Charlie Brown On Skates

The opening event of the 2008 season was the Squiggy Inline Classic 7 mile time trial and marathon. The event this year was run by Birgit and Jessica from the Skatelog Forum and they did a tremendous job running a classy and smooth event. The time trail was on Saturday, March 8th and the marathon on Sunday, March 9th.

Having been skating indoors for the last 4 months (and going crazy doing it) I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t feel like I was in sufficient shape to even complete a marathon. Chatting with Cale Carvell (Team Rainbo founder) about it, he noted “you’d be surprised what you can do.” His words would turn out to be prophetic.

I did absolutely zero skating the week leading up to the event due to a sore Achilles tendon from indoor practice. I was in and out of my chiropractor getting Active Release therapy for my arthritic back and neck as well (that’s a whole other story.) I did 30 minutes on the elliptical Thursday afternoon. That didn’t really instill much confidence in my chances.

Looking down the start of Squiggy’s 7-mile loop

The Time Trial

When we arrived at the Flatwoods course in Tampa, FL Saturday morning, we were greeted with temperatures in the 50’s and gusts of wind from 25-35 mph. I thought Florida was warm! And the wind was unreal, it would prove to be a real challenge for the time trial. The temperature did get up to the low 60’s, but the wind remained.

I’ve never skated a time trial before, but it’s not rocket science: skate 7 miles as fast as you can go, period. And no drafting of course. Warming up, the wind was just brutal and it was clear we were going to have to fight it the whole first half of the course.

Getting ready for the time trial

Skaters were deployed in 30-second intervals. My turn came up and I took off, and made the first turn headlong into the wind. Good Grief! (What I yelled out loud though was something a little different). By mile 2 I had a clear thought: “There’s no way I can skate a marathon tomorrow!” My back was already sore and I was not feeling like I was skating that well. When the wind would gust, it would knock 5 mph off your speed immediately. One time I slowed to take a drink and the wind gusted nearly stopping me cold.

At the first big turn at mile 3ish I got a reprieve. The crosswind was not bad and I was able to pick up some speed. At the last stretch of 2-3 miles was more crosswinds and some winds in the face again. I pushed as hard as I could to the finish. My final time was:

7-mile 2008 Squiggy Time Trial

Time: 26:03
Pace: 3:43.3/mile
Speed: 16.12 mph

You have to wonder how much the wind affected everybody. It was fun though, but I still wondered about doing the marathon and hoped I would not be sore in the morning.

The Marathon

I woke up in the morning feeling apathetic. Normally race morning I’m excited, but not this time. I figured that might change once I got there. Stepping outside, the temperature was a balmy… 37 degrees. What!? I came here to warm up for heaven sakes! I delayed leaving for as long as possible, when I got there, it was still 39. Cale tried to add some perspective: “Remember, this is 10 degrees warmer than Duluth last year!” This did not make us feel better.

Everyone got ready and skated around, trying to get warm. The sun was coming up so it was only a matter of time until things warmed up. There was a good crowd of 128 skaters (some doing a half marathon, most the full). The course is flat and smooth, but somewhat narrow (about the width of one lane of traffic). We had to skate up to the starting point, somewhere around mile 1.3, since it was a 7-mile loop and we were doing 4 laps to make the marathon.

Because I was still feeling unsure of what I was going to do, I made a crucial mistake. I failed to move up to a group of skaters that fit my abilities. That means at the start, I was behind the people I should have been with to form the paceline. Even though I was not sure about how I felt, I quickly realized I was with the wrong group of people and I was stuck in a slow bunched up mosh of skaters. Meanwhile the group I should have been with was skating away.

Noticing this, I picked up speed and began to try and get through the crowd I was stuck in. I was almost out, and picking up more speed when I saw a staggered opening leading out of this group. And that’s when I crashed. I tried to move through an opening and I still don’t exactly know what happened, but I tripped on someone’s skate and went down hard.

I hit on my right side, mainly my right shoulder and my head banged on the trail. Yes, this is why we wear helmets. I proceeded to slide for say 10 feet. Hello, road rash! But I am not really hurt. I’m angry.

Suddenly I feel like I have some purpose in the race. I’m up as fast or faster than I fell, and I took off to catch the original pack I had been trying to catch in the first place. A fall can really screw up a race, but I was not going to let it ruin my day. I wasn’t mad at whoever I tripped on, I was mad at myself for not being mentally prepared to race, and that was going to change.

This is why we wear a helmet!

I flew past the slow group (not falling this time) and I still had the paceline in sight, but I would have to chase them down - not exactly the thing you want to do at mile ONE of the race, but I had no choice. It took me about a mile to catch them, but catch them I did, and settled in to the back of the paceline. Two other Rainbo skaters were in the pack, Guy Taccona and John McClinn, who asked if I was okay, and I said I was.

It turns out to be a good paceline of experienced racers. There was a team of 3 guys who were doing most of the pulling, and they had some kind of plan for what they wanted to do, and the rest of us were mainly along for the ride, letting them dictate the action. It was a friendly pack, allowing guys who pulled back into the line and cooperating really well. Most of us took at least one turn pulling. I took a turn on lap 2 at mile 7 for about a mile or so, but again this team of guys did most of the leading throughout the race.

I don’t know what the percentages are for everyone, but skating a marathon is at the very least 50% mental. Your mind is continually telling you “we really should stop this!” for various reasons - burning in the thighs, out of breath, blisters on the foot, or in my case, arthritis in the back. It’s a constant battle of your mind telling you to stop and you telling it to shut up. As Cale lovingly reminds us: “Remember, embrace the pain!”

Each lap you’re convincing yourself you can go on, that you came here for a purpose. And here’s the odd thing, all the while this goes on, you’re having a total blast. Go figure.

This is my first race skating on my custom speed boots that I got in December. I have been training on them indoors for the past couple months. They are mostly broken in and feel good. I was also on a new set of Bont G4 wheels. Aside from my back pain, I was feeling pretty good. I was not physically struggling to keep up most of the time, and I was finding ways to get my rest - extending my glide phase, using double push when I could and even sculling while one of the slower guys took a pull.

At some point on lap 2, Guy called out that we seemed to be pacing around a finish in the 1:40s. I exclaimed that would be great - I couldn’t have conceived that 24 hours ago. My personal best to date was 1:48 at Duluth last year. Heck, I was hoping anything under two hours to be honest - I was feeling that unsure of myself.

I think we only lost one skater from the pack the whole time. We began lap 4, the final lap. At this point my left foot decided to take a nap. I’ve been struggling a bit with the left skate and as the race goes on, your feet tend to expand a bit due to the blood flow. The last lap was a constant struggle for me to keep that foot functioning by gliding on my right foot, sitting back more and wiggling my toes - anything I could do to circulate blood.

With four miles to go, our own John McClinn decides to break away. Guy suddenly follows, and hey why not, so do I. It turned out it was an ill-advised attack - too far out especially since John was dealing with some stomach issues - he couldn’t keep up his breakaway. Had we had a plan to have gone together and worked as a team, we may have been able to carry it off, but we lacked a plan. Fail to plan and all that.

Eventually we were all swallowed back into the pack. So with 2 miles to go, the positioning for the final sprint began. This is the first race where I will finish with a pack of experienced racers in a sprint to the finish. My goal was to hang on the back of the pack until we got within a mile, then to move up to the front in order to control when the sprint began and to get out of the way of flailing legs and arms.

Guys are bouncing up and down the paceline, and at just inside mile one I moved up to the front, and slowed down the pace from something like 17-18 mph to around 13-14 mph. Now we have guys in two shorter lines next to each other, and now everyone is waiting for the blast to the finish. I was waiting for the turn to show up which is something like 300 yards from the finish - a tough but doable sprint. The tension among the racers at this point as palpable - you could feel it in the air.

I’m not sure who was next to me, but he began to move, so I took off, and suddenly we’ve got an all out sprint of about 12 skaters for the finish. Due to the narrowness of the trail and people making moves all over, this can get dicey, so I wanted to stay in the lead. I stayed to the right of the train and gave it all I had. About halfway to the finish I was passed by one, then two skaters, but that was it. 100 yards away and my body is telling me it cannot go on! But what the hey, I embraced the pain. Guy was on my tail the whole time, and we finished in a nearly dead heat, I only finished ahead of him by less than 1-100th of a second.

But the amazing part to me was the time: 1:33:36. I almost thought it couldn’t be right at first. Not in my wildest dreams - especially the night before - did I think I could get that close to 1:30 in my first race of the season. In fact, 1:30 was my goal for this whole year, and I nearly hit it.

Somehow I was in better shape than I thought, and Cale was indeed right, I was surprised at what I could do. But a huge part of the equation was skating with a good, experienced paceline that worked well together. It shows you that even in a race that is individual, you have to count on your other teammates and even your competition to help you race your best race.

2008 Squiggy Marathon Results

Time: 1:33:36 (new personal best)
Pace: 3:34.4/mile
Speed: 16.79 mph
Place: 21st out of 52 in the open division, 19th out of 40 males, 6th of 7 males 40-49.

Chatting with the emcee

All in all a really fun weekend; I hope to be able to do it again next year.

You can see all my photos from the event here.