Duisburg Marathon, April 29th, 2007

[Rick]

Hopefully all booked up now. Thanks, Merten.

Looking forward to it being dry this year. I hope to remember the course as it's difficult to do much overtaking in the last 400m.

I am planning on driving if I can get enough of you to commit to coming with me. The start finish stadium is only 3 hours from Dunkirk maybe 3.7 from Coquelles. The town itself if horrible. Even the locals say so. It will therefore be a quick in and out getting back in plenty of time to have a full night's sleep.

[merten]

Rick is booked now Any more takers, let me know.

[Garan]

I'm now booked - cheers Merten!  

[tanya g]

I'll be at lille ... person challenge there

[Martyzz1]

ok I'm in...

How does the registration work? Will I need a Medical cert? if so, is it easier for me to do the whole FISS registration?

Marty

[Rick]

Registration is a little awkward as they don't take credit cards. Go here and click on Anmeldung 2007. For payment it's either transfer or ask someone with a German bank account to do it for you.

You don't need a medical cert.

[Martyzz1]

will do this tonight when I can find my championchip number....

[Martyzz1]

Have awful suspicion I've just been rmeinded about a certain person birthday and related celebratory activities I'd agreed to do - grrrrr... Why is everything happenning at the same time!!!!! Torn...

[Rick]

Not to worry. There are also the following two weekends I am driving to...Dusseldorf and Karstadt marathons. The latter you can enter with a credit card. See the seperate threads for those.

If you check Michi's post at the bottom of this thread then you might be able to to the Karstadt one as a fun skate for free. I've already paid and intend to be a serious racer for this one otherwise I would be up for some of that.  

[Martyzz1]

ooh could be a sandwich:-)

[Michi]

[Ray]

Good luck in Duisburg Rick  

[Rick]

Ouch. So that is what the front paceline feels like and there weren't even many recognisable top teams there. That was part of the problem. I thought I was hanging back with the decent club skaters and at the first bend when the line took shape I was in it. I didn't last long, less than 5km of constantly trying to keep the pace behind the big swiss bloke I was chatting to at the start and I just died. Still it was interesting. Should have taken my own advice and got off earlier. As it was I didn't manage to stay on any of the other lines I caught for quite a while. However I was throwing down solid 2m10s kms on my own when the wind wasn't in front. I ended up bumping into Markus, one of the Dusfor chaps I knew from the Holland Highlights tour. He was struggling so I gave him a tow for a few km and turned it into a fun skate. He was flagging a bit when a bunch of ladies came through with Heike from this year's Sardinia on it. Markus got on the back and I slowed tucked in behind him and in front of the others we had picked up. We let the ladies have their own race at the front and I just kept timing the km and Markus shouted them through to the ladies. Coming to the end I was getting very bored as the ladies were slowing to 2:30 kms and jockying for place a bit. Anothe chased up the line from behind us. Don't know where she came from but she was probably drafting us and used the slowness to jump up in the the ladies line. It's now 2½km to go and I had walked this section of the course yesterday to refamiliarise myself with the end. I didn't want to cross the line feeling strong and I didn't want to interfere with the ladies race so I hopped out onto the other side of the road and burned them. So I was well gone when their sprint finally happened they didn't catch me. It was good because I was planning to do that there on whatever line I was on. Finished in 1:38:21 and in 159th place out of 406 finishers. Like I said ouch.

Well enough of my race Gav's new team mate Markus Pape came second and Jimmy Pierlot from Team Bont Europe won in 1:12:25. In the ladies race, Team Cadomotus World had a 1,2,3 The front two made an early break and did the rest of the race on their own and were looking very smooth when they came past me. They had about 30km to go at that point and were already clean ahead of the chasing pack. They were Dutch skater Jannitta Spigt in 1st place and AUS (Austrian or Australian) skater Angeline Thomas, both over in 1:22:07. Beligan Hilde Goovaerts was their third podium spot a couple of minutes later.

Bumped into Daniel at the fair. His was the only skate stand there. He was as Gross Gerau today. I managed to get a few new laces from him so I can properly tighten my skates again. Should have put one in my right boot on Saturday night but instead had it a bit loose on the day.

Saw quite a few faces from other places so I wasn't quite so alone. Pity there were no team mates there. It all changes next week.

I may nto be training much this week as I need some serious recovery time. Hans and Alan, you are going to find my mum's friend's place a bit of a 70s German timewarp. Quite amusing. I want to take out our own food and cook for her this time as she doesn't have any concept of healthy eating. Traditional german fayre makes for lousy marathon fuel.

[Gav]

Shoulda come to Duisberg. I am missing a big chunk of my knee. I miss it.

Tilo crashed yesterday and broke his collarbone. There were crashes in pretty much every race, and the hospital was busy. 2 collarbones, 1 arm, 1 leg... that's what I know off.

[cheriep]

HI Gav,
sorry about your knee! How come there were so many crashes?
Cherie