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Ed's Sk8toronto Website
NATIONAL CAPITAL MARATHON AND 10K (OTTAWA) -MAY 2003 The National Capital Race Weekend in Ottawa, each May, is the biggest and best (local) inline event. It's a lot of fun. At one time there were two skating events but now there is only the marathon and half-marathon (which start at the same time). As well as skating, there are other several running and walking events of different lengths. The National Capital Marathon, for me, the highlight of the inline season, came early this year -just as the tulips came late. Again, the weather was perfect and the organization of the race was first class. As usual, the 10k started out at a very fast pace. This year, the fast pace at the beginning did not surprise me but I still could not hold on to the really fast skaters. A couple of km into the race I found myself in no man's land -between the first two packs and decided to wait for the trailing pack to catch up. Soon, I met up with over a dozen old friends and familiar faces including Kevin, Beth, Jordan, Carla, and Tatia. Several people were taking decent pulls and we rolled along at a good clip. I checked the split at the 3k mark and knew that I would beat my last year's time of 19:56 with ease. I took a few good pulls in order to keep everybody's heart rate up and legs burning but I tried not to get too tired because I knew there would be a mad dash in the last few hundred meters. With perhaps 1 or 2k to go I found myself pulling hard and Beth (who was right behind) advised me to slow down. It was good advice because when I brought the tempo down a couple of notches another skater started a really hard pull. (He told me later that was his best chance for a good finish because he does not have a good sprint). I tucked in behind him knowing that Beth was still behind me and wondered how spread out the pack would become. I started my final sprint when I could see the finish line a couple of hundred meters ahead and approached the mats as the leader of our pack. Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw Beth (that little son of a gun) out-hawk me at the line. For some reason the computer gave us the same time and listed me first in the results. This seemed fair to me because I did more pulling. However, she won $300 and I didn't even get a handshake. My time of 18:20 was way faster than I had hoped for. Finally, I can say that I have skated a 10k race in less than half the time I was able to run one at the peak of my running career. The marathon was a little more frustrating. Everyone skated easy for the first while and I was with the lead pack until perhaps the 2k mark. Finally, things began to string out and I saw gaps developing in the line up ahead. The pace did not seem that fast and I decided to chase Herb and hopefully get something going with a half dozen or so skaters up ahead. I worked hard to catch Herb but just as I did he gave up and decided to rejoin the pack behind. There I was again, caught between two packs. The wise thing to do at this point would have been to go with Herb but instead I started to chase down the skaters in front of me. The progress was really slow but after several kilometers on my own I finally caught Jenny (from LA), Morgan and another two skaters. By now, I was pretty tired and hoping for a good rest. It was not to be, because everyone else was getting tired as well. Since I had invested so much energy into catching this group I did my best to keep it ahead of the one behind but we just couldn't do it. Finally, the two groups melded. Now we were at around the 25k mark. With the resources at hand in that pack it could have gone along at a nice clip. Disappointingly, few were willing to take a decent pull. At one point, the pace was so slow that I thought one of the rec skaters we had been passing would join our pack. I could picture the pack behind us blowing by at any minute. Finally as we limped toward the finish line a few people started to sprint. I picked up a few positions in the last 100 meters from my position way too far back in the pack. I still can't figure out how I ended up so far back so near the end of the race. TISC practices should have taught me that by now. I finished in 1:21:40. That was 12 seconds slower than last year's time. On the drive home in the rain (for the second year in a row), I reflected on what a dumb race I had skated. Had I not blown out my brains catching a withering pack and trying to keep it ahead I would have had the energy to make a serious attempt at breaking away. I guess I'll have to save that effort for another time.
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