ice and pancakes

I'm back speedskating on a regular basis. I skate 3 or 4 times a week before work - lucky for me, Boulder Valley Ice, is like 3 minutes from my office and they have ice time every morning. A lot of times I have the whole sheet of ice to myself or if I have to share it's with one other person. But since there is no coach available I worry about developing bad habits as pristine technique is the key to becoming a good speedskater.

dilemma - should I get up stupid early on Sat morning?
Recently The Ice Ranch in Littleton has made available ice time on Saturday mornings and the local Denver group scrounged up a coach. BUT the ice time is 6(!)am. It's a 45-50minute drive from my house - so that means getting up @ 4:45am on a Saturday morning!?!?! ugh...

I haven't been motivated to go but the guy coordinating the sessions (Dave Hopp) has been making me feel guilty for not going. I've been on the fence.

pushed off the fence by the promise of pancakes
I read this restaurant review a year ago and remembered it - esp since the first sentence of the review goes like this..."There's almost nothing in the world I love as much as a plate of pancakes".

hmmm.....anyone that knows me knows that would grab my attention. But since it was in Littleton - the possibility of me driving down that way just to *try* them was slim. However, The Ice Ranch is 3 miles from Toast and would be on the way home after the ice session.

Since Dave Hopp guilted me into going to skate this morning - I figure a consolation prize would be trying the pancakes at Toast. (check out their pancake menu - interesting, eh?)

My friend, Marie, tried the pancake flight (a sampling of 4 types of pancakes) and I had eggs and "plain jane" pancakes. (figured I'd better get some protein with my sugar) They were good for sure - but not the best ever. Dana's pancakes are better than these - but they are a close 2nd of Dana's baby cakes. The food was tasty and the prices were reasonable.

no more sleeping late on Saturdays :(
The ice session was very good - the coaching is good and the drills and exercises we did were very helpful. I found out I was shifting my hips when doing the cross-over and this is *exactly* the kind of feedback I need to improve my skating and not develop bad habits. Sigh....since I won't be going to SLC this season - these Sat. morning ice sessions with coaching (for a mere $10 a pop) is definitely worthing getting up on Saturdays and the fact good pancakes await me after the work out is just "icing on the cake". ;)