Northshore Inline Marathon

Well, Saturday I skated the NorthShore Inline Marathon for the second time. This time around I was much much more prepared and capable of skating a marathon. I was very excited to skate the race heading into it and I was hoping and hoping it would be dry because my raining marathon record is not very good.

Heading into the race I thought there was only maybe one or two people or could flat out beat me in a field sprint heading into the marathon so I liked my chances, especially because I felt like if needed to I could do some chasing and try to keep some of the top guys with me.

Sure enough, Saturday when we woke up it was raining, and wet, with puddles. I was nervous but I did know that I had the best wheels underneath me so it made it a little bit more comfortable. It's funny how marathons work out.. you can tell early who everyone is paying close attention to and who no one believes has a serious chance of getting away.. this one was not much different.

I don't think I fell any further back then about 7th place throughout the entire marathon. I also benefited from having a few strong guys to skate with on CadoMotus which made bringing a few semi-serious breaks back in with me personally needing to expend as much energy. I knew the marathon wasn't that fast but I blame that fully on the rain. After about half way the pack pretty much realized it was almost impossible to get away especially because of the hills it made it easy for the pack to reel skaters back in.

The second half of the marathon was really slow, like cat and mouse slow. We would crawl, then break for a few hundred meters then crawl, and break little bits and pieces just to keep the field honest really. Once we entered the highway I put the gameface on big time. I moved all the way up to the front of the pack and the furthest back I got on the highway was third place. I figured there would be a lot of fighting for positioning on the highway and I was really surprised the I was not challenged almost at all for second place in the pack.

When we got out of the last tunnel I kept my head on a swivel. I thought a late try at a break from someone that didn't fair well in a field sprint would be coming with less than 2 miles left but nothing happened so I sat patiently. I had the best position in the field I think, sitting behind Justin Stelly just waiting to get closer to the finish.

Coming up close to the off ramp on the highway my teammate, Hank, Gailbraith, made a really strong break at the front of the pack. I started smiling in the pack immediately because my chances of winning the field sprint went up instantly. As soon as he went, Justin Stelly, Julian Rivera, and Juan Tobin went chasing Hank down at full speed. I tucked in behind Juan because he without a doubt had the best field sprint of the field. I felt really really good about my chances especially sitting behind Juan and having the biggest threats of the race trying to chase down my teammate. After the off ramp, we went around a turn that was really slippery and also had a lot of paint lines right around the turn (not to mention it started raining again) and going around the turn I two-footed it to make sure I wouldn't go down, and sure enough.. I went down with probably 700m to go or somewhere around that.

I was very disappointed that I went down. I managed to skate the whole marathon and had no fatigue at the end at all, and then I went down. I felt even worse that Hank broke off the front so that I would have perfect shot at winning and then I fell after he already made his move. I got back up and passed some of the skaters that were off the back of our pack, I finished 9th overall, 8 seconds back from Justin Stelly, the winner.

Next year I plan on returning to Duluth once again.