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Northshore Marathon - Ray Vermette
The North Shore Inline Marathon is the largest in North America, attracting well over 3000 skaters. It's a point-to-point race, with a very slight drop in elevation from start to finish and has been blessed with great weather conditions. An ideal event to cap your competitive inline season or to attempt a personal best finish time.
Dan D, Allain, Dominique, JF, and myself flew into Minneapolis Thursday night , rented a mini-van, and drove to Duluth. Being the only Anglophone in the van, the others took pity on me and taught me a few choice words of French on the two hour ride to Duluth. Dan T flew direct to Duluth and caught a hotel shuttle to the Raddison. We were suppose to split a room, but the staff accidentally put us in separate rooms the first night. Sergio flew in the next morning.
After a hearty breakfast, we hoped into the van to check out the race route, then back to town to pick up our race kits at the DECC and check out the sports expo. There were some great deals on inline skate wheels, bearings, and clothing. We had super at Bellisio's, then back to the hotel where we anxiously watched the weather channel for updates. The forecast wasn't too promising: possibility of thundershowers and strong side-to-front headwinds.
Next morning: Sergio forgot about the time zone shift and his alarm went off at 4 am. Not a problem, as we were too excited to sleep much anyway. The sky was heavily overcast, but almost no wind. Maybe the weather would cooperate after all? The weather channel showed a green wall of precipitation advancing on Duluth. I packed my rain wheels. Just in case...
The bus ride from the DECC to the start line was long and dark. Not long after we arrived, it started to rain. Dan D doned his "Maid of the Mist" rainjacket and I frantically switched to my rain wheels. Pink Mundo Pistas and Zero Drag bearings. Dan D had the same setup and as we warmed up behind the start line, he remarked, "Hey, these actually grip pretty good!"
The first wave with Allain, JF, and Sergio departed at 7:30. Dan D, Dan T, and I left with wave "A" at 7:40. The wave "A" start was pretty "civilized" as Dan D put it. Things started out slow and cautiously as people tested the grippability of their wheels on the wet road. My pink Pistas worked flawlessly. I felt like I was skating on dry pavement. No slip at all.
It didn't take long for things to accelerate on the long, gradual downhill grade from the start line. We were hitting speeds in the high 30s and low 40s in no time. Wave A shook out into one long paceline, with multiple pacelines and individual skaters breaking out and advancing on either side and then re-merging with the main pack. Imagine one long pack of 150 to 200 people, with skaters continually leapfrogging ahead.
I didn't see many people fall. Perhaps one or two near the start, and one or two towards the end. The falls I did see looked pretty nasty.
Dan D and Dan T skated smartly and jumped ahead in the pack to stay within 10 to 20 skaters of the front. I allowed myself to fall too far back and eventually dropped. I was picked up by a smaller, slower pack of four skaters, which picked up other stragglers and eventually grew to about 10 or so. In the last third or so of the race, the main lead pack from wave "B" caught up to us and we numbered over 40. The pace picked up from 25km/h or so to 30-35km/h. I was determined this time to not get stuck at the back. Every time the pack slowed at a slight uphill, I broke out and advanced. Every time a skater moved up the side, I tucked in behind and moved up a few more positions. At Lemon Drop Hill, the pack slowed to a crawl and in a cunning move, I broke out and advanced to the pack ahead of us. I basked in the glow of the wisdom of my tactical maneouver, but not for long, as five minutes later, the pack I had just left also bridged the gap and had caught up to me. Hestie de cālisse de tabarnac!
We passed through some tunnels and skaters attacked on the dry pavement. The first attack almost caught me by suprise, but I managed to hang on. The next two I was prepared for. They also attacked on the final climb about a kilometer or two from the finish. It was an all-out sprint from there. I crossed the line a second under 1:27. Far from a personal best, but given the weather conditions, good enough. Dan D placed 8th overall in Open Class, 2nd in his age category, and had a personal best time of 1:21:25. Dan T finished 21st overall in Open Class and 7th in his age category with a time of 1:21:30. Dominique finished 34th women overall in Open Class and 8th in her age category with a time of 1:33:08. JF finished 22nd overall in Elite Open and shattered his previous personal best with a time of 1:09:29. Sergio finished 27th overall in Elite Open with a time of 1:15:59. Allain finished 42nd overall in Elite Open with a time of 1:20:44. The attacks in the elite category I'm told were brutal. The rain didn't seem to slow these guys down at all.
IF YOU GO:
The Raddison was a good hotel to stay at. It was about a 5 minute walk to the DECC, and supposedly less expensive than the closer Holiday Inn. The pool, hot tub, and sauna were nice features after the race. We flew into Minneapolis and drove about 2 to 2.5 hours to Duluth, but it might make more sense timewise and moneywise to fly direct to Duluth and use the hotel shuttle. We arrived Thursday night, but you could probably fly in early Friday and still have enough time to pick up your race kit, check into the hotel, and do all the other things you need to do before a race. The waterfront is a nice place to eat.
As soon as you arrive at the start line, lace up and go ahead of the start line to warm up. It's too congested behind the start line to warm up on your skates properly, especially as the start time nears.
The course itself is excellent and very fast. Mostly good pavement except for an abundance of road snakes in the first third of the race. Given the right weather, it's an ideal course to achieve a personal best time. In the 11 years they have held the event, it has only rained once: the time I chose to go. Somone told me it was the first time it's rained on that date in 30 years.
If you go and you race, don't make the same tactical error I made and allow yourself to get too far back in the pack. Ideally, you want to be within "striking distance" of the front, otherwise the extreme surges in speed further back in the pack will wear you out and you risk getting caught behind a gap. The pack slowed to a crawl on just about anything resembling an incline, so use those opportunities to break out and advance your position, work with other skaters to move up rather than skating on your own, and only jump a few positions at a time instead of attempting to pass 20 or 30 at a go.
