Summer Inline Series!

I got a surprise last week--an email saying that the Summer Inline Series, the inline oval races, would not only be happening again this year, but would start earlier than usual: May 20, to be exact.  Although I had only done two oval inline workouts up to that point, I was happy to hear it; my workouts had gone pretty well, and I was curious to see how Paleo, CrossFit, and weight loss affected my racing.

Last year inliner Columbian Flash ran the inline races, but he moved back to Columbia in the fall.  The future of the SIS was uncertain until one of the racers from last year stepped up and said he'd take over.  He shall be known Ole Skater since he attended the same college I did (St. Olaf)--although I believe he was born after I graduated.  Anyway, he's very involved in the local skating scene and is doing a ton to support inlining, so I was delighted to hear that he'd taken over the SIS, and even more delighted to hear that he wasn't waiting for June but was starting the races right away.

I was perhaps a bit less delighted when I realized that I would have four weeks of racing while school was still in session.  It's not a bad drive from home to the oval at race time, but it's almost 90 minutes--for what's typically a 30 minute drive--from work in rush hour.  Midway through the stop-and-go freeway action I was putting another mental tally mark in the "plus" column for CrossFit--it's only 10 to 20 minutes from either home or work, depending on which location I go to.  Ah, the sacrifices we make for our obsessions!

Anyway, it turned out to be a fun first night.  The weather was almost perfect--mid-60's and sunny, and the wind was only slightly stronger than I'd like.  Since we were a small group, Ole Skater asked us what we wanted to do for races.  I suggested a rolling-start two lap time trial, since that's how we traditionally used to start the season and so I'd have a lot of comparison data from my first-day-of-racing from past years.  Then I chose a four lap race after that, while the guys did a 5K Miss and Out.

We're a small but enthusiastic group.

My times were OK; not super, not horrible.  My 2 lap rolling start was 1:23, with a decent first lap of 39 something and a horrible die to a second lap of 43 something.  A far cry from my all-time PB of 1:14, but that was almost 10 years ago so I don't have much hope of replicating that.  My 4 lap race--which I did solo because by that time I was the only woman racing, Mel having headed home already--was more consistent, with mostly 43 second laps for a total time of 2:55. So I was reasonably happy with my results, especially since I did two fairly squat-intensive CrossFit workouts in the two days preceding the races.  Another positive sign that this whole CrossFit/skating/Paleo thing is working out well.

So the oval inlining season has officially begun, and as I seem to be saying a lot lately--so far, so good.

Who could ask for a better night?