Charlie Brown On Skates

As I get ready for the 2008 outdoor season, I wanted to revisit my first inline marathon and flesh out the story a little. Cor over at Road Rash Chronicles (’Marathon Apprehension’) had some questions on doing one’s first marathon. I’ll attempt to answer those questions and gain some insight into what I hope to accomplish this year.

Expectations and Hopes

I really wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I had been training hard with Team Rainbo and getting good advice. I had learned to skate in a paceline and done some fairly tough practices. However the longest solo skate I had done to that date was 19 miles. I was concerned about that extra 7 miles.

The overwhelming response I got from teammates was I was ready - 19 miles wasn’t much difference from 26.2. I didn’t know what to think, but I knew I didn’t want to skate another 10 mile race, that would be boring. I wanted to do the marathon. I expected it to be difficult and that I would have some struggles. I had no idea what the pack dynamics would be like - would it be the same as practice?

I hoped to be able to finish the race, of course. I was pretty sure I could - but how long would it take? My goal was to finish under the 2 hour mark. While that wouldn’t make or break the race as a success for me, it was something I hoped to do.

The Race

Then came the rain. After all the expectations and the excitement, it’s literally pouring like a monsoon. I admit I was a little freaked out. I was very much concerned about skating on wet pavement. At the expo, I purchased a set of Storm Surge wheels - special wheels for wet skating - on the advice of a teammate. That proved to be a wise decision. Although it stopped raining the night before the race, the rain began to fall right when the open categories began the race.

I was advised to keep my legs under me and not push out too far, and with that and the rain wheels, I was able to skate pretty much normally. So the race was on. I was a little nervous when it started, I wasn’t sure how fast or slow to go or who to latch onto or what. There weren’t any teammates in my wave so I didn’t have anyone to lean on.

But it was apparent right away the wave I was in was too slow. I skated a fairly decent pace and quickly caught on to an advanced men’s paceline which pulled me out of the slower pack. However, I could not stay on and dropped. That was okay though, it got me going at a fairly solid pace. For the next 6-7 miles I had to skate solo. Not ideal obviously, but I had little choice. I was basically in a mash of solo skaters, behind the advanced packs and not able to catch them.

However, my luck changed when I caught up to a real good paceline of some local guys. I was able to really pick up the pace and we moved at a good clip for the rest of lap one and into lap two. I think I skated with them for about 8 miles, but it was becoming too much for me to hang on. As much as I hated to, I had to drop off or I feared I would not finish the race. Luckily, we passed a longer, slower paceline and I jumped on.

Here I am skating in the rain and looking like the Stay-Puft man in a blue and white suit. Check out that dorky helmet!

Skated with that group around the mid-point turn, but lost them on the second hill of the return of lap two. I miscalculated the effort needed for both hills, and I overdid it on the first hill. I was just dead going up the second hill and away the paceline went. What I should have done was stayed in the back of that paceline and used it to my advantage.

In any event, I was able to catch on to another small group of 3 guys and ride out the race with them. I’d say for the last 3 miles I skated with them to the finish. At that point I was very tired - and the hill at the end was a killer. But the feeling of finishing was great.

Team Rainbo did very well, placing 2nd, 4th, 8th, 14th, 15th and 26th in Pro Men’s veteran, 1st in Pro Women veteran, 3rd in Advanced Men, 8th in Advanced women and 4th in Pro Men.

My Results:

Time: 1:52:16.44 (half-marathon time 55:37.47)
Pace: 14.0 MPH
Overall Place: 173rd out of 630 OPEN finishers
Gender Overall Place: 146th out of 368 OPEN Male finishers

Lessons Learned

It’s difficult in your first race, since you have nothing to go on, but you want to do your best to be placed with skaters of your skill level. I was too far back in this race which meant I had trouble finding pacelines. In the first case, I chose one that was clearly too fast for me. The last thing you want to do is overdo it early and then kill yourself the rest of the race. Luckily I dropped off soon enough to avoid that.

Avoid skating solo if possible. It’s about 20% more effort to skate solo than with a pack. If you do have to skate solo, do your best to find a pack as soon as possible. Unless that pack is way too slow or too fast, stay there until you find something more suitable. That means keeping your eyes open and paying attention to what is going on around you.

Pay attention to what is happening around you. At any moment a suitable paceline could appear from behind you, or someone could fall in front of you. Enjoy the race, but stay focused on what is going on.

Do some long skates before the race, so you have an idea of what the effort will be like. I would suggest at least doing 20 miles once. If you can, it would be good to do 26 miles on your own before the race. If you are part of a team, get some good advice on how to properly train. If not, here are some guides to marathon training.

Most importantly, have fun. Most of the time I felt like I had a smile on my face a mile wide. Especially when we were flying along in a good paceline. There’s just something about pulling as a group to hit that 26 miles that is really exhilarating, even though they may not be your teammates (you may not even have a team). Don’t stress yourself if you find yourself skating solo, just do your best. In the end finishing the race is its own reward.