We had a really nice program tonight. Some mistakes on the twist and a minor one on the lift, but a good long in general. We moved up overall to 8th, but we were 6th in the free skate and 4th technical in the free skate. It's been a great experience in Saint Paul, I'm honored to represent the Kansas City Figure Skating club here, and I look forward to start preparations for next season next week!

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Short program is done! Not quite what we wanted, but not a bad performance. We're currently in 9th with a score of 31.62. Tonight we're staying up late so the free skate tomorrow night doesn't feel too late. We drew 4th for the free skate which starts at 9:30 PM.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Hello from Saint Paul!

We arrived yesterday at Minneapolis- Saint Paul International Airport after an uneventful flight from Denver. After my mother picked us up, we checked into the hotel, and then spent about fifty minutes doing program walk-throughs, jogging, lifting, and stretching.

Today was our first official practice day. We left the hotel at 11:10. Or we were supposed to. For some reason the shuttle didn't show up, so Dalilah, Drew, Ainsley, and I took a taxi. Our session didn't start until 12:30, but we got there early so we could get a lay of the land.

There is a padded warm up area with stationary bikes, a medical room with primary care, sports medicine, chiropractors, massage therapists, and physical therapists. The locker room is super nice with individual chairs, hooks, and cubbies. There is also a media room where they hold press conferences and draws.

Our practice was solid today. We started off just taking a slow lap to get into our knees and then warmed up for full short with music. We skated third and it was a pretty good run through. After our short, we made a couple of corrections and then moved onto long elements and knocked all of them out. We were on the first session, so afterwards we go our skates off and stretched for a while and then chilled out until draw after the third practice group. We drew second for the short program which starts at 1:10 tomorrow afternoon.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Happy New Year!

It's been a super busy holiday season for all of us here in Colorado. I had a great week after Sectionals when I got to come home and spend Thanksgiving with my family, catch up with friends, and chill out before going back to work in the Springs. I also got to come back for a very brief trip to celebrate Christmas with my family. My flight got delayed on my Sunday night return, so I didn't get back until almost 4:00 am. Needless to say, that made for a very tough training day, where we were on the ice for three sessions (thank you Dalilah for letting me take my first session off though), including a full short program in the morning, long program sections in the afternoon, and a workout at the gym.   

Our training has been very challenging since Mids.  We've run a program at least once a day, most days more than one run-through, and some days both SP and FS. When we miss an element, we have to take a hard lap after the program and then immediately correct it by re-doing the element, or sometimes entire sections. Occasionally we have to skate clean. Clean means getting all the planned levels and decent GOE on all your elements and no falls. You also have to have good program components. So if we miss an element, we have to finish the program and then immediately start over and run it again until it is clean.

As we finish our last few days of practice before we leave on Friday, the hard work doesn't stop. We run programs every day with the same expectations I stated above. I did my last workout at the gym Monday evening and work at my other job Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Friday we will have a light session on the ice and then Ainsley, her mother, and I head for the airport to fly to St. Paul, MN where my family will pick us up.

I've got my laundry done, my room cleaned, and my care cleaned out! Now to packing!

Friday, November 20, 2015

This morning started like any other, albeit several hours earlier than usual. I ate my normal breakfast of oatmeal and scrambled eggs and got to the rink at 6:30 am. We warmed up in the same manner that we did for our 20 minute warm up yesterday. After the official warmup ice we rested for about 20 minutes and then had to prepare for our 6 minute warm up, which went well. Afterwards we waited in the tunnel listening to music and keeping loose. While we waited for the scores to be announced for the previous team Drew told us to take a hard lap to get our heart rates up and our knees warm because we had been waiting for a little while. I'd love to tell you about the awesome pre-competition pep talk Drew gave us as he held our hands and made us focus, but I don't remember it.  We skated pretty well. A few mistakes, but no falls. We finished 2nd in the Free Skate and 2nd overall. We shattered our personal best by more than 16 points! We are so excited to go to the 2016 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Saint Paul, and I look forward to representing the Kansas City Figure Skating Club there. Time to take a short rest and get back to work! Watch out Kansas City, I'm coming home!

Thursday, 11/19/2015

Just getting finished with our day! I started off after breakfast with a walk to warm up my body, relaxed for a while, had lunch, and got to the rink by 2:00. 

Our 20 minute warm-up was at 3:00, so we had a thorough warm up, then walked through our program off ice, and did lifts. We got on the ice and stroked, jumped, did a couple throw sals, single and double twist, lift, death spiral, and pair spin. We felt very comfortable and confident.

After the 20 minute, we rested for a while and then did a light warm up and a couple of lifts. We both listened to music in the tunnel while we waited for the 6 minute warm up. After the warmup, we kept ourselves warm and talked to Drew about key points in the program.

We skated pretty clean, and ended up in first after short. Afterwards Drew asked us how we felt while we were skating, Ainsley said "confident" and my answer was "in the moment". But as both Dalilah and John (Coughlin) said to me, "You get 30 seconds to celebrate, and then you move on to the long."  Going to the Official Free Skate Practice after a quick dinner really helped with that. During practice we ran small sections of our program and did the elements by themselves. Now we're at our hotels and I need to eat dinner and go to bed so I can get up at 5:30 for the free skate tomorrow. We drew 7th, so we will skate last.

Monday, 11/17/2015

Sunday, 11/16/2015

Tuesday, 11/3/2015

We're excited about competing at the Midwestern Sectional Championships in a couple weeks! We've been progressively ramping up training to make sure we're in top shape by the time the competition comes around.

Last week we alternated Short Program and Free Skate run throughs everyday. Monday, Wednesday, Friday were full short and Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday were full long.

Tuesday, 10/20/2015

Hi everyone!

As most of you probably already know, I moved to Colorado Springs in May to train under Dalilah Sappenfield at the Broadmoor World Arena Ice Hall. Kansas City FSC has asked me to start blogging my experiences here so you can get an idea of what it's like to train in a large training center!

A typical day for me looks like this:

I wake up anywhere between 8:00 am and 8:30 am, I get ready, eat breakfast, etc., and get to the rink for warm up between 9:00 am and 9:15 am. I skate the 9:45 am session for singles where I work on the jumps, spins, and footwork in our programs, as well as other jumps and edge exercises. After the 9:45 am, I get a two hour break where I go home and do domestic things like laundry, cooking, and running errands. My pairs partner, Ainsley, doesn't get out of school until after 12:00 pm, so I'm back at the rink at 12:40 pm to warm up for our 1:00 pm off-ice lifts session. After that, we get skates on for the 1:25 pm, 2:15 pm, and 3:00 pm pairs sessions. I then have a 4:00 pm workout on workout days. I get done with that around 5:00 pm-5:20 pm and then I can go home and eat dinner. On the days I work, I go directly from the rink to work (Ruby Tuesday) and get home between 10:30 pm and 11:30 pm.

The summer schedule was about the same amount of work, but it was more spread out because Ainsley didn't have school. During the summer I was at the rink from 8:30 – 2:30 and then had workouts at 4:00 pm.

So that's my basic schedule, I'll be more specific from now on about what goes into our training and the variances of how we work.