1st Friday Night Skate. 2005

My first ever Friday Night Skate was in 2005 when I participated in the kickoff to the 2005 season in early June.


My buddy Jason Strimas did it with me. You can see various TISC/TBN friends like Kevin M, Randy, Richard A, and Mike L in attendance as well.

I can't believe in all my years in Toronto as a Rec Skater I had never heard about this weekly fun skate through the downtown core. I wish I could do this skate more often.

Montreal Inline Marathon (Festival de la Sante) 2004

The Montreal Inline Marathon was part of the larger Festival de la Sante Montreal Marathon event at the beginning of September that is geared mostly for runners, but also included cyclists and an inline race. The course was simply wild. Starting on the bridge overlooking the Expo site, down hairpin off-ramps and on-ramps, taking us around the Formula 1 track, over the bridge, along the shore and all around Montreal, including the old city where we skated over cobblestones at one point. For an experienced street skater like me on my old Nike 78mm rec skates, it was a blast.

They cancelled the inline portion of the Festival de la Sante in 2006, which was dissappointing given the fact that this had become my second favourite race after the NCM which kicked off inline season in Ottawa (the NCM cancelled their inline race in 2007). The good news is that this year they are holding an inline race the same weekend out on the Formula 1 track on the same course where Nationals were held last year. Jen and I have tentative plans for her to be running the same time I am skating.




My race finished much earlier than Jen's, so I jumped on coarse to run her in as she approached the end. The photos below are pretty funny because it looks like I am running in the Marathon in my flip flops carrying a huge knapsack containing all my skate gear. I got some strange looks from the folks on the sidelines cheering people into the finish.




Jen and I turned this into an active vacation by bringing our bikes and cycling around Montreal a couple of days later, before heading for Vermont for some hardcore hiking in the mountains. We then returned to Montreal the following weekend to participate in her Uncle Danny's Montreal Triathlon.

Falling Rampage 10km Inline 2005

The Rolling Rampage earned the nickname "Falling Rampage" as the quality of the pavement had greatly deteriorated from the previous year. It is primarily a wheelchair race, who's participants could easily roll over the rough pavement, potholes and tar snakes that typified the pavement on the stretch of University Ave surrounding Queen's Park. However, for the Inline racers, it was a disaster. My friend and fellow Marathon Dynamics Inline Group member Kevin Mount (in the green below) took a spill on the timing mat around the finish area during the second lap, and I had to leap over him rather than dodge around in order to ensure my timing chip registerered my lap. Kevin only suffered a bit of road rash and finished the race. I later learned from Jen that another friend, Andrew T wasn't so lucky and dislocated his shoulder.

Photos courtesy of Peter and Kevin Noh.



Poor Andrew T!


In the photo below, I know it appears that Dave, Jen and I are cruel and heartless people laughing at Marathon Dynamics Coach Stephen's mishap. He actually was among the few who did not fall, but was simply resting on the comfy comfy concrete immediately following the race.


Despite the conditions of the road, I have to admit that I mourned the loss of this race the following year when there were no Road Races organized at all in the Greater Toronto Area in 2006, let alone a venue in the downtown core! I'm hoping that Queen's Park circle gets paved so that we can return to racing in downtown Toronto in the Rolling Rampage.

Friday Night Skate 2005

Friday Night Skate happens every Friday night departing at Yonge and Bloor at 10pm sharp, and is run by a gentleman by the name of Anthony who also runs the Toronto Blading Yahoo Group.

Anthony has been leading these skates for a number of years and I started doing it on occassion at the urging of friends like Angela, Richard, Randy (seen in the pic below) and Mike L.





Photos Courtesy of Peter.

There is an entire subculture of urban street skaters that you only see at Friday Night Skate. They are certainly a colourful group of characters.

Montreal Defi 2004

128km around the Island of Montreal in the cold and the wet. My first Ultra-Distance Marathon. The Defi was ultimately a very challenging and positive experience for me. It was the first time I skated an event in the rain. I actually wore that shell in the picture below for the entire race... not exactly the most aerodynamic setup. If my TISC teammates find all the gear I have strapped to me in races these days funny, they should have seen all the stuff I used to lug around with me back then.

I remember that many Toronto area skaters that had been planning on doing the event bailed when the rain reports came in and it was only Randy D, Paul Ho and myself the headed down to do it that year. I was hoping to skate with them, but in the darkness of the start line, they were no where to be found! Luckily as skidded our way through the darkness of the recreational trail, I managed to find a familiar face. Rod Willmot, a native of Montreal whom I had met and skated with earlier that year at the Toronto Inline Race Weekend.

You can read Rod Willmot's excellent report of the race at the Defi site. It was really nice of him to give me a shout out in there. I have not seen him in the past couple of years at races and wonder how he's doing.

Being completely unfamiliar with the course, particularly in the utter blackness and illuminated with the occassional road flare, Rod tucked in behind me and talked me through every obstacle that flew at me in the darkness. He knew that the wooden bridge would be slippery, where to avoid the crotch-level posts around La Chine, which turns to take. We skated into the brilliant sunrise. We slipped in and out of packs made up of various skaters up until the third section when disaster struck and a few skaters went down and Rod and I were seperated.

From there is was pretty lonely for me, and I even got lost at the far tip of the Island when I didn't turn where I should have! Luckily I ran into another duo, a man and a woman who only spoke french and were as lost as I was, and I followed them back onto the course. We picked up and lost the occassional skater, and in the final stretch from downtown onwards, only the french woman and I were left. She was incredibly strong for a small female and did the Lion's Share of the pulling in that tough back end into the wind. I later found out from the results her name was Laurence Leraitre from France, and if I ever run into her again, I owe her a drink.

I got my taste for the Ultra-Distance races at this point, and I am hoping to get back there this year after missing the 2006 Defi. Although it looks like support for these kind of events is dwindling as fewer people register in them. I have been hoping to eventually be able to get the bragging rights to completing the triple-crown of the three major Fall Ultra-Distance events in one year... A2A, New York 100 and the Defi, but the logistics have thus far eluded me. Hopefully these events will continue long enough for me to accomplish that goal!

I believe the photo is courtesy of Peter once again.


I'm always amazed at how happy I look in pictures following Ultra Distance Inline Events. I wonder what I look like when I'm 3/4 of the way through them?

Toronto 2 Hamilton Inline. 2001

Flashback to a time when I didn't even know there were inline skating marathons or even people who raced on inline skates! In 2001 I had been recreational road-skating for about ten years.

For many years, I had been making Rollerblade trips from Toronto to Hamilton (and beyond) along the waterfront trail as a rec-skater.

In October of 2001 I made the trek out with my buddy Kisoo Lee who still rec-skates these days.

PORT CREDIT. Phoning Jen!


BURLINGTON.



Hamilton.

Check out my old-school Nike Rec Skates! (missing a wheel of course)

Rolling Rampage 2004

The Rolling Rampage was a 10km Wheelchair racing event around Queen's Park that included an inline race. I believe it only ran for a short period of two years. Jen and I were really happy to do this event given the fact that it was only a ten minute walk from my place in the Annex at that time. Given all the travelling we have done to participate in events over the years, it was actually quite nice to be able to just roll out of bed and over to the start line!

National Capital Inline Marathon 2005

This was the year that I broke in my beloved Rollerblade Lightning 100's and cracked the 1:30 barrier. Once again finding myself in a large pack with many familiar faces from Ottawa Inline, Team Stamina, as well as my friend Kevin Mount (in the green) from Marathon Dynamics Inline group and TBN.


















Me with my training partners Dave and Andres! These guys are awesome. I really enjoyed our daytime skates along the MGT. We often went out to Port Credit and back as our regular routine.





Jen had an incredible day as well. She skated the half marathon, and then went on to run the half marathon!!!

Criterium 10km Inline 2007

Courtesy of Peter via Speedskateworld.com

There are perhaps more graceful ways to begin a race. 8)








Courtesy of Candy

National Capital Inline Marathon 2004

Having taken Kevin Smith's Inline Clinic, I'm finally starting to draft at events in 2004. In this case, it was in a huge pack. This is where I met TBN's Marty Streeter for the first time (he's in the grey shirt in the pack-photos below), and I also skated with many members of Team Stamina and Ottawa Inline for the first time. Over the next few years, I found that I would always end up in packs at the Ottawa and Montreal races with many of the same folks.