My friend Muhayman who was on my 6 person Le Mans Inline Skate team last year will be going solo this year. He will be raising money for his charity Wheels and Wheelchairs. You can sponsor Muhayman too here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/muhaymanjamil This video is my pledge to his cause:
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Without doubt the Berlin Double Marathon weekend was the pinnacle of the year. I finally achieved a sub 1:30 skate marathon time as well as accomplishing my first ever run marathon. The training was tough both physically and mentally. Along the way I also completed a bunch of other new races, including a number of other double event weekends and even had time to design a medal for one of the events. I lost a GoPro but got this massive medal holder. (I still would have preferred my camera). This has been an action packed year that has ended with me enrolling in yoga. Whilst I've dabbled with yoga with friends before, I'm now enjoying actual classes and the contrast it gives to my usual sporting activies. I've already signed up for a few obstacle events next year. For me it was disappointing to see that some events, namely Nuclear and Nuts Challenge have increased their "early bird," prices by £30 on top of what it was this time last year! (I'll be skipping them this year). There are quite a few other events to keep me busy besides anyway. Overall 2016 will be a little low key than this year, but the absence of marathon training should mean I can focus my energy on other things! 2015 events that gave finishing mementos: The Nuts Challenge (2 laps) ; Dirty Dozen (London South); Electric Run (London); Urban Ninja (Tooting Bec); Tower of London Run (10k); Spartan Race (Allianz Park); Nuclear Rush (6k); Tough Mudder (Midlands); London River Rat Race; Dublin Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon; London Inline (half) Marathon; Run to the Beat (Wembley); Berlin Inline Marathon; Berlin Run Marathon.
Look who managed to snuck into the official video for this year's Berlin Inline Marathon? (1:56 min). A nice edit and it gives me goosebumps watching this back.
This is my 4th year at LSST's London Inline Marathon but this time I was especially excited as it was hosted at a new venue, the Queen Elisabeth Olympic Park. Quite an upgrade of location from Hillingdon Cycle Circuit in Zone 6. (I still really like that course though!). As I was helping out on various promotional material for this event I was lucky enough to have tested the track out prior race day. So I had the advantage of knowing what to anticipate, a one mile loop of hills! Race Plan. Enjoy a sprint finish. Get sub 45 minutes for the inline half marathon. I wasn't sure if this was possible on this particular track, but I've always been around the 46 minute mark for this distance. The Race. I was a bit laid back about everything and I guess having done so many events I don't really get pre event nerves any more. Downside is that I didn't really give too much thought into how I was going to approach this race. When the whistle went for us there was the same frantic sprint for position as always and I got carried away with the moment and I ended up overtaking everyone. The leading line consisted of skaters who I know are of a much higher level than myself, that's when I realised that this was probably a bad idea. Nethertheless, I was skating in the present. I was enjoying the speed. It wasn't long before the leading line crept passed me and I slipped in somewhere in the middle. The pace was fast and I knew I was out of my depth. What I found particularly difficult was matching the pace of everyone with the changes in track gradient. As we hit a hill I'd end up transferring most of my energy into the person in front, then struggle to gain momentum up the hill again. I later spoke to my friend Richard and he said he'd actually step outside of the paceline in these situations. Richard would get to the top of the hill ahead of everyone and then actually stop for the rest of them to catch up. Guess that could work if you have people happy enough to let you back into the paceline. Flashbacks of my Mittelrhein marathon last year came to me. I didn't enjoy that race because I was physically pushing myself way beyond what I could. With that in mind I dropped off this speedy train. It's bittersweet whenever this happens, disappointed that I couldn't keep up with the others but then relief that I can skate as I want, being less mindful of others. I found myself skating the next five laps or so on my own. In a nut shell the benefit of skating in a paceline is that you will be faster. (My friend Van goes into this topic in good detail here). On lap seven my friends Florian, Floju and Theresa crept on up and I decided to hop on. I took the lead on a lap before rotating to the back. Not sure what exactly happened but the gap between me and them suddenly got bigger. Before I knew it they were way ahead. Damn, not again! For the next three laps I skated more casually with the three others just in the distance. I was having fun despite the race not going quite to plan. One of the track marshals was my friend Karen and I joked that "I can't catch them!" She said "Yes you can!" Wow, those words were magic. Somehow within thirty seconds I caught them again. Thank you Karen. We continued skating together for the remainder of the race. On the final lap Florian and myself went for a sprint finish. Full arms swing action going on too, awesome! Post Race. Just as previous LIM events I continued going around the circuit helping out others if they wanted it. Although this time I was just keeping Elisabeth company as she finished her laps. She wasn't taking it as intensely as the others so we had a nice chit chat, enjoying the sunshine. Thomas was one of the track marshals who I had not seen in a long time so I then parked up next to him who was cheering on the other participants. He gave me a sandwich and energy bar so had a nice picnic there. Cheers Thomas. You could see that the remaining full marathon skaters were later struggling with the beating heat. Thomas and I continued giving shouts out of encouragement. I was shouting through a traffic cone in an attempt to crack a smile. Much respect for them for finishing the full marathon, this track is a toughie! Where's JC? As I skated my way back to the start line I heard my name on the speakers. I thought maybe I wasn't suppose to be on track and they were telling me off or something. As it turns out I had won my age category and was being called to the podium. I was a bit confused and waited on the stand as I thought they hadn't called the others for the podium yet. Later someone said that 3rd and 2nd (Florian) placed skaters had already left. I got ushered along! This year's trophy seems embarrassingly big for a sub category prize. Especially as the overall winner for the half marathon was over 6 minutes faster than me! Not complaining about the prizes from Club Blue Room though, extra skate bearings and alan key will always be useful. Summary. My course time was 47:53:636 for the half marathon. With the varying track elevations this was a challenging course for me, but would definitely do this again given the opportunity. The track is very smooth so the straights and downhills were a lot of fun. Things to take away from this. Don't sprint at the start! This goes for both skate and run events. However it's not the first time I've done silly sprints during a race to no avail! A plus from this race is that we've found our skate buddies for the Berlin marathon later this year. Since Theresa, Florian, Floju and I finished around the same time it will make sense to work together for our race next month. In particular for Theresa and myself as we'll both be doing the skate and run. As for the organisation review. I'm going to be biased here but I honestly can't fault them. Everything from the participants' point of view was great. All of the LSST committee members are brilliant skaters but didn't partake in order to make this happen. Hats off to them all! Participation medal.
I've mentioned in a previous post about how meaningless it can be to receive a medal at every event you go to. However I've become sentimental about medals because of the memories and people you associate with them. For this event I was especially looking forward to receiving this finishers medal as it was designed by yours truly! Pretty cool seeing everyone wearing it proudly after their day's success! My advertisement created for the London Inline Marathon happening next month is now live in the shop front of London's most popular skate store, Club Blue Room. In the scene with the Olympic Rings you can see trailing behind the pros in blue is the forth skater with a yellow helmet. That's me! This is my third year taking part in the 24 hour skate event at Le Mans. I decided to mix things up this year and organise an Endurance team, the next category up, comprising of a 6 person team. We still raced in green and black colours, contradicting the original group name Easy Saturday Skate. Our team were registered as London ESScapade. I was really fortunate in that my fellow ESS friend was coordinating the two main ten person teams so I could piggyback on some of the organisations. This allowed me to learn about some of the essentials of running this trip whilst I could concentrate on other areas of my own team. Shift patterns. Previously as a ten person team we've gone with a rota of 3 sub groups, each of 3 or 4 people. You have two 4 hour shifts. Plus two 8 hour breaks. There’s no perfect shift pattern but I got a lot of generous advice from my fellow London skaters, especially Lenka from The London Galactics and Edmar from the London Skaters Speed Team. Sometimes opinions clashed and I had to make the best of all the information to what I believed would work for my team. Here are key things to consider:
So there’s a lot to think about and I like how Edmar sums it up as “It’s an art form getting shift patterns right and even if you’re Picasso, given that everyone is different, it won’t be perfect for everyone.” Here's what we did: Travel. We opted to drive from Central London to Dover. Ferry to Calais. A five hour drive to Le Mans followed which was quite demanding for our driver. The ferry cost was a lot less at the time compared to the other options. Accommodation. This year I camped Friday and Sunday evening. On race night our friend Muhayman organised for us to use one of the rooms above the pit lanes again, which was brilliant for our short breaks rota. It was a lot more pleasant this time around camping as the weather was hot! Race Summary. Our team did fantastic for our first Endurance attempt, 122 laps officially (someone forgot their chip for one lap), which equalled our team effort of my first Le Mans experience as a ten person team! Rotations worked well on the whole. Quite early on a team member had to sit out due to an injury. So for a large part Richard and I were doing a duo. We held back our pace in order to conserve energy for the longer battle. Two and a half hours sleep. Yes that's all that I clocked up during our 'longer,' four hour break. I must say I managed to keep more energised and enthusiastic than I thought I could. Some of the others were really beginning to flag towards the end whereas I seem to almost relish in this strange state of physical and mental demand. This was a relief as the previous years at the same point in time I was at breaking point. So what did I do different from previous years? I’ve been doing a lot of running lately in preparation for my first marathon so I guess that helped with the endurance. Also I’m better educated with nutrition and hydration. I was snacking between laps, usually on droewors and celery sticks; also bananas, energy gels John West Tuna Light Lunch Pasta and Merchant Gourmet ready to eat Spelt.
Summary.
Before the event I said to myself this would be my last Le Mans for a few years. However I really enjoyed 2015 after pushing harder than previous years. I smashed out a lap record of 8:56, even though I was not pushing to the max on that lap. (I was being conservative with energy for our high lap load). It’s not just about what you can achieve, but what your friends do too. There’s friendly competition, but you’re happy that someone has got a fast time. Watching the super speedies is inspirational, such as Bart Swings breaking the lap record of 5.32 mins. Two of our London friends Markus and Richard came 3rd in their Duo category. Other incredible things included our friend Van clocking up 113 laps solo! What I also really like is that how everyone comes together, your own team as well as others to help each other out. Such as my friend Liz on the London Mayhem team offering to help cover some pit crew duties for our team. Or like when Laura offered me food first thing in the morning. Or Natalia whilst looking after Van, would also shout out to us on every lap. It sounds really trivial writing about it now but it’s all those little nice things which really make Le Mans an amazing experience. Ten (two were late for the photo) crazy like minded skaters today woke up at silly o'clock for hill training. We were of mixed abilities but shared the same intent of getting some hill work in for Le Mans later this month.
This is my second time at Richmond Park this year but this time I only clocked up five and half hours of sleep prior to training due to marshalling the LFNS the evening before. It definitely made an impact on my performance but also reminded me of the stresses I'll be put through with the 24 hour skate event. 26k of hills today.
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"Any tips, reviews and advice are my own opinions and are not to be taken as professional view points. The information on this site is what has worked for me and is here for guidance only, but I hope you gain insight into the various activities I partake in." Jonathan Chen Archives
December 2019
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