Sail

Years and years ago I heard "Bad Time to Be in Love" as I milled around the starting line for the North Shore Inline Marathon, and the song chased itself through my head for the entire race.  Every year since then, I seem to get a song stuck in my head for NSIM.  Last year it was "One More Night."  This year, it was "Sail," a song I first heard in a video about wingsuit pilot Jeb Corliss.  (Go ahead and check it out on Youtube--it's pretty cool.  I'd post it but we have a data limit on our computer and there was this Shutterfly incident and, well,  now I'm a bit gunshy...).

Anyway, given the conditions for the 2013 NSIM, "Sail" turned out to be a fitting song.  If I'd had a sail when I skated this year, I'd have gone really fast.

The wrong way.

That's right, we had Headwind from Hell this year.  But despite that, it turned out to be a pretty darn good race and, while not as much "just plain fun" as last year's, it had its own high points.

So here's the race report:

At 4 am on Saturday, my first task was to wake up this...

And this...

That hurdle cleared, we hit the road.  I had my blueberry poptart (not poptarts--I was kind enough to share one with the Hubster) and coffee right after we left the house, and then topped it off with McDonald's further down the road.  We made it to Duluth without incident, and I picked up my race packet.  Because it turned out that they didn't have my shirt set aside, I got distracted with ironing out the shirt-picking-up details and didn't really look at my packet or the bib number scribbled on it.  Once in the car, I reached into the envelope and pulled out my number...and burst out laughing.

If you get in trouble during the race, just call me...

And then we drove to Two Harbors and picked up my sister Energizer Bunny and her husband Sherpa Boy at their motel, and then we all drove to the race start.  The men (and a still-groggy Keira) accompanied us down the road to the "staging area."  Keira fended off dog-worshippers and tried to keep her exceptionally long toes out from under skate wheels, while the husbands milled around handing us caffeinated Gu packages and holding our gear bags while we went to the Porta Potties.  Canadian/American Hubster was appalled to hear the anthem singer forget the lyrics to "Oh Canada" not once but at least three times (I had to fight hard to not have Oh Canada chase Sail right out of my head; I didn't think it would be a suitably motivating song) and Sherpa Boy had to deal with EB's unwisely tucking a half-eaten Gu into the waistband of her shorts and then complaining about having "sticky fat."  Just another morning at the races!

And then it was time to line up.  Due to her four-minutes-faster-than-mine 2012 NSIM time, EB was in the wave ahead of me.  My wave seemed quite small--maybe 30 people?--but I did find some teammates and a guy from the Wednesday night races, so I figured I'd start next to them.  I tried to focus on my two most important pre-race tasks: think about having fun, and pop that final caffeinated Clif Shot at just the right time.

Turns out I may not have exactly nailed those two tasks.

First, when the "time to go" airhorn sounded, I apparently forgot that "having fun" was linked to "starting easy."  I hopped into a pace line that seemed to contain all 30 skaters from our wave, and although I was near the front and was taking my turn pulling, it seemed that the paceline was just too slow, especially on uphills.  So (completely forgetting that "too slow" in mile one of a marathon may well turn out to be "just right" another few miles down the road), I devised a plan.  I'd wait for a likely-looking uphill, then I'd make a break for it and hope that a few of the faster skaters would go with me so we could form a smaller, faster paceline of our own.

So I did.  I picked a nice uphill, pulled out of the line, and exhorted my Wednesday-night-race-pal to join me as I sprinted ahead of the paceline.  And my little attack worked splendidly; we dropped most of the line, and about five guys and I formed our own paceline   It worked, that is, until the guys that had gone with me continued to skate at my "surge to lose the pack" pace--and dropped me.

Well, damn.  There I was, three miles into the marathon, with no paceline and my heartrate at a near-max 198.  

Oh, and some lovely heartburn.  Turns out that, while a caffeinated Clif Shot right before racing might give you a nice lift, it might also give you a nicely smoldering esophagus for the next ten miles or so.

And this seems like a suitably suspenseful place to leave y'all for the night.  Besides that, it's my bedtime and I'm still making up for Saturday's 4 am start...

So back with Part 2 tomorrow.