LondonSkaters Speed Team - Speed Skating & Rollerblading Club in London

Glenn · Joined: 05 Feb 2005 Posts: 1082 Location: ST Pauls

Wow - they are some really quick times; well done guys.

brandbarth · Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 43 Location: 30 km NW of Hamburg

I decided to do Nordstrand instead of Hannover-Celle and nearly died in 2:50 or so. It was very windy (7 bft, peak wind force 9bft), one very very very long part of the track (8km) and two smaller parts with the wind straight into the face, I have red eyes like an albino rabbit, am walking like I'm 90 years old and everything HURTS!

I hate myself and this decision of mine! Twisted Evil

roger · Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 528

Congratulations Rick on your PB, and well done to everyone else who raced this weekend. Its great to see so many LSST names on the first page of the results sheet.

Gav · Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 6:15 pm Subject:

I'm really impressed everyone! Nice work Smile

dan_b · Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 2417

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5888

Already updated my Davengo entry for Berlin.

More details of the race. Rich was too fas ton our line. Little bit of inexperience (only his second marathon) he should have sprinted after Dan at the start but got blocked by someone in front and me going past and the side of the road and lost his opportunity he tailed me out until we became part of what was the third paceline out of the start. Possibly the second as Dan was on the first but his line split and then he dropped onto the second part of that after a little while.

After half way when we hit the head winds and some slippery surfaces Rich made three separate attempts to make the line faster by racing up to the front and motivating the front runners to pick the pace up, but they weren't having any of it. We weren't going to pick up any more places and we weren't going to fall back and not many people seemed that interested in getting a time. It went so slowly that Merten and I had some conversations in the line.

At the end of the race I kept my head up looking for the obvious signs that it was about to end. 5km to go make sure I am safely tucked up in the paceline. Behind Merten at this point is an excellent place to do no work and prepare for a sprint. Enter Celle 3km to go. Now I am ready. 2 turns and a line break happens from behind me. I see a slot in it and jump across. We split at a traffic Island and then merge across in front of the other line. Someone in front flags, I sprint past. A slight bend in the road and I can see the Ziel banner about 250m ahead. The sprint is on, I take two people and am gaining on third but not enough to overtake so I reach for my watch and press the stop after crossing the mat. I don't have th energy to slow down and I grab a medal dangled out in front or me and attempt a gentle snowplough. Some energy returns and I manage to step to a halt a few metres past the drinks table. Congratulations all round to the rest of the line. Fantastic. Could have been faster. If only it had been downwind all the way it would have been over in 1h12. Still 8m07s faster than my previous PB things are looking good.

Rich didn't spot the break or the final sprint coming and so finished a bit further back. A bit more inexperience there. Some valuable lessons learned. Hopefully he can put them into practice for Berlin and do a <1h15m.

Just looked at what I wrote in my goals for 2006.

roger · Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 528

dan_b · Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 2417

My race, then: hopped onto the back of the lead paceline at the start, but I knew it was faster than I could have sustained for 42k, and when the guy in front dropped off (after all of about, oh, ten minutes) I didn't have the extra speed to get around him and close the gap again. So, skated for a little while not-quite-in-the-wind-shadow of the lead paceline (draining) until meeting another couple of dropouts and we skated maybe 2-3k in a line of three, before the second line overtook and I merged into it.

Life on the second line was a bit friendlier, especially in the first half: with the tailwind we were doing speeds of 36-37k (according to my GPS) and it didn't even feel like work. Once we turned into the wind it slowed down a lot, though - right down to 26k on some of the exposed bits. There were, I guess, about eight of us on the front of the line taking turns to pull - everybody who came off the front was going into the line before tenth place, so the rest got a free ride.

Stayed there pretty much to the end. After my last turn on the front at about 3k I slotted back in further down the line (probably too far back, in fact) to make sure I didn't take another pull. One guy broke just before the last bend - if I'd twigged that he was from the local team (so probably knew the course) I'd have followed him, but I just assumed he was guessing - and then we were round the corner and the whole thing disintegrated. Overtook four or five on the sprint, crossed the line, then went all wobbly and had to just a-frame glide for a bit before I even thought about trying to slow down.

For next time: not sure. It wasn't a good race at all from the energy conservation point of view - I could have started out with the second line instead of attempting to chase the leaders, and I'd still have finished in roughly the same place. But then I'd never have known for certain that it was too fast for me ... I still need more confidence on the whole "breaking into lines" thing instead of tacking on at the tail, but that's just familiarity.

So, 29th of 458, or 7th of 97 (in M30). I think I'm more proud of "less than ten minutes behind the winner", though :-)

[ edit: full results are online at http://results.mikatiming.de/2006/hannover_celle/ if anyone was wondering ]

dan_b · Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 2417

And to add to that: thanks to Rick for doing all the driving. If you find a piece of black plastic that looks like this in the back of your car, it's the power/data cradle from my gps ...

Gav · Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 10:34 am Subject:

Some interesting points there Dan... which I'd like to comment on from my experience.

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5888

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

good reports,
thanks I enjoyed the read and well done to everyone except for unlucky Tanya

Michi · Joined: 11 Jun 2005 Posts: 652 Location: Hamburg

brandbarth · Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 43 Location: 30 km NW of Hamburg

merten · Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 9:01 am Subject:

Well you get much much skating for your money, 3 hours for a few Euros Wink

... and a good natural course - apparently one of our Bremen team crashed into a sheep Shocked