2012 North Shore Inline Marathon Report

This is going to get long, so I'll provide a one-line summary for all you folks who have other things to do today:

This race was, hands down, no question, absolutely, positively the most fun thing I have done in a long, long time.

And now, in classic Long Track Life Oversharing Style--on with the details!

Things weren't looking too auspicious the night before the race.  I had decided to drive up the morning of the event, which turned out to be a good thing since my little Subaru was still in the shop Friday night, having just survived some major, and thus very expensive, surgery (you know the bill isn't going to be pretty when the repair receipt lists "remove engine" as one of the services).  The Hubster likes to use a friend's not-exactly-local repair shop for Subaru stuff, so we had to drive the 30 miles to the shop to pick up the car after work Friday.  When we got back home we walked the dog, and then I began packing for the race.  As I tossed my gear bag into the back of the $ubaru, I looked down and saw:

No wedding ring on my left hand.

The Hubster and I had matching rings made when we got married.  Mine has no stone (with my active lifestyle and clumsiness, that would have lasted about 2 weeks before being knocked off), and thus isn't terribly expensive--but I love it and it has huge symbolism and I never take it off.

Unless it falls off, which, because it's always been a bit too big, it does every so often (why can't my fingers grow along with my ass?)  Anyway, this ring had an adventure, 5 years ago, that involved being flung off (as I fell facefirst off a small waterfall I was descending--don't ask) into a Northern Minnesota river, where it remained for 3 weeks until it was found by a friend's snorkled-and-masked son.  I should have had it resized then, but...

So anyway, there I was, looking into this:

Good luck finding a ring in there!

I looked through the car, thoroughly, twice.  No ring.  We went back to the park where we'd walked the dog and looked, in the dark, around the spot where I'd stopped to fish out the poo bag--no ring.  Finally, I remembered that I had brushed some crumbs (now how did those get there?) off the seat cover in my $ubaru--with my left hand--before climbing in at the repair shop.  Suddenly, this seemed like the most likely place for the ring to have been flung off.  However, it was now 10:30 at night and I had to get up at 4:00 the next morning.  The ring would have to stay where it was for another day.

I got up at O'Dark Thirty the next morning (or, actually, O'Dark O'Clock--see?):

I had told the Hubster (who had gone to bed at 3 am) that he didn't need to accompany me on this venture, since I didn't think it would be terribly exciting from a spectator standpoint.  So I staggered blearily into the car and headed off solo.

The first order of the day was breakfast.  I wanted my traditional McDonald's pre-race breakfast, but wasn't sure that a) McDonald's would be open that early, and b) eating at 4:00 would provide adequate fuel for a race that started at 10:00.  So I did the only logical thing.

I had a pre-breakfast PopTart.  And my coffee with protein powder.

Then, another hour down the road, I stopped at the now-open McDonald's for my bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit and an orange juice.

And then, another hour down the road, I had to stop for gas.  Should have looked at the gas gauge when I stopped at McD's...

All in all, though, the trip went well.  I had plenty of time (it's a three-hour drive to Duluth) to contemplate my race strategy.  Since my summer training had, thanks to my thyroid, sucked, I had a plan:

Forget partying like it's 1999.  I want to skate like it's 2005.

2005 was not a banner summer for skating.  In fact, due to some tachycardia issues, it was (up until The Suckiness That Was the Summer of 2012), the worst summer of skating I've ever had.  But I had signed up for the NSIM early in the summer, before the tachycardia emerged and when skating was thus still going well, and so I had decided to go ahead and just do the race for fun.  And it had, indeed, been fun.  I had started off slow, chatted along the way, looked at the lake, had a blast--and actually ended up with a fairly decent time for me, all things considered (1:32). So I hoped to replicate that experience this year, with, perhaps, the exception of the time; I figured I'd be looking at more the 1:40 range, based on how dismally my Baxter Half-Marthon had gone.

I arrived at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center (DECC) at 7:00, and after a couple minor hitches (including a too-small race shirt--people, when you're going to have gender-specific shirts for the first time, you have to tell us so we can request the correct size) I was waiting to board the shuttle bus to the start in Two Harbors.  After passing up an almost-full bus, I was able to claim the claustrophobic-approved front seat on the next bus.  I did question my choice slightly when a nice older fellow settled onto my seat next to me and said "I always like to get the front seat.  I get motion sickness."

Great.  

But the 26-mile ride went fine, and soon we were disembarking at the start.

I found my team, Max Muscle, pretty quickly; they had set up camp at the start of the long road to the starting line.  We had a great location: Porta-potties, lots of chairs, and a loudspeaker blasting good music and race announcements.

Then, there was nothing to do but wait the two hours for our start.  I have a very good idea of what to do pre-long track race, but haven't done a lot of marathons lately so had no idea when to put my stuff on, how much to warm up, and just generally what to do and when.  So I did the only logical thing.

I ate.

Specifically, a Clif Bar, a 100-milligram Caffeine Clif Shot, and half a pack of Gu Chomps.  I'm pretty sure I was adequately fueled for the race.

Then I hung out, socialized with the Max Muscle teammates, had a fun conversation with a woman that I used to race off-road motorcycles against over 10 years ago, and kept an eye out for my sister Energizer Bunny and her husband Sherpa Boy.

Oh, and I used the Porta-potties.  A local athlete blogger, Steve of Steve In a Speed? Gross!, always posts pre-race-in-the-porta-potty pictures.  All I can say is, if he can manage a camera as well as his clothing, runners must have a lot less to deal with, logistically, than inline skaters do.  I had to contend with:  bottom layers, above the standard underwear, of softball sliding shorts, skinsuit bottoms, and wind pants; top layers, post-underwear, of skinsuit top, long-sleeved T-shirt, and team jacket.  All of the above had to be successfully removed and reapplied while avoiding having anything fall onto the floor, into the toilet, or into the wall-mounted urinal.  (Aside: Why do the men need urinals?  If they can't hit the hole in the toilet they certainly can't hit the smaller urinal, thus guaranteeing that they will pee not only on the floor in front of the seat and on the seat, but on the wall surrounding the urinal as well.  Nice.)

Finally, it was time to put the skates on and head to the start.  I gave up trying for any sort of warmup, since the road was now extremely clogged with skaters and walkers.  Besides, I hadn't yet found Energizer Bunny, and since I thought she started in a wave ahead of mine, I figured I'd better get up there and find her so I could wish her luck before her start.

On the way to the start I had another Porta-potty adventure, this one without extra clothes but with the added complications of being on skates, and having a Camelbak that needed to be removed and needed careful juggling to avoid having the hose and mouthpiece fall into anything it should't fall into.

At the start, a thorough search of waves A and B revealed no EB.  Finally I bumped into Sherpa Boy on the road shoulder, and he told me that EB was actually in my wave, Wave 1.  Once I was looking in the right place I quickly found her.  I told her about our friend Mel's crash (in retrospect, telling her that 5 minutes before a race probably wasn't the best idea!), and we re-confirmed our strategies--she was going to skate hard, and I was going to do whatever I could and hopefully have fun.

Wow, my fingers are tired.  Also, we need to go search for my ring now.  So, this is will become a 2-part race report.  See ya soon for the details of the actual race!