LondonSkaters Speed Team - Speed Skating & Rollerblading Club in London

roger · Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 531

Big thanks to Rick and everyone else who gave their time to make this year's LIM so good.

It seemed to work pretty well this year with the half and full marathons combined. It certainly felt quite busy out there for the first hour.

And thanks to Merten for heading up my paceline for so long.

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5913

And a big thank you tot the weather for not raining.

Don't want to think about next year for at least 3 months.

We'll have to wait until January to find out when the Euros are scheduled. The idea about waiting until after Le Mans doesn't seem to have got us many more entrants if any so maybe we can be a bit freer about choosing an earlier date.

Next year will almost certainly be at Hillingdon. Less facilities but the money we save on the track means we can spend more on the other aspects of organisation. It's also a 20 minute skate from my house so there will be a party there after and organisers can pack on Saturday and stay at mine over night so nobody has to get up as early as I did yesterday. I was still the first at the track. Shocked

Anyone who would like to contribute in any way to next year's organisation then we would like to hear from you as soon as possible. Of course it depends on the date but if you tell us in priciple that you would like to help if you can then we can contact you nearer the time.

In a similar vein my question about officials still stands. You may have noticed we were a bit short yesterday. Especially for the mini. That causes me some worries for the future of the sport in general in the UK. We may become required to produce our own officials in future for our events. I can give you some training. FISS can give you some more and the more we have the less everyone has to do. It's not difficult. Ray expressed a tentative interest yesterday to possibly do some on days when he is not racing.

Lastly, wasn't nice to see UK skaters winning a UK race when we had some good overseas competition turn up to play! Very proud that we are producing people of high quality well done to everyone. Very Happy

Glenn · Joined: 05 Feb 2005 Posts: 1109 Location: ST Pauls

Fantastic effort on the organisations side to Rick and co. Congrats to Hans as the new British champion and to all those LSST guys and girls who did so well on the day. In fact, congrats to everybody who competed and finished.

On a personal note, it was easily one of the most painful days of my life, getting cramps about 13 laps in - but managed to at least finish. Still really enjoyed the day though.

G

Caroline · Joined: 07 Jan 2006 Posts: 74

Any chance of a kind a chart with names, times, ranking etc?

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5913

It's coming just rounding off the details with RaceAhead. I think it's pretty well proofed now and will stick it on my webspace as a single spread sheet. Etienne will be posting split results up on the LIM site soon.

sol · Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 10:22 am Subject:

Rick, pencil me in for helping next year. Although unlike this year I am planning to race but can do stuff beforehand or for the Minis.

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5913

If we're not part of a British Champ series next year then I'm not sure there will be a mini race we only had a few people in it and all but 3 of them were there because it was the champs. It's doing stuff on the Friday and Saturday that we really need the extra help. We had a mad panic at Nat's on Saturday. I won't be doing that and a street skate next year. Also the stuff is likely to be at my place next year so we can have a BBQ or curry after to relax

sol · Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 10:40 am Subject:

I'm not very far from you as you know Rick so can share storing/accommodating/lugging about/whatever

Mikey-two-Names · Joined: 24 Feb 2004 Posts: 4106

Wow, that's great, well done all the skaters and respect to you organisers!

I had a nice Sunday off, an hours sleep in the morning and another 3.5 hours sleep yesterday afternoon.

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5913

What you may be been waiting for
http://www.beachbum.free-online.co.uk/Files/LIM2006/

Xia · Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 874 Location: Geneva (Suisse)

A big thanks and hug to everyone who helped cretae the LIM you have done a fantastic work and the results where first class.

Everyone I talked to enjoyed the event.

On a personal note, I finally managed to break the 2 hour at the LIM yay!

Alan · Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 642 Location: Hackney, London

Yes, thanks to you all for oganising and arranging all those big and little details, which make the day go so well.
The LIM always feels like a big family event to me, with lots of guests. Ive always enjoyed the day (if not always the race), and this year I did enjoy the race and finally managed to finish!
Thanks

dan_b · Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 2428

Yup, thanks very much to all the organisers and volunteers.

Was really not looking forward to this race, but once I was on the track and had had the wake-up experience of a superman slide at the bottom of the downhill (clipped my skate with someone; don't know who; these things happen [*]) I developed a bit more of an attitude, then when the lead line came around at lap 10 or so I hopped on the back of it and had tremendous fun for pretty much the rest of the race. It was nice to be able to learn from a competitive paceline at close quarters, but secure in the knowledge that as I posed no threat then nobody was going to make me fight for my place ;-)

I lost the lead pack again when people took off somewhere shortly before its last lap, on the grounds that it wasn't worth killing myself when I had another lap to do anyway. Then finished on my own.

[*] unless it was the same person as tried earlier to join the paceline by pulling backwards on my skinsuit pocket, which I didn't appreciate very much

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5913

It got you up quite a few places too. You just overtook the guy in white near the end who was doing really well to start off with. You beat him by 9 seconds despite him having 2'41" on you after 11 laps. This is the advantage of a laps race over a point to point. If you lose someone in a point to point you are unlikely to ever see them again. In a race like this, if you are able to latch on to faster skaters who are a lap or so ahead, you can eat the time back. Of course you do need to be able to keep up with them.

Christophe · Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 1650

It was a really great idea to have both the semi and the full marathon together, from a spectator's point of view... Embarassed

Maybe if next year's at Hillingdon (or some other flat-ish course) I'll try to get motivated to skate it. Cos I'm lazy like that! lol

Well done to all the skaters and helpers/organisers too!!!

I've just noticed that nobody's uploaded any pictures yet. Go on who's gonna be the first one there? pretty pls