LondonSkaters Speed Team - Speed Skating & Rollerblading Club in London

dan_b · Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 2428

A short race report:

Before the start: felt awful. Something I ate the day before had obviously disagreed with me: the details are not fit for a family forum, but suffice to say that my pre-race breakfast was Viper and Imodium.

With that in mind, I had a surprisingly pleasant race. Without James to drag the front line around, and with Sparky and Ed both doing the dual and therefore taking the long-term view, the speed was comfortable and there was only one noteworthy attack, where Michael and Sebastien (French guy in a lourdes roller/macdonalds skinsuit) took off, Errol chased them down, and Ed chased Errol - the whole pack reforming at about the same time. But other than that, pretty civilised, and we went on in a fairly surprise-free pattern until the last lap.

(The track marshals looked a bit ineffective for the first few laps, but once the traffic had spread out a bit most of the slower skaters had learned to stick to the inner two thirds of the track, and I think the marshals were using radios to co-ordinate when fast lines were coming through - definitely overall much less like a dodgem race than last year despite the additional number of skaters)

On the last lap: I underestimated Sebastien. I thought he was looking weak when in fact he was looking lazy (or efficient, if you prefer), and that starting a bit of an attack would weed him out of the line. So I went off in the section between the chicane and the turn into the wind hoping to split the pack, and when I looked round I found that the pack had split into two groups: (1) me, (2) everybody else. Bother. Having done the windward straight solo I then slowed down to wait, and Sebastien was the first to arrive. Grinning. Double bother. Oh well. I got back onto the front of the pack, then found myself somewhere nearer the back again when it all broke up and reformed near the water stop.

Along the back straight somewhere we met the second line and things got briefly confusing, but I would like to thank Will for letting me draft him back to the front at this point. Then around the bend we slowed up a bit with Errol in the lead, and Sparky decided to up the pace and go past us all, so we all jumped on his back and came down the hill onto the pit straight at a reasonable lick. Last time it came down to a sprint at Goodwood I lost because I was boxed in by traffic, so this year I pulled out as soon as I saw a clear space - unfortunately this was far too early, and was passed by basically everyone else as they started their sprints.

(It turns out that Richard has been doing interval sessions since I last skated with him, but it probably also didn't help that my energy and hydration levels probably weren't so great, given my race preparation. If I'd been trying to give him a leadout I probably couldn't have done any better)

Final placing seventh across the line, but that includes Tanya and Alex, so fifth in the men's race. Reasonably pleased with this - esp. considering I was unwell - but tactically I did the wrong stuff.

ed! · Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2011 3:58 pm Subject:

matty · Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 8:46 am Subject:

pazza98 · Joined: 01 Feb 2010 Posts: 259 Location: Hornsey

Johnny · Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 191 Location: Southwood, London

I see there are photos in the Goodwood website.
mmm... looking at them, I think I need to lose some weight!!
I've only got one good photo of me from the front.
(All the others are from my back)

dogsbody · Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 12:16 pm Subject:

Pictures are only starting to go up this week. We have over 6000 pictures that all have to be sorted, tidied and tagged with any bib numbers in the photo so it'll take us a while before you can find them all.

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

Many thanks for your efforts; what a great event and dividing the lanes up definitely made for a much safer race.

G