An update… the saga continues. After getting the right blade adjusted a few different times by my regular guy with no real success, I finally did what my coach suggested and went to see her guy today. What a difference! He spent an hour and a half with me and tweaked all sorts of things. Here's a rundown:
1. The blades were unevenly sharpened (one edge higher than the other), so he resharpened and fixed that. Also showed me how smooth the final sharpening was compared to my old sharpening. (I know, it's obligatory for skate techs to criticize other tech's work…)
2. He asked if I had trouble stopping right after a sharpening; I said yes, I needed an hour or so to dull it down before I could stop comfortably. He said that means the ROH is too deep for me and changed it from ½" (though he said it actually measured 9/16" instead of the ½" I was told I had) to ⅝". Fresh sharpening, and I could stop on it immediately with no problem of the blade digging in too much. Nice! And no problems doing just basic stroking and one foot glides. Curious to see how other stuff goes.
3. He asked how much space I had for my toes, decided it was too much (room to clench the toes leads to problems down the line), and added a 3 mm foam insole under my Superfeet. Definitely a snug fit, but still comfortable (so far).
4. He set the blades, then sent me out on the ice to try it out. Made several adjustments until we hit the "good enough for now" stage (and got chased off by the Zamboni). He then put a couple of permanent screws in place.
5. My right foot leans in sometimes, but it may be more than that- we noticed that my knee rotates in, too. Not sure what to do about that. He put a small wedge under my insole on the right heel but I wasn't able to test that out yet.
6. Based on the wear on the upper part of the boot, he thinks it was actually pulling to the outside, and I was unconsciously leaning to the inside to fix it, and overcompensating. I thought the blade was pulling me to the inside. Hopefully the new blade setting can help.
7. He gave me homework- fix my twisted laces. (This was on my to-do list already.)
The plan: Test the skates out tomorrow and Monday, and at my lesson Wednesday so my coach can check things out. Return if necessary. Even if he didn't get it completely right on this first pass, his attention to detail was amazing. I'm sold. This was totally worth $60 (plus $20 for the sharpening). I'm really going to have nothing to blame but myself for my lousy skating now.