Last Saturday I raced in the inaugural Minnesota Half Marathon in St Paul. It was my second girls-only race of this season and it couldn't be more different than the experience at Chicagoland Inline Marathon. The pro/pro masters women field consisted mainly of older skaters and the different style of racing demanded different race strategies. Personally, I was really looking forward to race with the girls from Minnesota. They have lots of strong skaters and I hadn't really race with any of them. Combining advanced and pro women in the same wave meant it was the perfect opportunity for me to find out how I compare to the rest of the field.
The weather was warm and humid but far from unmanageable. I had an extended warm up with longer than usual time on skates doing a few accelerations. I had a feeling the race would keep at a high pace and I needed to get myself ready for the surges in speed. There was a bit of mix up at the start. Advanced men were suppose to start ahead of the pro/advanced women wave. All the girls naturally clumped together at the start line and it happened that we were behind the pro masters/vet men wave. Some of the advanced men clued in and got in front of us but some didn't. At the call of the start, it was a frantic scramble as guys were trying to get to the front when half of their competitors already skated off in the distance. When it was our turn, I positioned myself behind JW (K2/Asphalt Beach). I did the same in Chicagoland and it worked out well. The pace wasn't particularly fast and I quickly got behind SaH (Il Peloton). I was about 6th or 7th place back from the front and felt totally comfortable. Most of the stronger skaters stayed near the front including BK (Powerslide), DR (Bont), PG (Luigino), KP (Adam's Inline).
The course was a simple out and back with 180 turnaround at one end and a on/off ramp on the other. There were many rolling hills which kept things interesting. I was protective of my position behind SaH but kept MW's advice in mind about minimizing my time pulling the pack. There were many surges in speed as anticipated and I needed to save my energy to respond to the attacks. I had to work hard but felt comfortable enough to know that I was right where I should be. To be honest, the attacks and surges felt like a blur to me. I kept on reminding myself that this was just like my regular training sessions in Hamilton with guys who are stronger than me. It certainly helped to put things in perspective because I know that strength is not everything.
The pack got smaller the closer we approached the 180 turnaround. This has always been a weakness of mine and I actually dragged my wheels to slow down. Bad move obviously. The pack pulled ahead of me as we exited the turnaround and I got flushed out of the pack. I kept on skating hard counting on the fact that the pack would slow down. It did. I worked hard to chase but just when I got into the draft again, someone attacked. I had little energy left and could only watch as the gap grew bigger and bigger. There was no pack behind me in sight but I knew that KP would catch me soon. Unfortunately, when she caught up, I had not yet recover and just couldn't hang on to her draft. She would have been my chance to chase the lead pack. At this point, I determined that I had to skate hard to stay ahead of any possible chase pack. Definitely not my ideal race plan but considering the shorter race distance, I had confidence to do it. At last, when I spotted JW behind me, I eased up. Working with JW would significantly increase my chance of keeping the pack behind me. JW was tired but I took the advantage to rest a little behind her. However, once I saw an upcoming climb, I decided to pick up my pace. I didn't look back until I creased the hill. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw that there was a good gap between us and proceeded to put my head down to work. I wasn't far from the finish and managed to successfully keep my lead. I finished 6/10 in the pro women field and 9/29 overall with a time of 41:33.6 (official result).
Staying with the lead pack for half of the race was a respectable effort on my part but of course I am a little disappointed for not hanging on longer. I am happy with my placement though I must admit it doesn't feel like an achievement until one day I can hang on to the lead pack until the end of the race. I think this race is a useful indicator of my current conditioning and I am about where I expected. My transition into the pro women field is on target.
Comments