LondonSkaters Speed Team - Speed Skating & Rollerblading Club in London

george · Joined: 08 Jan 2008 Posts: 612 Location: Les Marais, Paris

That was a really enjoyable social weekend!!

And some nice skating too.....

Thanks again Ed for organizing it all!! Very Happy

ed! · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 10:44 am Subject:

Ouch! That hurt Smile

The Eurostar lot (13 of us!) arrived early Saturday afternoon and had a 20ish minute walk from the train station to the expo. Dan and Alan had kindly sorted out the majority of our registrations earlier in the day, which made things so much easier for us (thank you!).
Lesson 1: If there is someone arriving earlier than you, ask them nicely if they can pick up your pack!

After sorting out registration and looking around the expo, we returned to the hotel (Prodomo and Hotel Arkadia hotel) to check in.
Lesson 2: If staying at the Prodomo, check if the transfer bus from the Koln Messe to Deutz-Mulheimer is running, as that makes things a lot easier!)

For dinner, some of us decided to head into the city centre for some dinner and then got an early night.
Lesson 3: Don't try and save money by taking the tram into town, just get the S Bahn - it's a long walk otherwise!

The forecast all week had suggested rain, but it was dry and relatively mild. However, waking up the next morning, it was rather wet outside, though the forecasts indicated it wouldn't rain anymore. So the usual umming and ahhing about whether Storm Surges should be dusted off soon ensued.
Lesson 4: If you're bringing multiple sets of wheels to cover various eventualities, then bring 1) brand new wheels, 2) scrubbed in dry wheels, 3) Storm Surges

We all met at the Messe hall to get changed and hand bags in. A few people had opted for the odd Storm Surge wheel/s on their skates, but no one went full on - I opted for scrubbed in Matter F2s.

We all headed to the start area and got into our race blocks. We had arrived with about 10mins to go before the scheduled start time, and the majority of people had arrived and taken position already.
Lesson 5: Leave earlier to ensure you're as close to the front as possible

The race was delayed by about 10mins, but we eventually got started. Given that I was pretty much at the back of the block, navigating through people was a nightmare, and proved extremely costly as it meant never catching the ones in front. Unlike Berlin, Cologne has very limited space at the start, so it's really difficult to catch anyone from the back.

I could see George ahead of me chasing the front pack, but resigned to the fact that I wasn't going to make any ground on him, so tried to make do with the people I had around me. I couldn't see Glenn, so had assumed he got a good start with the fast boys and was way ahead. About 1km in, I felt a tap on my shoulder and Errol beckoning me to follow him. I can't remember if I had caught Dan up at that stage, but eventually it was us three plus a handful of other skaters trying to catch up.

The next 38km was pretty much the same - Errol doing around 80% of the work, with the remaining 20% shared amongst 5 other skaters. I'm sorry to say that a lot of my skating was just trying to keep with the pace, and whilst I did pulls at the front, it was nowhere near the magnitude that Errol was churning out. I think that our group's only saving grace with keeping Errol in our line was that in the wet, he had no traction, but in the dry, he was absoultely flying.
Things that stuck out were:
- Getting within 500metres of George's pack, just before the u-turn
- Errol trying to skate with the Elite ladies (I don't blame him!)
- Getting to a junction whereby we thought we had to turn left, but in fact it was a roundabout and we had to go around it and straight on!
- Dan doing an exceedingly long turn at the front, but me being too far back and too tired to shout for him to rotate.
- The horrible headwind which lasted a significant amount of the race
- Losing Dan about 35km in
- Reaching the city centre for the second time and skating on the wrong side of the road and nearly taking a turn that wasn't needed!
- Losing the "pack" with 2km to go
- Arriving at the bridge with over a km to go, seeing Alan taking pictures and struggling to look like I was fresh as a daisy!
- Reaching the finish line and watching all the other LondonSkaters come in

Overall a good race with a good time given the conditions (wind and wet surfaces). George did extremely well to finish first out of the "UK" contingent. Errol did superb to to have all but single-handedly led our group to the finish in the time we did.
I believe that there is a huge well done in order for Hannah Wilkes (Birmingham Wheels skater), who under LSST colours, skated with Speedy Dave and Del Ritchie to break a British Record - I'll await confirmation from the "speedy" one.
And lastly, I think David (Scooby) pulled out the best performance to finish 10th overall out of the Fitness lot. Had he been 7 seconds faster, he would have been 4th!

The rest of the day was spent heading back to the hotel, then returning to the city centre for some food before heading for a relaxing train ride home.
Lessons 6-8 : Consider staying a hotel closer to the city centre (e.g. Ibis); if staying at the Prodomo, consider taking all luggage with you to the Messe; have lunch in the Market Hall in the train station

Roll on next season's racing!

george · Joined: 08 Jan 2008 Posts: 612 Location: Les Marais, Paris

I echo Ed's comments about getting to the start with plenty of time to spare. All five of us in the speed block were towards the back third/quarter of the block so we were quite disadvantaged on the fairly narrow starting road.

I spent the first 4km skating on my own working very hard in order to eventually join with some others and then built a line of up to 15 skaters that lasted for most of the race. I don't know how much difference the blasting the first 4km made to the rest of the race. Similar to Ed's situation I spent a good 15-20km working hard just to stay on the line and was always near the back portion of the line. In the last 3-5km the line "seemed" (it didn't!) to get slower and then I had to do some work at the front.

Seeing Errol's line come the other way just after the U-turn, thus realising that I was in front of him really inspired me and made me work really hard to make sure that his line wouldn't catch our one Very Happy

And it was great Alan spotting me on the bridge and cheering me to go hard on those last few hundred metres!

I was suprised that my own time was only 1:30 faster than Goodwood - given that I felt like I had a lot more energy left at Goodwood after the 42k mark and was doing the double Confused

, and where I had done a lot of work on the front of the line - but nevertheless was happy with a PB marathon time!

Really good fun! Very Happy

p.s. setup - 3x110mm brand new, one used 110mm Storm Surge on front wheel of each skate

dan_b · Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 2428

I got to the start about 20 minutes or more before kickoff and warmed up on a paved area to the left of the startblocks. The red block was empty of all but a few people at that time, but it's difficult to maintain a "this is our spot, go away" presence at the front when there's only one of you, so I didn't. Then everyone crowded into the block over the space of what seemed like about a minute while I was looking the other way. So, sorry for not getting you all front row seats.

At the start I was mostly concerned with staying upright, which I did. George passed me on the way down the bridge, Errol and Ed went past about 500m(?) later and I hopped on the back of them.

Echo Ed's comment about the pace, though he's obviously fitter than me as he held that line until nearly the end. I dropped off at what must have been around 30k, somewhere before the first U-turn, because of the combination of general fatigue and feeling (momentarily) slightly sick from trying to drink too much viper at once. After that, did a few stretches solo and a few with random skaters but didn't really pick up another line after that.

Surfaces were mostly OK but very slippery in a few places, but I'd go with the same choice of dry wheels again given that everyone else had made the same choice - no point being the only person who can skate fast in the wet bits if there's no line to skate fast with. The bigger problem for me, especially in the solo stretches, was the headwind, which was evil.

Fell at 40k, due to the combination of an obviously popular water stop (so, wet road) and a left-hand corner. Hit road with right shoulder, head, and left hand, but was able to get up immediately - if not especially cheerfully - and carry on to the end. 1:22ish was about the best I could have expected given conditions and given that I haven't done much skating this year.

Given that the only compelling reason to stay at the Pro Domo is proximity to the start, but that it's a good twenty minutes walk from the start anyway,
I think next year I'll stay in town instead. IIRC we've used the "Station Hostel" in previous years, it might be worth finding out if that still exists

dan_b · Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 2428

P.S. My "exceedingly long" turn on the front was the only turn I'd done on the front for something like 20km and was because I was feeling guilty for letting Ed cover all of Errol's non-working shifts. It may have been a factor in dropping off, or not, I don't know, but I wasn't exactly redlining it.

Speedy Dave · Joined: 07 Jun 2008 Posts: 251 Location: Derby

Speedy Dave · Joined: 07 Jun 2008 Posts: 251 Location: Derby

Vid with some of us in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOgW9BZa-cM

Speedy Dave · Joined: 07 Jun 2008 Posts: 251 Location: Derby

So hannah's new British record is:

19 4 F41918 » Wilkes, Hannah (GBR) 1992 WAkt Birmingham Wheels 01:39:29

Hmm exactly the same time as me Wink

Well done to her on her first, but not last foreign marathon.