Charlie Brown On Skates

This weekend was The Great Race in Elkhart, Indiana - a 10k criterium and 1/2 marathon. As always, I was looking forward to the race, especially since it was a new one for me, and I had never done a 10k crit.

Although I had been training fairly consistently in the week leading up the event, I did not get any skates in 8 days before the race, and that proved a huge, huge mistake. Sunday was the 10k, 10 laps around a 3 block oval. Unfortunately the pavement was not in good shape in many areas, so that didn’t help matters for anyone, but hey we all skate the same course.

It became apparent quite quickly as the early laps unfolded that I simply didn’t have it. I started off at a good clip but didn’t find a good pack, and skated solo mostly until a teammate jumped on for the last 4 laps. I had nothing and I finished back in the pack, feeling awful, having nothing in my legs. That was the 10k.

Monday morning was the 1/2 marathon. I had hoped that having the 10k the day before might wake me up, but alas, it was not to be. I dropped off the advanced pack by mile 3ish, along with another teammate. We skated together for some 6 miles before a long pull on a hill did me in - I told them to just go on. Skated the last part solo.

Again, the story was simply dead legs. And worse, I honestly felt like I forgot how to skate half the time. I was getting no hip/knee drive no matter how hard I tried, and finding my correct edges was impossible. There were parts that were enjoyable, thank goodness - especially the social aspect of the event and the team dinner, etc. so at least I had a pretty good time other than my results. Speaking of which:

Great Race 1/2 Marathon Results:

Time: 49:04.6
Pace: 3:44
Avg Speed: 16+ mph
Place: 32 out of 48 in the Pro/Open division

I had hoped for sub 45 minutes, but no way was that going to happen. In addition to just not having it, the course was challenging in that it had a couple tough hills and some really rough spots.

I’m not sure exactly what happened other than not skating enough, but I need to re-evaluate my training and figure out where I fell off track. Plus, I’m dead serious about dropping the rest of this extra weight. I have to be lugging a good extra 20 pounds around, and I can’t stand it anymore.