Am Cup Day 2: Cold. And Slow. And Fun.

Day 2 of the Roseville Am Cup dawned just as early as had Day 1, but a lot colder--zero degrees, to be exact.  Actually, the cold was part of the reason that I got to the oval early again today.   I wasn't doing today's 500--500's are scored, in a single distance event, based on two races, but I, for reasons that are long and complicated and too boring to retell, typically only do one of them.  I wouldn't be racing until the 1500 at about 11:00.  So there was really no need to arrive at the oval at 7:30--except that I wanted to do a "real" warmup (as in, warmup before there are skaters in the race lane that I'm afraid of falling and wiping out) so that I could decide what/how much clothing I'd need to wear to survive the cold.

So I got there early and "warmed up"--trust me, there was nothing warm about the experience--and decided to forgo wearing my "fast but frigid" Mat 1 suit in favor of the much-less-dashing-and-probably-not-quite-as-fast-but-a-lot-warmer insulated marathon suit for my race.

And then, warmup and decision completed, I sat.  And waited.  And waited.  And sat.  Every so often one of my masters skater friends would don his skinsuit, venture out into the cold for his race, and re-emerge in the warming house minutes later complaining of frostbite and windchill and slow ice.

Eventually, of course, I had to race.  I have skated three 1500's so far at Roseville this year, and all have been dismal.  This fourth one was no different, so I'll skip the gory details and just say that it was slow and sluggish and completely lackluster.  In fact, the last lap of my 1500 today was 1.1 seconds slower than the last lap of yesterday's windblown 3000.  This, in skating, is a Bad Thing.

So the less said about the 1500 the better.

After the 1500, I had a decision to make.  When I registered for the Am Cup I had signed up to do the "for fun" mass start race.  The mass start is a new--and to me, disturbing--trend in metric racing.  At the end of a weekend event, skaters are offered the option of competing in a pack style (or "mass start") race of anywhere from 8-20 laps.  The skaters each pay a small fee for the privilege, and the men's and women's winners take home their competitors' entry fees as the prize.  Mass start events are not my favorite (hence the "disturbing"--I don't like any trend that indicates increasing popularity of pack events), but I like to skate and since I consider myself a "distance" skater, I feel I must uphold my honor by skating any laps that are offered.

So, windchill notwithstanding, I planned to do the 15-lap mass start race...until, about 30 minutes after my 1500, I developed a sudden, inexplicable, and extremely painful stomach ache.  I didn't feel sick, it just hurt, and it didn't seem to have plans to depart any time soon.  So every time an official came by with the rapidly-dwindling entry list for the mass start (a 15 lap race sounds much better when you're sitting on the couch filling out your registration form than it does when you've just come into the warming house from racing in subzero windchills), I had to reply to their "are you skating" query with "I don't know."

Fortunately, though, after an hour of pain--and just minutes before I had to make the final "skate or not" decision--the pain stopped, and so I laced up my skates and headed out of the warming house for the dreaded pack-style experience.

Initially we had been told that the men and women would skate separately, which, since there were 5 women skating the mass start and about 15 men, sounded like a great idea to me.  We were nearing the end of our ice time, though, so they decided to race us all together. This made for a tricky situation for the lap-counter-folks, though, since different classes of skaters had to do different numbers of laps--some 8, some 12, some (me) 15, and some 20.  Considering that there was  a vast speed differential among the skaters, it looked like things would get interesting, and even the "if you're lapped you're out" rule wouldn't help much because you had to be lapped by someone in your class for the rule to take effect.  So I expected chaos.

And, for the first few laps, I got it.  I followed my usual big-fast-pack strategy of "start at the back and stay out of trouble;" this seemed like an especially good idea because I had forgotten to put on my Kevlar ankle guards for the occasion.  So the first few laps passed with me hanging back a bit from a large and somewhat unruly group of 13 and 14-year-olds.  I was pretty sure that some of them were faster than I was and that there were a couple others who would start out a bit too briskly (youthful enthusiasm can be the kiss of death in an endurance event), so I was content to bide my time at the back, stay out of the fast ones' way, and reel in a couple of tiring young 'uns when the opportunity presented itself.  The wisdom of this plan was confirmed when I witnessed much shifting of places and a skate-click near-fall; I was glad I had hung back far enough from the pack that I was out of danger, even if it meant giving up the draft.

Eventually, though, everyone settled into their place.  I skated a couple laps at the tail of all the kids, and then passed the two who I had thought might flag.  After that I was on my own for a couple laps, until, after I thought I had probably skated 7 or 8 laps, I passed the lap counters and they yelled "12 to go, Kaari!"

What?! Since when does 8+12=15?!

I realized, of course, that they were giving me the lap count as though I were doing the men's 20 lap race, so I simply subtracted 5 from 12 and figured I had 7 to go.  Sweet--I'm over half-way.

Shortly after that, I looked over my shoulder to check the progress of the "fast pack" and saw that they were about a third of a lap behind me.  I figured I had time to skate the corner, then I should move to the outer lane to let them lap me on the inner.  They were closing much faster than I anticipated, though, and suddenly they were upon me.

In my dirt bike racing days I had plenty of experience with attempting to pull over to let someone pass on a narrow trail and instead pulling right in front of them as they pulled out to pass me; I knew that my safest option was to hold my line.  So I did, gasping an apology to the skaters who streamed by me on both sides like cars passing a vehicle stalled in the middle lane of a freeway.  They were there and gone so fast that I was unable to see if any of them were one of the two "fast women;" if I were lapped by a woman I would have to quit.  When I passed the lap counters, though, they assured me that the pack was all testosterone and I could continue skating.

Then, with four laps to go, I saw that I was gaining on another young skater.  I decided to do what I could to catch and hopefully pass her (the lower the remaining lap count the more courageous I am), so I put the hammer down.  By this point in the race, of course, it was a very small hammer--maybe one of those lightweight plastic things that babies use to pound plastic pegs into toy workbenches--but it was enough to let me catch her with two to go.  We battled back and forth the penultimate lap...and then the "fast woman" caught us right as we crossed the line for our bell lap and her finish.

Or right before the line. Or right after.  I wasn't sure and since no one was yelling at me to stop I figured "I'll be damned if I quit with one lap to go" and so I kept skating.  My young competitor, though, pulled up--and the lap counters immediately began yelling to her  "keep going, you're not out, go!"  She looked confused though, and didn't start skating, so I did the only decent thing and stopped skating to yell at her "we're not out, come on, skate!"

And then I waited until she started skating, and let her back in front of me where she had been before she pulled up. And then we skated the rest of the last lap.

So I finished the 15 laps, and it wasn't bad.  In fact,other than the 500 PB,  it was the most fun part of the weekend.  Which is good, because I'm planning to skate 25 laps in Milwaukee in 6 days.

25 laps is a whole lot of "fun."