Charlie Brown On Skates

I’ve been training hard this summer hoping to reach my goal of breaking the 1:30 barrier this year as I had posted earlier. I’m happy to say I achieved that today at the Badger State Games.

It was a really fun and challenging race. BSG has no Open division, so I had to sign up for the Elite/Advanced Master 35 & over, so I assume my age group placement will be low, we’ll see when the results come in.

Edit: Results

1:23:34 (18.8 mph avg., 3:16 pace)
16th out of 20 in Elite Masters
51st out of 90 in Elite/Advanced

It looked like it might rain as the start approached, which would have been bad with my Am-Wing wheels, which are absolutely useless in the wet, but the rain held off. I’ve been very unsure of my starts lately, not really knowing exactly how to take off and who to be with, but I think I may have sorted some of that out today.

I think I took off a bit slow and a bit too far back. The early advanced pacelines where scattered and there was a lot of movement. As the first few miles fell behind us, various skaters were getting gapped and I had to make a few passes and jump lines here and there, but finally an advanced paceline of some 20-25 skaters sorted out and we began plugging away at the miles.

I was feeling decent, and in fact I was not being pressed by the pace. Ahead I could see my teammate Margo Carvell with a group of skaters about 2-300 feet away. I thought about stepping out and chasing them down but I didn’t want to blow myself up and ruin the race. That turned out to be a wise decision. A bit later I was at the pull and we had closed the gap to them considerably, now being some 50-100 feet away. I decided that was the time to catch them and upped the pace and pulled them in without too much effort.

The line settled in at the point with those skaters, and the pace did pick up a bit. We may have lost a couple skaters on that pull, I’m not sure. We hit a few smaller hills, nothing too horrible. When we reached the beginning of the turnaround loop, we hit a pretty sizeable and long hill which looked like trouble. I’m glad we do a lot of hill training at our Rainbo practices at the Sears Centre, because it pays off at times like that.

As we neared the top clearly there was a group of skaters behind that had gotten gapped and were falling off. I was literally at the end of my rope at the top and it was all I could do to make sure I caught the train down the other side. Luckily between the ride down (at a harrowing 30mph) and the stretch out there, I got just enough of a blow to continue on.

I swear I’ve perfected the art of hanging on for dear life for the duration of a whole race.

By this time, my back is really hurting, as it has been acting up the last couple weeks. I guess I’m kind of used to the pain and I was able to continue, taking a quick stand when I could to take the pressure off.

On the way out we had been skating into a strong headwind. The turnaround was like a 5 mile large loop, on some pretty rough roads where we had a crosswind. Then the way back we mostly had a tailwind, which was obviously nice.

At this point the pace is really challenging me. I was actually 3-4th in the line for a good long while, but hadn’t pulled since the hill. At some point I got smooshed out of the line and ended up grabbing on the back. It was one of those moments where I was not sure if I was going to be able to continue. And I tell you, there was nobody behind me, so it would have been bad news to fall off. I pushed myself to hang on and concentrate on my form and was able to stay there.

At about mile 18, a skater stepped in a hole or some bad spot and went down hard only a couple spots in front of me - and right in front of Margo. Most of the line shifted left to avoid him (and Margo did successfully) but I went right for whatever reason, and they guy rolled right in front of me. I had no choice but to jump him, and luckily I made the landing and didn’t hit the poor guy. Losing it there would have really sucked after making it that far too.

The rest of the way was pretty tough, with a couple of small hills thrown in for added stress! We came to the final quarter mile and the field spread out for a sprint, but my tank was empty. I picked up the pace slightly to stay at the back of the group but that was all I could muster. I followed Margo over the finish line for a time of 1:23:37 - a new personal best.

My GPS reported the distance .8 of a mile short at 25.4. Even adding another 2-3 minutes for the missing distance still puts me under my goal, so I’m happy about that.

My next goal is to continue to train consistently so I can continue to compete with these excellent skaters. I don’t think I can expect any more 8-10 minute improvements, but I can work on my form and my racing savvy to be better at where I am. I’m probably never going to be in those top packs but that’t okay, I can live with being competitive in the advanced packs and enjoying the challenge that brings.