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Ed's Sk8toronto Website
CASINO NIAGARA MARATHON -OCT 2000 NOTE: The skating portion of this marathon was cancelled a few years ago. It was a big disappointment for the skating community because it was a good route and close to Toronto. The casino Niagara Marathon starts in Buffalo, goes across the bridge at Fort Eire and ends up following the Niagara Parkway along the side of the Niagara River almost to the Horseshoe Falls. You have to do it to really appreciate it. I found out about this race at a TISC workout that I attended as a guest in August of 2000. Somebody from TISC told me that if I entered I would do a time of about 2 hours flat for the 42.2k distance. I went home and thought about this and decided that I should be able to do the race much faster than that. I had measured one of my skating routes with a bike and knew that I was skating my workouts in the 24 to 25kph range. That would convert to a time of between 1:41 to 1:45. This became my challenge. To get ready for the race I drew on my running experience. I increased the lengths of my long skates and upped my overall mileage significantly. I started reading up on inline skating technique and strategy and although I found out lots that I didn’t know before it became clear that to really skate fast I would eventually need to get some 5 wheel skates. One thing I did do was purchase eight 80mm 85durometer racing wheels and this did, no doubt, give me an advantage over the other "rec" skaters. At the starting line I lost a bit of nerve and lined up way too far back. When the gun went off, I was held back by slower skaters and spent the first few kilometers passing them all. At around the 3k mark I saw a long drafting line about 100 meters ahead of me. I knew this could be my ticket to a fast time so I skated even harder for a good two kilometers until I finally chased it down. I settled into the last position and took a well deserved breather. Then suddenly, someone at the front went down and several other skaters tumbled all over the place. It was a pretty sickening sight (I figured there had to be a broken bone or two somewhere in the carnage) and I was only just able to avoid adding my body to the pile. I sort of lost my appetite for pack skating at that point but I wasn’t going to turn down a free ride so I backed off another foot or so and stayed with what was left of the pack. We went up and over the Peace Bridge, and managed to negotiate the long downhill and sharp 270 degree right hand turn at the end (I’d read some internet stuff that had me all worked up over this section). I stayed with the group as we did a little loop to the south in Fort Erie and waved twice to my family who had positioned themselves at a strategic site near the bridge. However, as we started down the Niagara Parkway another skater started criticizing the way I was skating in the pack. I figured she was probably right (since I had never really done it before) so I decided to bail out and take up a position at the end of the pack. That was a big mistake because over the next couple of kilometers the drafting line started to string out. By the time I realized what was going on I had missed the ride with the fast ones at the front. I started passing skaters and trying to get them to try to catch up to the ones ahead but nobody was interested Going down the Parkway all by myself, I passed about 10 skaters. Only one guy passed me and I found out later that he had just watered the grass behind a tree. For the last few kilometers there was a group of around three skaters up ahead. I came close to catching them but in the end they put on a sprint to the finish and left me behind. I finished the race in a time of 1:37:39 and was very happy with this effort. My family didn’t notice anyone on rec skates finish ahead of me so I may have been first that unofficial category. Overall I finished in 43rd place. I decided, after the race, that I would have to join a skating club to get instruction in proper skating technique and to get advice on what kind of equipment to buy. You can read all about that in other places on this website.
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