LondonSkaters Speed Team - Speed Skating & Rollerblading Club in London

Rick · Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 11:44 pm Subject: Duisberg Marathon 2005

Online entry form seemd to only work with German bank accounts. My need to do it via post.

Etienne · Joined: 24 Feb 2004 Posts: 1546 Location: Central Paris

I guess that could be my first likelly marathon.....

From memory its a flat nice race, only two hills, when you go over the bridges on the rhein. Oh, the finish was special as it was on a running track. I could see some late beginners simply sticked on that surface....

Easy transport from the dusseldorf airport by train.

two youth hostel, one next to the start (was full) and on the other side of duisberg.

Ray · Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 12:53 pm Subject:

Hey Hans & Farhana - good luck in Duisberg!

Gav · Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:58 pm Subject:

may the force be with you girls

Natasha · Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 11:16 am Subject:

Just heard from Farhana - a really tough course, high standard of skaters, she's exhausted and wants to come home...

She also smashed her Dusseldorf time: 01:43:25. Hans finished in 1:23.

Waaahay!

Rick · Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 9:23 pm Subject:

Nice. May have cost Farhana a bit on the marathon rankings though. Results not published yet so I can't do the points just yet.

Farhana · Joined: 20 Sep 2004 Posts: 259 Location: Surrey

Thanks all. It was similar to Dusseldorf but with steeper bridges.
We were lucky enough to have a dry but windy marathon.
Great result.

Proper race report will be posted later. Time for another painkiller.

Results here:

http://results.frielingsdorf-datenservice.de/2005/duisburg/index.php

Platz AK Startnr. Name AK Verein Halb Netto
30 7715 X Brown, Hans (GBR) M20 LondonSkaters Speed Team 00:40:26 01:23:43
57 7714 X Brown, Farhana (GBR) W30 LondonSkaters Speed Team 00:51:20 01:43:25

150 7439 X Gordon, Andrew Yungé (GBR) M50 TAV Bad Duffys Bonn 00:46:26 01:34:44

Farhana · Joined: 20 Sep 2004 Posts: 259 Location: Surrey

Rick · Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:05 pm Subject:

Why? Because your position in Dusseldorf was amazing. Your points this time are 77.69. So your average ahs dropped by nearly five point. You're still on top of the pile though.

Hans scored 83.87 for this race so not quite enough to take second place from Gav as his other two scores bring him down. However, due to the rankings being a rolling average of the last three, Hans gets to discard his Hamburg result after the next marathon which might move him up quite a lot with another score similar to this one. Watch out Gav you could be #3 soon Twisted Evil

One file that seems to have disappeared in my disk crash was the ranking spreadsheet so I'll have to do it all again before I update the ranking sheet but since no positions have changed there is nothing to gett too stressed about. Incidentally, we won't get any published results for Goodwood so it is unlikely to count toward the rankings so the next one to aim for doing well in is the LIM.

Rick · Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:01 pm Subject:

Marathon rankings updated. Mighty tight for third place. The interesting thing from my point of view is that If Gav does another marathon he gets to discard his Karstadt score which was quite good and has to do another one to discard his Hamburg score. Hans has to do one to discard a poor Hamburg score.

Of course, when I write poor in regards to Gav and Hans, I am refering to what are actually fantastic scores that most of us (except Farhana) can only dream about.

Natasha · Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 12:04 am Subject:

Go Farhana, go Farhana! Oh, this is so your year, honey!

Farhana · Joined: 20 Sep 2004 Posts: 259 Location: Surrey

Woohooo

Who would've thought that one year of skating can produce such amazing results for me.

*FaB runs around looking for the thank you speech*

Hans · Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:01 am Subject:

RACE REPORT

Arrived on Saturday and went to the sports stadium to collect our race packs and meet with Andrew Gordon. Afterwards we headed off to an Italian place to get some rather tasty 'carbs'
On race day I was in Block 'A' and Farhana in 'B', which went off a minute apart. The course was mainly smooth with some very poor surfaces and a trip trough the cobbled centre of town, which caused a few stacks according to Farhana. I only saw one the whole race.

Farhana's race:
Standing at the start line being looked down at by the other 2 dozen women-skaters in block B (because I was the only one wearing Rec-skates) was very demoralising but that was the smallest of all hurdles I had to face throughout the race. The first 6km were tough enough to put me on a priority list for lung transplant. By 16km, I had moved up to the 'Heart & Lung' transplant list. I was trying so hard to stay with a paceline and I just couldn't keep up with any. They were all whizzing past me like I wasn't skating at all. After some sharp self-motivation and "mental slapping around" (don't ask), I put my head down found a paceline and proceeded to struggle to keep up with them. I kept losing them on uphills (however slight) and turns. I spent half the race falling back and then catching them up again, in the end I jumped onto a paceline, which I stuck with for the last 15km of the race. All the sprint training we did at Tatem catching pacelines paid off big time for me in this race. So thanks Gav, Hans and Fred for structuring some tough training sessions at Tatem. Can we have some more of the same please!!
I got my second wind at 31km and skated as fast as I humanly could to the finish inside the Stadium packed with cheering crowds. I am more than happy with my time given how tough I found the race.

Hans' race:
At the start and I was able to stick with the elite skaters for about 5km, when they started to "skate" and dropped me, I now know what the difference between cruising and skating is for these guys!!. I picked up the second pack and stayed with them till just before the half marathon marker. On a slight uphill climb onto the bridge after leading the line (yes, silly I know) for the last kilometre, my legs and body just ran out of energy. The second pack dropped me and another guy like a stone, it was at this point that I started to retch and throw up breakfast. I skated with this chap for a bit and made the decision to abandon my two person pace line and wait around for the 3rd pack about 500m behind which looked a lot larger. This turned out to be probably the only good decision I made as we overhauled him after about a kilometre. I tagged in the middle of the 3rd pack and stuck with them till the 40km marker when I made my break for the finish with another five skaters. The five of us that broke chopped and changed on that last 2km which was fun, I managed to take three of them on one of the turns inside the stadium which was great.