Nicholas Nicholby

What a great morning of Skating!

The Toronto-area has a handful of clubs, both "official" (TISC, TBN, Trailbladers) and "unofficial" (Friday Night Skate). However, the one thing that gets my lazy bones out of bed consistently bright and early most Sunday mornings is the Skate out at the Hamilton Beach Trail with the "non-club" organized through Christine and Joel Stitt's "sk8crazy" mailing list. The Stitt's are two of my favourite peeps in the inline skating community, and you have to credit their charisma and brilliance in getting such a large group of friends together to skate and hang out every week. Particularly when you take into account the distance most of us travel to get there! It's worth the drive though... 8km of wide, smooth, relatively flat, paved trail with every 200 meters marked off. A beautiful view of the lake that snakes along the well maintained green park system. Three laps equals about a marathon. If you get there early enough, there is not much in the way of bikes, walkers, joggers, dogs or rec skaters to dodge, although given how wide the path is, it's not really much of an issue most days and can be easily resolved with some polite verbal cues.

The Hamilton Beach Trail skate is easily my favourite of all the regular skates during any given week.

Huge props should be given to Joel and Christine for arriving early and sweeping sections of the trail prior to the skate this morning, as well as organizing the Breakfast at Emma's Backporch that followed.

It was a really good turnout of skaters for the kickoff to our season here at Hamilton Beach. I was really pleased that we had such a strong pack together to work and play with. Scott, Jacky, Jay, Morgan, Sarah and I primarily skating together, with Len, Carolyn, and Stephen joining in, with Joel, Christine, Gillian also out on the trail, and Debbie and Candy joining us for brunch.

Despite skating the previous day on Saturday as a rain contingency, the weather could not have been more perfect besides a bit of wind. It felt a bit chilly at first, but once we warmed up, things were smooth sailing given what a great pack we had today.

On the second lap, Morgan suggested that we take turns going out on breakaways as a good practice for situations we would be encountering during marathons in faster packs this year. One of us would try to get the jump on the rest of the pack by skating hard, which would give the rest of us either an opportunity to work together to catch the "flier" or if we could react quickly enough, to jump in with the person on the break, before getting reeled back into the pack. It was quite interesting to see the different scenarios that developed out of that given the relative strengths of everyone in the pack. At one point Sarah went on a break with about 1000 meters to go on the lap right after Morgan got reeled back in on one of his breaks. Scott and I managed to jump in behind her, and as the three of us cycled through (I think our individual pulls were probably too long) it seemed like the rest of them practically vanished behind us as we gunned it into our imaginary "finish line"... it turned out that poor Morgan had caught a branch and taken a spill.

The third lap was more of a struggle for me mentally as the rest of the week's training started to catch up with me. I am not in good enough shape for the full marathon distance yet! As we approached the end of that third lap, I noticed Morgan pulling off into the back. I considered pulling off and slipping behind him, but I figured it would be a better training simulation to try and chase him when he broke off for the sprint from the back. Scott just finished a pull when Morgan made his move and I pulled out from second position as Scott was winding up to draft in with Morgan. The result was, I inadvertently blocked Scott, and had the benefit of receiving a push forward from Scott. Scott would later describe me as "Wild Ed" for making this move. Morgan's suggestion later on as we "debriefed" at Emma's would have been to anticipate a stronger skater like Scott or Sarah to draft in or give chase and work together to bridge the gap. As it was, it looked like Morgan purposefully kept the distance between us far enough so I would not be able to get in his draft, while staying close enough so that I would keep chasing him (like a carrot on a stick) and not just give up the chase so soon.

Other observsions:
-Being behind Scott in a pack suits me because I like his cadence, and the guy has a very admirable work-ethic when it comes to pulling.
-I found on the third lap when I was getting tired, being behind Sarah helped me from burning out after a pull or a break because she remains calm and relaxed, and following her smooth glide-recovery really helped me to conserve energy (in the same way that I managed to stay in the pack behind her when we were skating in the Yucatan, Mexico).
-The TISC/Scooters skaters are ALL getting incrementally faster compared to last year. The coaching both indoor and out is paying out it's dividends, and the performance of Jacky, Jay and Carolyn are testament to that. These are the guys to watch this year!
-Morgan's continuing generosity when it comes to his encouragement and advice, as well as the kind of support he gives with his presence which is not as easily measured.
-Coach Eric G's suggestion to attack and/or power up the hills out at Hamilton Beach remains pretty sound from a training standpoint, and proves beneficial when applied to racing marathons.

I was sad to hear Stephen's ongoing health problems would prevent him from racing this year. Stephen was one of my very first inline coaches when I started doing inline marathons and quite the inspiration as an older gentleman who excels at this sport. I could only hope to be as active and spry as he is in a couple of decades from now.

Emma's Backporch was enjoyable as always. Turned out today was yet another "Two Buffet" day, as I also ended up going to Kama for Indian Buffet before going out to the theatre tonight. At least I can half-justify it this time with the marathon distance I put in today.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Apple
Nature's Path Cereal in Mango Peach Soy Smoothie
Bacon
Sausage
Eggs
2 Croissants
Pineapple
Strawberry
homefries
Melon
Orange Juice
Spinach
Butter Chicken
Garlic Naan
Ice Cream
Pakoras
lamb
Saag Paneer
Carrot pickles
tomatoes
tandoori chicken