When the toilet paper in the porta-potty disintegrates in your hands because of the intense rain, mist & moisture in the air, you have a clue about what kind of inline marathon is just ahead!
Trying to psych me up, my friend Kaari says:
Ok, so it’s a marathon, it’s raining, just think of it like a 500 meter race, a whole bunch of them! Eighty-two 500 meter sprints in a row!
Friends are wonderful things, and when the weather is crummy, laughter is almost sunshine.
Weirdly, at the start line area, the road looks like it’s drying out, so in the socializing mass of gathered skaters, optimistic individuals remove their squishy/grippy rain wheels, and bring out hard road wheels.
During my extended warmup, a mile from the start area, I come across soaked roads, & I can smell rain coming across the hills. I stay with squishy wheels.
I’ve done much less cycling since the NAPA marathon, more skate dryland & plyometrics. I don’t feel that great, however the final 300m, steep uphill finish looks like a great place for a power-centric sprinter. So if I can just hang onto the pack, I should do well.
I have heard how the organization of this marathon is outstanding. It is, the volunteers & staff do an incredible job. It’s really nice how they separate out the categories, so each group has a clear start vs itself.
The 25 pro men do their stampede off the line, a minute later, the 42 pro master men line up.
Even with super studs Tony Muse & Eddy Matzger opting to go for the cash prize in pro instead of mere bragging rights in pro master, there are some very strong athletes here.
If this sport was worth betting on, my money would be on Niko Ramkisoon, Norm Kirby, Mike Anderson, or frankly, if it comes down to a bunch sprint, there are several true sprinters here, such as US Masters champ/record holder Jim Larson & myself.
The gun goes off, the pace is reasonable. I slot into line, and follow.
The course is a rolling out & back road, running along the bank of the Mississippi river. There are no true crushing climbs, but there are many long gradual upgrades that hurt at race pace.
Fairly quickly our pack motors through the flats & hits the rolling hills. A gentle mist starts pelting our face, then a spitting rain. The road is soaked, and I am very glad to have gone with grippy wheels.
Mike, Nikko, and a few others start hammering on the front. The pace is hard, in fact, for long periods of time, it becomes ludicrously hard for rainy pavement.
Gaps form & close, the pack worms across the road like a snake in spasmodic agony who has a firm destination in mind.
We will skate two loops of this out & back course, then turn up a final 300m steep finishing hill. At places you can see other packs & pacelines going past, I really like that.
(thanks to Kim Kraan for most of the pics you see here)
I quickly find this is not going to be my day, my breathing will not stay under control, all pre-race ambitions of placing top 5 are replaced by a dumb, determined suffering. I fix my eyes on Morgan William’s heels & skates, and hang on as best I can.
Morgan is smart & very experienced; with Nikko launching attack after attack off the front he smoothly & steadily bridges up & closes gaps as they open. He is an athlete who knows exactly what he can do, & does not overwork as he does it.
(he said later to me, he could hear me breathing hard over his shoulder, knew I was in trouble, and was hoping I would get it under control.)
The pack begins to spit out athletes one by one.
Eric Kraan has not had the best of times recently. He has been sick this whole week, the airlines lost his luggage, and now his front wheel gets kicked out from under him & he tumbles & slides across the slick road.
It is so wet that he slides a great distance, as if his fall was on ice, & he ends up with only a few scrapes from this extended asphalt kiss.
About 9 miles into the race, we masters are going so fast, that we CATCH THE PRO PACK
As the two pacelines draw alongside each other, there is a large amount of razzing & trash talking directed at the Pros from the Masters. I can’t recall exactly any of them specifically, but as the two groups merged into a 40+ strong peloton, maybe from hurt pride, the pros decide to get serious.
The accelerations become extremely violent, acceleration, coast, acceleration, coast, I’m a mess…
We hit a turnaround at the far end of the course, accelerating out of the corner, the pack crosses a timing mat that marks the halfway point.
Under pressure from this many skaters all at once the mat bunches, the edges roll up, then suddenly it’s like a flapping log in the road blocking the back half of the bunch.
Skaters leap over the mat, some make it, some catch toes & go sprawling face first across cheese grater texture asphalt. I see a skater in a red & black skinsuit practically wrapped in the mat & looking hurt.
National LT team stud Paul Dyrud raced today and I heard crashed out of the pros, I don’t know if that was him, but many people hit the deck.
I dodge around the mat & notice the speed is maximum again. The pack is a sea of flailing arms & thrashing bodies…
This is the crunch time. I get smashed in the face by a flailing hand, but it doesn’t feel like anything compared to how much the rest of me hurts.
I cling on, do the terminal yo-yo on the back of the group for another mile, and then am dropped.
Skating by myself, I have a front row seat as the race detonates ahead of me, a long line of splintered groups making race-breaking moves. But I am alone, furious.
The race disappears away from me, I see no one ahead or behind for almost a kilometer of open road..
I skate the next 7 miles of the race solo, & angry at myself, calves cramping in the cold like iron knives, pissed that I’ve come all this way out here & am skating like scumcrap.
This is a beautiful course & city, but all I see is my reflection in the water covered black asphalt underneath my feet, and the cacophony of a million negative thoughts in my head.
(if you’ve ever been there, you know the whirlpool downward illogic of the dropped)
With 6 miles to go I see the shattered remains of the pro race coming the other way. Steve Robillard has responded to a breakaway by Nikko, and looks ice-smooth on a solo breakaway with about a hundred meter lead on the pack. I see Mike Anderson in pain at the back of the front group.
Wow, tough race, even on my best day this bunch would have blown my doors off.
With about 4 miles to go, a large pack appears out of the rain behind me. I coast for a minute & try to stretch my cramping calves as they come roaring up alongside. I slot into the middle of the group.
I find my place line behind a strong skater with a lot of grey hair. I like their pace much better than anything else today. In my ‘screw-it-I-suck” mindset. I assume these 20 skaters are the lead group of the pro veteran pack.
Big stupid mistake! They are actually all pro-masters & a smattering of pros (but I don’t realize this until looking at the results later).
We motor across hills & onto the flats. Things get really intense leading into the final mile.
Far up ahead, Steve Robillard has held his solo breakaway all the way to the finish. (pic by tom)
After the race Steve tells me:
I just went, and thought “hip-hip-hip-hip-hip” & skated with smooth technique, and it was easy. Well, no, I worked really hard, but I was able to skate the final climb alone & just go up, and enjoy it.
I have never been able to do that before.
Here is Steve, in his moment of enjoying his win. Steve proves the theorem that nice guys DO finish first on some days. Here is a link to the final results for the pros.
Scattered groups of pros & pro masters sprint to the line. 4 Masters managed to stay with the final pack of 11 pros, and Nikko takes the win. Lots of quality skaters end up in chase packs in the rainy roads. The final climb is wet & slippery.
About 5 minutes later, the 15 skaters I am with thunder into the bottom of the finishing hill. (pic by tom)
I’ve recovered and feel better. A small part of my deluded mind thinks I should not “interfere” with the finish of the “pro vets”.
But when we make the final turn, sprinter instinct takes over. I’m in 3rd at the bottom of the hill. I turn on the long track power and pass into the lead immediately. About 75 meters from the line my calves start cramping again & two guys pass me; my effort is a weird mix of 100% and “screw this”.
Strangely enough, the other true “sprinter” that I know of in the pro-masters, Jim Larson, is the guy in the green right in front of me. I did not make the mental connection that this was him during the race.
Here is a link to the final results of the pro masters. I was completely surprised to see that I ended up roughly in the top 3rd, and even more surprised to find out I was sprinting with folks from my age group like Jim.
Shorty after the finish, here is a line of filthy & completely soaked skaters, from left to right, is Russian Evgeny Dubinchuk, Morgan Williams (who took an excellent 5th place!!), Myself, “Fast Eddie” Watcher, and Mike Andersen.
It was a good day for Canadians who artfully blend ice & inline, here is national team short tracker, Steve Robillard, and Veteran Men’s winner Randy Plett.
Randy skated world masters champs last year, and has been at many masters ice races over the past few years.
I will finish this with a thought that I have spoken of before; it’s good to be an allskater, and skate everything, ice & inline, sprints & marathons.
Talking with Minnesotan Tony Fiorillo, who won the advanced 40-44 category with an excellent time, we agreed that knowing how to skate on ice & relax at speed is a huge advantage, especially when water turns from frozen to liquid, and makes asphalt sick as ice.
It was quite slick at times out there, and this skater raced his event in a flack jacket can attest that armor is not a bad idea, but I prefer the armor of technique.
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Filed under: on the road
I am on my way to Germany for a meeting of the IMSSC, as I am the USA rep to that organization. Everyone talks about GROWING speedskating, this committee has been wildly successful at it. 
Marco skated Olympic trials in 1998, 2002, and 2006, and now owns his 
