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Ed's Sk8toronto Website
"QUEST FOR SPEED" January 2003 After listening for years to my brother Tom telling me that “Rollerblading” (inline skating) was a great way to get in shape and after my doctor told me that it was time to "do something" I bought a $90 pair of Bauer “rec” (recreational) skates at Canadian Tire. My brief running, triathlon and swimming careers had ended years before at the hands of chronic overuse injuries. It was early April of 1998 and I was 45 year old.
People who know me would probably agree that I am competitive and very task oriented. Thus, I kept up my interest level by competing against myself. Each time I skated, I tried to go faster than the time before. When I needed an easy day I would simply do a new route so that I would have no time to beat. Of course, this went against part two of my plan but by the time I realized what I was doing I didn’t care. When I started skating again in the spring of 1999, I was disappointed to find that, during the winter, I had lost all the fitness I had gained. Finally, with a new pair of $250 Ultrawheels I started to push my route times lower and again saw that better equipment means faster skating. By the middle of the summer I was wondering aloud whether there was any place that I could race. During my running phase I had entered lots of races and had even seen inline skaters participating in the events. The third year of skating was a turning point. I again lost all my fitness in the winter and again struggled to catch up in the spring. Then my friend Grant told me about an 8k race on the Molson Indy track at the CNE. Despite the warnings on the entry form I entered the Pro race. When I went to the start line almost everyone had 5 wheel skates, lycra-spandex skin suits, cool sunglasses and fancy helmets. I felt like I was wearing coveralls to a black tie dinner party. I started out at the very back of the pack but started passing slower skaters right away. I noticed that everyone was skating in long lines, apparently cutting the wind for each other. As I passed one of these lines a guy with all the fancy stuff started to follow me! I didn’t know whether to be flattered or angry. After a few kilometres I pulled him up to another drafting line and joined the pack. What fun! My buddy finally decided to lead the pack for a while so I let him get good and tired and then passed the whole lot and sprinted away making sure that no one followed me.
My daughter Amy told me I came 30th out of 60. I was too shy to strike up any conversations but I did get a flyer from The Toronto Inline Skating Club (TISC). I wasn’t too sure about these people however because their skin suits made them look like they should be delivery people for Pizza Pizza. I could not imagine ever having the nerve to wear one of those things in public. Later that summer, I went to a TISC practice at the old Max Ward loop. I was disappointed because the practice did not have much structure and I found it difficult to engage anyone in a conversation. I found that I was faster than lots of TISC members (notably the women and children) and I did find out about an upcoming marathon in Niagara Falls. One person told me that I would finish in about 2 hours flat. Well, I thought about this and decided that I should be able to skate 26 miles in around 1 hour and 45 minutes or perhaps even faster. This became my challenge for the late summer and fall. I bought a better pair of rec skates (the Ultrawheels were toast anyway), upped my mileage, extended my long workouts to well over an hour and started to read up on pack skating. When the big day came I beat plenty of fancy 5 wheelers and posted a time of 1:37:39. Now I was totally hooked. I decided that I was capable of skating a marathon in under 90 minutes and this became my goal. Step 1 was to join a gym for the winter and not let myself get all out of shape again. Step 2 was to join TISC in the spring and learn how to skate in a pack (reading about it is not enough) and get some advice on equipment and clothing. Things at TISC were now completely different. The training venue had changed to the Hershey Centre parking lot in Mississauga. I was welcomed by a very friendly lot of inliners and was happy to find that Peter Doucet, the new coach, had structured but varied workouts tailored to the time of year and the needs of those that came to the practices. I found out about the Ottawa (National Capital) Marathon to take place in mid May and began to focus on that race. With better technique, better knowledge of pack skating and a new (proudly worn) TISC jersey I managed to finish the National Capital Marathon in 1:33:32. I was ecstatic but by now I felt that I was reaching the limit of what I could do on rec skates. I ordered a pair of Miller Fitness Elite’s and a set of Mogema clap frames. Both were poor choices but I didn’t realize that for many months. I took delivery in June and spent the next two months figuring out how to use them. My route times dropped into territory I had never dreamed of and I started doing a lot better in the TISC workouts. In September 2001, just after 9/11, I went with a bunch of TISC people too the Northshore Marathon in Duluth Minn. It’s the biggest inline race in North America. I entered the Advanced Men’s Category and finished the race in 47th place but only 8 seconds behind the winner. My time of 1:16:47 was beyond belief. I was on a high for two weeks after that race. In the winter of 2001-2002 I started back at the gym and joined many of my TISC team-mates for the indoor season at Scooters Roller Palace in Mississauga. I cannot really say that indoor inline is the love of my life but I certainly would recommend it to anyone who wants to improve their outdoor skating. Figuring out how to deal with the tight high-speed turns and the proximity of other skaters has been a crucial element in my quest for speed. The 2002 outdoor season brought me my 5th pair of skates in 5 years. Through ignorance and neglect I had managed to crack one of my Miller boots badly enough to seriously affect its performance. I went for a pair of custom fitted Bont Pyrotechnics. It was the best buying decision of my entire life. I put them together with a pair of Mogema M55 fixed frames and all of a sudden I had the proper amount of ankle support together with a manoeuvrable and responsive frame. I was skating pain and hassle free for the first time in my life. My route times dropped again -to levels that I would have thought to be humanly impossible 5 years before. I can now do all my original routes about 30% faster than when I first buckled up the Bauers. The 2002 competitive season was an unqualified success. I managed to win my age category in marathons in Ottawa, Central Park NYC, and Duluth (in the Advanced Men’s category) and came second in Niagara Falls. I am getting to know skaters from all over Canada and the US. Now I have joined the TISC board of directors and am becoming familiar with the logistics of staging inline races, the politics of the sport, and the general day to day issues that arise when operating a small sporting organization. What does the future hold in my quest for speed? Realistically, I am probably now about as fast as I will get. No doubt, there are some small gains to be had through better conditioning, better technique and better equipment. For the 2003 season, I am going to enter the pro category at the big events. I will not be winning many prizes but my times may drop a little further. In the longer term, I hope that I can keep up my interest in this sport for many years. I suppose I will have to cope with an injury sooner or later (in 5 years I’ve never had an injury that prevented me from skating) and, at the age of 50, I will have to face the fact that I am not getting any younger. January 2004 I must have jinxed myself last year when I wrote about never having had an injury. My 2003 season started with a bang but ended with a whimper. I did very well in the first half of the season and then disaster struck! At the cottage in late July, I suffered a herniated disk in my lower back. It was probably caused by shingling a roof but a long skate earlier in the day may have contributed. The pain was intense and the recovery has been really slow. The rest season was a write-off as, for a time, I couldn’t even walk (much less skate). The focus for the fall and winter has become an attempt to recover from my back problem. I did some physiotherapy in the fall and am now doing an exercise program at the gym. January 2005 In the end, I lost almost 8 months of skating because of the herniated disk. Finally, on Feb. 29th/2004, I lace up the inlines for an easy outdoor skate. Still, I took things very slowly -but made good progress. I decided not do indoor skating last winter and also decided not to train with TISC or do any track skating in the 2004 season. As a result, I went into my first two marathons with virtually no anaerobic training. This was not a good idea because I failed to catch the packs that I thought I should be skating with. I adjusted my training to include some sprints and hills and did much better in the final two marathons. In the end, I bettered almost all of my old route times and felt that my season was a great success. January 2006 I got an early start to the season by taking advantage of 2 trips to the southern States and by making a determined effort to skate on the pathways in February and March. Again, I did not skate indoor or participate in outdoor track racing. These activities do bother my back –but even more they bother my left hip. Nevertheless, I did really well in the competitive part of inline skating that I enjoy the most –marathons. This year I competed in 4 marathons and broke 1:20 in 3 of them. I lowered my PB to 1:14:05 –at Duluth. I participated in a terrific clinic with Barry Publow in early August and made a considerable effort to improve my skating technique in line with what Barry was teaching us. The wear pattern on my wheels has changed completely (and for the better) so I believe I made good progress. Perhaps partly because I was working so hard on technique, I had a lot of difficulty setting PBs on my regular routes around Toronto and at Bedrock. In the end, I only set 2 best times out of a total of perhaps a dozen routes. Other factors that hampered my quest for new PBs were -no improvements to my equipment, a very hot and polluted summer and the sad fact that I’m still not getting any younger. We will see what this year brings. January 2007 Things started off very well in 2006 because conditions in late February and March were favourable for skating. I was getting into pretty good shape in early May when disaster struck. Health problems kept me off skates for a couple of months and by that time the competitive season was lost. I’m too proud to go in races and do poorly because I am not in shape. Once I resumed my skating I approached things from the viewpoint of a ‘skilled recreational skater’ rather than the ‘speed obsessed, competitive speedskater’ that I tend to be. It was a refreshing approach in some ways and probably a precursor of things to come. Right now, however, I am gung ho for another super-competitive year. March 2009 I remember 2007 as a pretty average year. I trained a lot but didn't get around to competing too often. For the entire season I was badly hampered by a very sore right shoulder -on which I finally had an operation in March 2008. The operation caused my 2008 season to get off to a slow start. Just as I was getting fast again I had two falls -both of which caused injuries. The second incident tore up my left knee and put an end to the season on the last day of August. In the next few days I will skate for the first time in 6 months. I am not sure whether my knee will be able to "take it". I hope so. May 2010 Age is certainly catching up to me but I am not ready to hang up the blades yet. I had an operation on my other (left) shoulder last winter and have been having a terrible time with a compression fracture in my mid back. Despite these problems am lacing up the inlines 3-4 times per week, exploring all my routes and working my way back into condition.
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Part of the plan was to keep the skates in my pickup truck and try out some of the bike paths I had noticed around Toronto. My job in construction takes me all over the city and I figured I would spend some lunch hours checking out a pathway or take time out, on the way home, at the end of the day. The other part of the plan was to avoid overuse injuries by not getting carried away with this sport in the way I had done with everything else. I loved inline skating the first time I buckled up those Bauers. With my house league hockey background, I caught on to the inline skates quickly. It took only one or two crashes to figure out that stopping is different from ice-skating and after skating backwards a few times I realized that the fancy stuff is best left for the ice. I started skating 3-4 times a week in Taylor Creek Park. Then I found a much better route in Sunnybrook Park. I also found a good route at the cottage and tried out several other bike paths around the city. I was totally hooked and skated right up until Christmas. By then, I was on my third set of wheels. I wore my first two sets right down to the hubs and when I was forced to purchase my third set the sales guy suggested some harder (racing) wheels in the hope that they would last a little longer. Those eight wheels cost me more than the skates I put them on but WOW, were they fast! This was my first indication that inline skating equipment is a critical element in the quest for speed.