It was only a small hill, perfect for a warm-up sprint. The sensation from my legs was not snap or power, it was more like pins & needles mixed with muddy cement.
Uh-oh….
I have not recovered well from last weeks marathon, none of the SLC crowd who raced it have, and the one hard day I did this week was quite difficult (a pile of 4 minute intervals at “extra-ouch” speed, A.M. on skates, P.M. cycling hill stomps).
It’s 6:35am, already 80 degrees!?!!? what am I doing?
Today marks the 4th time Kim & Eric Kraan have put on a 5k inline race as part of the Draper Days celebration, & this year they have found some prize money for the top 3 men & women!
Arriving at the group of skaters gathering for the start, I see many of the Salt Lake usual suspects, including 3 talented faces from the ice world.
National Allaround team member John Loquai has shown up (I urged him to race this at the Bees game), and 2 good fellows I trained with last year, Michael Stein & James “Clay” Cholewinski.
Mike & Clay grew up as top inline speedskaters, and transferred over to ice a few years ago, I’ve never inlined with them, but on the ice Clay beat me in the 500m many times last year, and all 3 of these guys skate 1000m & 1500m times that I can only dream of.
A whole different challenge than last week!
24 men and 9 women are all listening intently to Kim’s last minute race instructions.
About a minute before the start, lined up curb to curb and waiting, a whole posse of cyclists wiggles through our pack. The roads are closed for this race, this is obviously about to start, but they ride right through.
Quite a few of us say something; I yell out to them:
“hey, be careful, we are going to be absolutely flying past you in a few moments!”
One of the cyclists looks over his shoulder, and snottily says:
“oh, don’t worry, you won’t catch us!”
Yeah…. right…
This point to point race feels “downhill” most of the way, even though it does not lose much elevation by the finish. There is a strong cross-tailwind blowing; I make a mental note of the direction as it relates to the finishing straightaway & the tactical implications.
A minute later, the gun goes off & the stampede begins.
After 50 meters, Uel Archeuletta does the same thing he did last year, and charges hard into the lead.
He gets about 30 meters ahead & Mike Stein takes up the pursuit. I slot in behind Mike and the whole pack is roaring on our heels through the fast downhill.
Uel is quickly up to top speed, and ripping through the course at over 40+mph (verified by Brian Oswald’s GPS).
We pass the cyclists just before the first hard right hand turn. Tucking like skiers we whip past them & lean hard using every inch of asphalt.
The speed is crazy fast. Mike has pulled back Uel. We hit another warp speed turn and for a split-second Mike stumbles slightly & I am too close & too fast to avoid if he goes down.
But he saves it like a pro, passes Uel and starts pushing hard as the road levels out.
About 2k in, and I feel like I’m not really skating hard yet. This is good.
Mike pulls, then I take my own turn on the front, arcing a rather conservative line through a fast right hand turn, snapping right hand crossovers through the exit to make those behind me work a bit harder. Reminding myself of how I feel, I quickly pull off after about 30 seconds of pulling
A good thing, because John Loquai takes over, The road is a long “false flat” & and John pushes it hard.
As a sprinter, it’s a very subtle part of tactics to intentionally “lose” spots in the line, sliding backwards from the front, before you actually get to the front. Skipping your turn to pull yet remaining close to the head of affairs.
It’s easier to do in a swarming peloton of cyclists than a long line of skaters.
However I feel crusty enough, & remembering Eric Kraan’s comment from my Napa post, I slide back & skip my turn without much guilt. I’m breathing hard, but not outrageously so.
I glace backwards to see who is left, in a split second I see
Inacio’s Afro wildly flying from the edges of his & gold/silver helmet-
Stephanie Combs is there –white teeth clenched & focus on her game face,
a person I don’t recognize (Brian Oswald, who raced the Montreal 24-hour race last weekend)
& then Clay at the back, I grimly take note of the effort etched into his sandy hair & blue eyes.
The lead changes a few times, still fast. We are maybe 3.5 K into the race. John stands up & pulls off, Uel does not pull through (he has done a lot by now), and the whole group coasts for maybe 30 seconds, drifting across the yellow line & into the opposite lane. No one wants to lead.
Finally John picks it up again, Uel is on him, they are shoulder to shoulder accelerating into the final turn, then it’s a 1000m straight shot to the finish.
I’m following those two close like white on rice, I feel Clay & Mike on me equally fast. We are coming into the final left turn.
Clay is looking past us, he doesn’t know if the final turn is left or right, he sees a traffic cop gesturing & leans to the right at exactly the moment the three of us lean hard left & John punches the warp speed button. Clay accidentally curves way out of the pack & out of contention.
John skated the long track world cups this past season, he is a frighteningly strong & determined athlete, no matter if it’s wheels or ice-
his effort drops the tired Uel, and gaps me by 15 meters. now! Now!! NOW!!!
I’m ripping with everything I’ve got, I claw back up to him meter by meter. I slot back into his draft & take stock. A quick glance behind us & we have a solid gap, I hazily see a reddish skinsuit chasing hard (Mike Stein) but it’s just us two & 700 meters till the finish.
John knows I’m there. He keeps the speed impressively fast, probably 27+mph in the strong cross-tailwind.
He knows he’s got to crack me before the line.
I hang in, wait, wait, wait.. hmmm, John’s got a good double push for an ice guy.
These hypnotic feet flashing in front of me, the white team Rollerblade skinsuit & full kit…. Focus… wait….. wait… .
Suddenly there is the finish chute ahead!!! last year there was a huge banner saying “FINISH”!! I can’t see where the line is!!
I’ve left it too late!! I pull out of John’s draft and start sprinting; trying to stay relaxed as I dump everything I’ve got through 8 tiny spots of urethane gripping the asphalt.
How many years have I practiced? To be able to do this one thing?
Amazingly John lifts his speed again, for four or five steps we are shoulder to shoulder, then suddenly he cracks (he’s human after all!), and I reach the finish line about 6 meters ahead.
5k in 7:20:85, John only .84 behind me.
That’s an average speed of 25.4 mph for 3.1 miles, (calculated here) & over 21 seconds faster than my 5k PB on ice!
It’s oddly appropriate that in the finish line photo, I’m a blur, as my own vision was so blurry from speed & effort, I never saw the actual line itself.
You can see the results, in the middle of this long web page
Last year when I finished first, it was a joy-explosion through lactic fireworks. Last year truly hurt, & the resulting emotion was extremely powerful. This year I’m 13 pounds lighter than I was 12 months ago, far areobically fitter, and oddly feel more satisfaction writing now than I did at the focused moment.
Slowing down & looking at John, heaving & with his arms on his knees (he gave himself a nice case of the 1500m cough/hack from his effort). We shakily high-five & start talking tactics as other skaters hurtle through the finish chute in a blaze of speed.
I apologize to John for playing sprinter games, he says we both had to do what we did, race our strengths, & he did drop every other sprinter except me!
Here are a few smiling faces immediately post-race, from Left to Right, Paul Narhwold, Mike Stein, Stephanie Combs, James “Clay” Cholewinski, Steve Johnson.
After about half the skaters have finished, someone comes rushing up to me and says:
“hey! those stupid cyclists caused a whole bunch of us to crash in that first, fast corner, one of them did something stupid, and Uel jr. swerved, hit a traffic cone & crashed. He is on his way to the hospital.”
Jessica is skating her first 5k today! She is still on the course!!
I hover anxiously near the finish cute till I see her gliding in with a smile on her face.
Steve Johnson and Alejandra Mates display the results of the asphalt kiss. Both raced fast even with a crash; Alejandra popped back up to take 2nd in the womens race!
The fact that both were still smiling is probably due to a combination of great attitude, endorphins, & general post race bliss.
On the left is Inacio Lopez of the aforementioned fearless ‘fro, & Uel Sr, about to leave & see how his son is (a split lip & lots of road rash).
To finish this post, I want to thank Eric and Kim Kraan from SkateNow for putting the race on. Talking afterwards with Eric, he says:
Yaknow, putting on a race is like playing Jazz, it looks doable, but it’s only when you try playing you fully realize how hard it is to do; and how much respect Jazz musicians deserve.
It’s also pretty obscure & thankless too!
Here is the line of winners, all with checks in their hands! A huge thanks to Mark Western at Access Mortgage!
from left to right we have:
Alejandra Mates
Stephani Combs
Brittney Heise
Mike Stein (impersonated here by Paul Narhwold, as Mike & Clay left to go ride their bikes up a mountain with their training group)
John Loquai
& Yours truly (sporting some serious helmet-head).
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Filed under: from home
When she has swum as far as she felt like, she joined me in the canoe & we stared paddling back to our start point. 
Here is one of my favorite pictures of us, 6 years ago this weekend, my father took this during the ceremony rehearsal. We were doing an overly dramatic end-of-ceremony kiss. 
