LondonSkaters Speed Team - Speed Skating & Rollerblading Club in London

roger · Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 531

Me and Kay are planning to go to this race. Is anyone else?

It looks like they require a bank transfer so I could organise a joint transfer if there is anyone else interested.

The URL for this race is http://www.inline-marathon-hamburg.de/

merten · Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 4:48 pm Subject:

Michi and I'll be there, naturally Wink

Gav · Posted: Mon May 28, 2007 10:32 pm Subject:

Too close to Euros so I'm going to miss it Sad

roger · Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 531

Hamburg was a really fun marathon, run in beautiful weather.

Kay and I had both been doing a lot of skating in the previous week, (100k loop of the Flaeming skate on Friday) so were feeling a little tired at the start of the Hamburg marathon. That is why we both started in the unlicenced skaters block, though I tried to start near the front.

The start was a little odd, as the first 1.2 kilometres were supposedly neutralised. I thought that the race might regroup before the real start, but instead gaps were already opening long before, but nobody was chasing them down because it was neutralised. From where I was it was impossible to tell when the neutralised part finished.

There was another, supposedly, neutralised section after 5km where we had to dodge onto a cycle path to cross a bridge that was being repaired. I was very glad that the group I was with at this point were happy to observe the neutralisation because it was really tricky, narrow and twisty diversion.

After the bridge I was able to jump forward with another guy, and we enjoyed one of several long stretches of beautiful tarmac along the river. It was quite good fun to be starting from the back, because I was stronger than most of the other skaters and could jump forwards to catch pacelines, rather than trying to hang on to a fast line, like in Hannover the previous week.

Quite early on we encountered the highlight of the marathon, which was going over the Köhlbrandbrücke bridge, a large suspension bridge that climbs high over Hamburg (well 55m anyway). This was where I really noticed my tired legs.

After the bridge I joined a paceline briefly, but it was very slow. A cyclist came past and I left the paceline to skate behind the cyclist for a while. In the end he got bored so I left him to skate forward and find another paceline. I hooked up with a small group that was just regrouping after one of them had fallen and worked with them to near the finish. We managed to get a good rotation going in the paceline and made good time, though near the end there was just me and another guy making the pace as everyone else was dying.

About 2km out I was leading the paceline, thinking that I would have to lead it all the way in when I looked around and noticed that our paceline had grown a bit, so I let the reinforcements make the pace for a while. Unfortunately the new guys were not feeling very strong so I was soon back on the front again. I thought that with the final sprint looming this was probably not a bad place to be, so I hung on in there, though I tried to keep my effort comfortable.

When the finish sign came up I tried to sprint off the start, and succeeded in dropping most of the paceline, but two guys did manage to come past. Still it felt good to have the strength left to sprint at the end.

My time at the end was not great (1:33 - the winners finished in 1:09) but it was the most fun I have had racing this year, so maybe I should start further back more often Smile