Quick Words about the Montreal 24 Hour Relay Race

I'm still working on my "debrief" of the Montreal 24 Hour event, but I just thought I'd slip in a few words here just to let everyone how much I enjoyed the event and how happy I was to see so many friends in attendence at such a fun gathering. Even if my team had not won the gold in the Fitness Category, it would still have been the best inline skating event I have attended this year.

The Ottawa Inline Club really was extremely well organized and made this an extremely positive experience for a 24 Hour newbie like me who was doing this event for ths first time. I was really nervous and intimidated at the scope of the race and the amount of endurance and energy required to complete it, and they worked really hard to make it seem so easy. I couldn't have asked for a better team than The Rabid Lap Dogs, and my teammates Danny D, Steve, Pascale, Dan, Benoit, Scott, Andrew, Dominique, and Dean were totally brilliant and completely awesome throughout. Always encouraging and extremely positive.

My biggest regret is not having more fun social time to just hang out and chill with my so many of my inline friends that were there to skate in Montreal.

At the top of the competitive fitness category, it seems that what down time you do have is spent trying to catch some sleep, refueling, cleaning bearings and changing wheels, or helping to keep lap times in support of those that are on the track skating. Next year I'm going to try to manage my time better so that I can go hang out in the other paddocks, have a drink with buddies, catch up with friends I haven't seen in a while, maybe even have an actual proper sit-down dinner with folks.

I wish I could have done a lap with my buddy Joel Stitt whom I haven't gotten to skate with since last year. Chat with Christine a bit longer to see how she is doing. Gone and hung out with Montreal Danse Squad's Pascal and Genevieve whom Jen and I had met at the Eddy Metzger weekend recently. Said hello to Yuri who was so helpful in helping Eddy couch us that same weekend. Had more time to just sit down and shoot the breeze when I went by to visit Andrew T, Jacky, Randy, Georg, Daniel and Mike in their paddock. I really wanted to ask Stephen, Ed D and Bob to introduce me to some of their teammates on the Flying Fossils. At one point I managed to say Hi to Brian Joubert whom I got to know a bit better in Duluth last year after skating with him in a few marathons. I was hoping that I could do a bit more than cheer on Eric G as he skated the event solo, particularly when I saw how Richard, Candy, Munro, Carla, Bruce and Chrissie were supporting him. I'm happy that I took the opportunity to eat canned Catapillers in caccoons with Kevin. I wanted to tell Peter how much it energized me when he cheered for me as I passed him jogging halfway through one of my tougher laps. I regret not being able to thank Brian (skating solo as well) whom I met in Philly, for pointing me to the Vegan Athletic Gear website so that I could get some Go Vegan Triathlete stuff for Jen. I also met some really cool people on course during the few times that I was able to synch up with another skater to draft with and work with them by taking turns pulling, particularly folks from the two french teams. It would have been pretty awesome to say hello to them again if only I could recognize them when they weren't wearing their skates, helmets and skinsuits.

There were plenty of people I had met previous inline events like A2A, Duluth, Philly Free Skate, Ottawa and Montreal races that I wish I had more time to talk to and get to know better. Even many of the Ottawa Inline skaters on other teams that I was sharing a paddock with.

I also would have liked to have more relaxing hang time with my Rabid Lap Dop teammates whom I spent the most time with. It's a shame that we were all so tired and eager to hit the road to get home afterwards. It would have been really swell to get together for a celebratory round somewhere.

The organizers of this event deserve the biggest props of all.

It was a great event and made even better by the people there.