North Shore Inline--Part Two

First, the important stuff:  The ring has been found!  It was right where I thought it would be: sitting rather forlornly on the gravel parking lot at the auto repair shop, where I had apparently flung it in my over-vigorous  seat-cover crumb-brushing.

Welcome back, My Preciousssss...

When we left off in part one of the race report, I was standing on the starting line.  It was a beautiful day--sunny, cool, and with a tailwind.  I was enjoying every pre-race minute: chatting with EB; listening to the music; talking to random strangers, all of whom were very excited to be there.  Then EB moved forward in the wave to a more advantageous location, and the countdown to the start began.

And we were off!  Mindful of how I had started in my previous poorly-conditioned season, 2005--I had eased into skating to avoid triggering my exercise-induced tachycardia--I coasted casually off the line and began skating slowly.  The first six miles of the racecourse were repaved this year, so the conditions were fantastic.  I skated happily along, passing people here and there and keeping an eye open for a paceline.  What a fun way to start, and what a contrast to my usual road races--no frantic scramble to get into the "right" paceline, no frustration with people who blocked my path, no panting redline max heartrate 500 yards into a marathon.  It was at this point that the "wow this is an awesome day" really struck me.

And then a nice paceline came by, headed by a bunch of Rainbo skaters.  It looked good, so I hopped on the end.  Everyone was friendly, and the pace was comfortable but not too slow, so I figured I'd hang out there.  We passed a mile or so like this, and then the usual confusion began: pacelines breaking up as skaters got gapped; other pacelines passing and the two lines mixing; pacelines falling apart and reforming as everyone scrambled up a hill.  It was at this point that I decided I'd try to close any gaps so as not to get dropped, and to go off with the faster faction when a paceline broke up.  I was feeling great, the pace was easy, and I figured I had nothing to lose since I had no goal for the race except to have fun.

And have fun I did!  Skating that race--even when it got hard in the final miles--was one of the most purely fun athletic things I have ever done.

Unfortunately for my paceline mates, when I'm happy I get babbly and for most of the race I had plenty of breath for talking.  I congratulated people on good pulls when they pulled over to pass off the lead; I thanked volunteers at water stops even though, thanks to my Camelbak, I didn't need any water; I commented on the beauty of the lake  over and over again (for those new to the Long Track Life, I have a love affair with Lake Superior); I said, more times than I can remember, "this is just so much fun!"

I'm guessing there were a couple people in my paceline who, after five miles or so of this, would have cheerfully throttled me with my own Camelbak hose just to shut me up.

As mid-race approached I was still having fun and still skating easily.  I told myself that I would not push anything until at least the last half of the race, if not later; I didn't want to blow up like I had in the last three miles of the Baxter Half-Marathon.  Still, I had worked my way up to a faster, and smaller, paceline.  I was in the front 4-5 skaters, which meant that I pulled every so often.  My only problem with pulling is that, when I take over the lead, I'm so concerned that I might go too slowly that I usually end up pulling away from the rest of the paceline.  Fortunately I had a teammate right behind me who would yell to me when this happened and I could rein it in a bit until everyone else caught up.  We were a very polite and cooperative paceline!

We had some nice "freight trains" going down hill, where everyone pushes on the back of the person in front of them and the cumulative weight and momentum leads to some pretty impressive speeds.  I always announce my imminent touch of the skater in front of me with "push." One time, the guy in front of me had his cell phone in his jersey pocket.

"Oh," I commented as I inadvertently pushed on his phone, "I hope I don't butt-dial you.  It might be hard to explain to the person on the other end why they're hearing all this heavy breathing and the occasional "push!"

As we passed the midpoint at 13 miles, I looked at my watch for the first time.  I hadn't set the stopwatch, hadn't looked to see exactly what time we started (although I knew it was around 10:10 or 10:11), and hadn't done my usual agonized counting-down-of-the-slowly-passing-miles.  I really had no idea what to expect for a time, and I was having so much fun that I truly didn't care what it was.  But still, I looked.

10:54.

Hmm, if we started at 10:10, that's 44 minutes.  44 plus 44 is 88, which is one hour 28 minutes.  Which, holy cow, is a very good time for me--my PB at the North Shore is 1:25, and typically my times are over 1:30.  And--I still felt great!

As we worked our way into the second half of the race, I continued to try to go with any faster bits of paceline that fractured off.  At one point, a lone woman (who, as I could tell by her number, had started in the wave two minutes behind ours) came past.  She was flying, and I took off from my pull at the front of our paceline to try to follow her.  I got into her draft but could tell right away that I wouldn't be able to stay with her for long, and indeed, after half a mile or so I had to let her go.  Still, it had been fun trying, so when a younger guy, also solo, came by, I jumped on behind him.

"Not sure how long I'll be able to stay," I gasped, "but you've got a good pace going!"

We skated along for a couple miles.  It was a brisk pace, but I was able to hang on.  It was somewhere around this point in the race, I think, that it became imperative to solve the Snot Problem.

I tend to be a rather, um, phlegmy skater.  I spit a lot, and I also produce a lot of snot.  On the oval, where my workouts are more "skate hard/take a break/repeat," I can blow my nose in the rest intervals.  For extended skates and marathon races, a different tactic is necessary.  Since I'm not adept at the farmer blow thing, I tend to (TMI warning) perform a lovely and no doubt attractive snort-and-hork manuever which converts the snot into something spittable.  However, spitting in a paceline is frowned upon.  So I tolerated the steadily-filling nose situation until I couldn't anymore, and then I did the only thing I could think of: I blew my nose into my palm sliders.

For those not familiar with the intricacies of skating attire, palm sliders are simply half-finger gloves with a bit of curved plastic velcroed to the palm so that when if you crash, your palms slide rather than stick on the pavement and you have less chance of breaking a wrist.  Most racers use palm sliders rather than the more cumbersome and protective wrist guards.

Anyway, my palm sliders were now sporting an extra layer of lubrication, some of which I inadvertently wiped on the leg of my skinsuit during armswings.  Skating is a glamorous sport...

So I skated along behind Solo Young Guy for a while, and then he turned his head slightly and yelled to me (and the rest of the paceline, which had followed me when I attached myself to his draft) "I'm going to go--anyone who wants, come with me!"

I'm pretty sure that's not how breakaways are done in the big leagues, but as I said, we were a fun-loving and cooperative group.

So a bunch of us took off after Solo Young Guy.  We were now about 8 miles from the finish, so I wasn't sure how this would work for me.  But we stuck with him for a couple miles, and dropped part of the paceline.  Then (and this is where my memory gets fuzzy; oxygen deprivation, maybe?) either he dropped us or we dropped him.  I remember some skating and some breathing hard but not much else--and then we hit the grooved pavement at the I-35 tunnels.

I remember the pavement grooves, from my previous races, as being perpendicular to travel direction and thus feet-numbing but not particularly dangerous.  However, the road had been re-grooved since I last skated--regrooved parallel to travel.  As I glided onto the nastiness, my skates began doing all sorts of funky skittering from side to side and I regret to report that I wasted enough breath to drop an F-bomb on the backs of my rapidly-departing paceline mates.  I quickly recovered enough to utter a more politically-correct "Holy longitudinal pavement grooves, Batman!"  (yes, I really wasted the breath, 23 miles into a marathon, to say that out loud), but I couldn't catch up to the paceline, who had dropped me like a snot-covered palm-slider.  Dang.

I quickly learned that the grooves were manageable if I didn't coast and didn't get on my outer edges.  Once I figured this out I began skating harder again, and at some point re-encountered Solo Young Guy.  Either he caught up to me and skated by me and then slowed, or I re-passed him; at any rate, he was beginning to falter when I encountered him, so I yelled some encouragement.

"Hey, number ####, " I yelled, "come on, let's go!  You pulled my ass all that way, don't give up now!"

Solo Young Guy shot a startled glance at me and then took off, my cheers following him down the road.  What the heck, he contributed a great pull at a critical part of my race; I figured the least I could do is encourage him!

Then it was off the freeway to the exit ramp and up the hill to the stoplight, and another encounter with the now-struggling Solo Young Guy.  I yelled more encouragement, he speeded up (probably just to get away from the crazy old lady who kept yelling at him), and I finished the last 400 yards of the race with no one else near.  Left at the stoplight, down the hill, left at the bottom of the hill (I did crossovers around this corner because there was no one else around and I had plenty of room to pick whichever line I wanted), then down the final straight to the finish.  I got down and did as much "long track" technique as I could for this final stretch, which started off well but, due to the length of the run-up to the finish line and the strong headwind we were now skating into, quickly degenerated into a desperate scramble.

Then I was over the finish line and done.  I still felt pretty good and was incredibly happy, but I also felt like I was pretty much used up; I definitely didn't feel like I had held back.  As I funneled into the finish chute to take off my chip, I saw Solo Young Guy in front of me. He gave me a thumbs-up.

I had no idea what my time was, but I figured it had to be pretty good because I felt like I hadn't slowed down the second half of the race and may have even sped up.  So I wandered around happily, chatting with whoever I encountered and keeping an eye out for EB (I knew she must have had a pretty good race because I had never seen her on the course, and she had started in front of me).  I ran into another long-track friend who, it turned out, had been on the oval with Mel when she crashed.  As he pointed to various parts of his face and described the hardware that she had had implanted to stabilize various fractures, I was reminded again of how important it is to be aware of and grateful for all the good times that we have--because you never know what's just around the corner.  Get well soon, Mel--we're all thinking of you!

Eventually I found EB and Sherpa Boy, and discovered that EB had also had a fantastic race.  In fact, a quick look at the results board told us that both EB and I had skated our second-best NSIM times ever: mine was a 1:26.40, hers a 1:22.22.  Little bugger is fast!  We had both also, it turned out, placed fifth in our age groups, she in 50-54, I in 45-49.   This led to a dilemma--medals were awarded for first through fifth place.  Did we wait around the 4-5 hours before the award ceremony?

Of course we did! It's not every day you get on the podium (besides, sponsors like to see their brand name up there, so it's always good to stick around for the awards when you can).  So we set about the enjoyable task of killing a few hours in Duluth.

There was time for the Max Muscle team photo (I'll post one when I get it), and for the distribution of more team goodies--T-shirts and window clings.  Max Muscle is a generous sponsor!

Max Muscle T-shirt-and-window-cling feeding frenzy.

There was time to pose in front of the iconic Ore Boat...

 Remember, the camera and my softball sliding shorts add 10 pounds.  Each.

...as well as the giant Rollerblade sign.  Those specks are EB and I.

I got some quality time with "my" lake...

...and Energizer Bunny and Sherpa Boy got a pretty good candidate for a Christmas card picture.

We had lunch at Red Lobster, and shared some mini-donuts from Crabby Ol' Bill's...

And every minute of the post-race was just as fun as the race had been.  I wish the Hubster could have been there--usually the after-race time isn't nearly that enjoyable, but this time I think he would have figured it had been worth getting up at 4 am for.  I'll have to keep that in mind for next year...

And then it was back to the DECC for the awards.  I got my time on the podium...

Well, technically I guess I'm "next to the podium."  My, those reflective stripes on my pants really work, don't they?

...and then it was EB's turn.  She's missed the podium spot by one place several times in her most recent races, so it was great to see her up there!

And then, finally, at almost 6 pm, it was time to climb into the car for the drive home.

Why, yes, yes...it does look as though my gear bag has thrown up in the back seat...

As I drove, I ate various sugary substances to keep myself awake, and amused myself by making up skating lyrics for songs.  With apologies to Maroon 5, I present you with "One More Mile."  (sorry--I couldn't come up with anything beyond the chorus. Probably just as well.)

Paceline there you go again, there you go again,

making me love you.

I tuck in behind you, in behind you, 

Let it all go

Got snot stuck on my skinsuit

On my skinsuit

Like a tattoo

And now I'm feeling toasted

Feeling toasted

Falling off of you

So I cross my heart and I hope to die

That I'll try to stay with you one more mile

And I know I said it a million times

But I'll try to stay with you one more mile

Yeah, body, give me one more mile...

(I apologize if I've now ruined that song forever for anyone!)

So today, a day later, I'm still happy.  A little sore and creaky, but happy.  My thyroid meds seem to be optimized, I'm apparently in better shape than I thought I was, and I have the memory of a really fun time.

Oh, yeah, and I have my wedding ring back.

What more could you ask for?