Berlin & New York 100k

Berlin & New York 100k: For some results, click here

And now for the New York 100k!


Start of the pro men's race
Brooklyn’s Prospect Park was definitely the stomping ground for the world’s best ultra-marathon skaters earlier today. France’s Philippe Boulard and Canada’s Martine Charbonneau proved to be the king of the best of the best in the New York 100km race. You can view some more results here.


Pro women's podium

Pro men's podium
The race was contested in windy and sunny conditions and the event was very well supported.


A lot of skaters from Quebec supported the 100k!
Martine Charbonneau skated 17 of the 19 laps solo on her way to victory. Switzerland’s Karin Gabriel placed 2nd and was the only girl to not be lapped by Charbonneau. Coming in 3rd was Marcia Woodfield.

The men’s race saw a pace that was up and down, with the winners coming in about 3 hours and 6 minutes. After Boulard broke away for the win in the last lap, Colombia’s David Sarmiento won the 6-skater dash for the next two podium spots. Finishing in 3rd was Boulard’s team-mate Julien Levrard.


Pro men's pack- I'm somewhere in there- suffering!! And as I write this wihle I sit at Oliver Martinez's house, I am suffering even more!
Race organizer Francisco Ramirez and his support crew pulled off a really good day of racing. Their hard work was very evident and their enthusiasm was very high despite cutting a lot of sleep out of their last few nights to make sure all the details were tended. I gave Francisco Ramirez a grade for the race: A+


This is what the New York 100k does to the best of them! David Sarmiento was a mess for a little bit, but it's ok- he finished 2nd in the 100k. But many people were walking all crooked and unable to bend their legs and backs- congrats to all who skated and suffered!
Ramirez crashed 12-laps into the race- he fell after Chris Springer went down and did a super-man fall. Poor guy! I just managed to avoid the crash. For me, it was a tough day at the office- I stayed in touch with the lead pack for 15 of the 19 laps, yo-yoing from being dropped to being out on breaks in front. I finished 11th in a time of about 3:15. I was crawling for the last 4 laps- my legs were completely locked up! But I was soooo happy to be finished.

There were plenty of draw prizes. The first tickets to be drawn were for t-shirts, and then they started drawing tickets for wheels. Right before Steve Novak called out my #, I told everyone it's #329, and he called out #329- hehehe. I got a set of hyper wheels, yay!

A few notes- Morgan Williams finished 15th, Ed Leung won the 100k advanced, Joel Stitt won the 100k recreational. Greats and legendary skaters like Fourth Lacey, Remi Chait, Steve Carter, and Dan Burger were in attendance. There were a few vendors on site- thanks to Cado Motus' Kelly Springer who helped me out with getting 110mm wheels, and also thanks to Francisco Ramirez for getting me the K2/ Empire skin suit and K2 4x110mm frames- they were really good!


Ed Leung tops the advanced 100k podium. He is accompanied by Dileep Netrabile)(2nd)
K2’s Mike Powell took pictures while the race was taking place- thanks Mike! Click here to view all the pictures (73 photos). I couldn't make a video because my camera's button is busted. Sorry!


When all was said and done, we had skate 100km, hung around for a few hours, chilled on the grass, helped back up, and even somehow managed to muster energy to play a game of catch with a football- I have no idea how where we found the energy, but skaters like David Sarmiento, Eddy Matzger, Herb Gayle, Marcia Woodfield, Morgan Williams, and more were running around playing catch



2007-09-29 New York 100k (73 photos)

Off To New York 100k, Fyling Fossils, Ottawa Indoors & Believe, Pictures- (Bellusco, USA ST, & TISC), Love's Video With US Long Track Team

Off To New York 100k: There is a good possibility that while you are reading this, I am in my car along with Herb Gayle and Morgan Williams doing the 8-hour drive to New York for the New York 100k. We are very lucky because Oliver Martinez is letting us sleep at his hourse, which is steps away from Prospect Pack, the venue that's used for the race.

I was chatting with Steve Robillard the other night and he told me he thought the 100k is an easy race. FYI he finished 2nd in last year's 100k. Easy?? Is there such a thing as an easy 100k? I hope I feel half as good as he felt last year and that I can walk and talk after (hopefully) finishing the distance.

Will I be posting updates soon after the race? I don't know. If I can, I will.

It's quite a busy weekend; along with the 100k, there is the Berlin WIC Marathon- a mega-skating event that, if my memory serves me well, has alomst 10 thousand skaters. Rumours have it that the Berlin party is pretty damn good too. See the Team Rollerblade preview.

In the spirit of long skates (marathon distances and beyond), here is a link to Boaz Arad's 100-mile skate...

...wait, 100-miles? Uhh, I thought I was on cheap drugs for doing the 100k (for the record I'm not), but 100 miles???? Woaa, that's hard core. The last time I saw Boaz was at the party at the world championships. I was busy trying to stop the ground from turning and the walls from moving side-to-side... But yeah, the video's really cool; you get to see plently of landscape, and these 5 guys who did this make me want to do something like that!


So seeing that this weekend is the New York 100k and next weekend is Athens to Atlanta and that I am sure that some people are skating in both back-to-back ultra-marathons, there are probably some questions about what wheels to wear. See what posters are putting up in What wheel to use at A2A? .

Fyling Fossils: Maybe you remember these guys- the Flying Fossils- from this year's Montreal 24-hours inline. Maybe you don't. They were a bunch of 50+ year old skaters who formed a team for the 24 hour relay and they did well, finishing 2nd in the advanced category.

I am honoured because I've coached, skated with, and raced some of these guys, and don't let their wrinkles & grey (or no) hair fool you- they have tons of experience, they are fit, and they've been around long enough to put a young whipper-snapper like me in his place when it needs to be done!

You can read Ed Duncan's report from the 24-hour inline- he's one of them Flying Fossils.


Ottawa Indoors & Believe: The Ottawa Inline Skating Club will have an indoor component to their 2007-2007 program- click here for more information.

When I received their newsletter via e-mail, there was a link to a video- Believe by Suzie McNeil- I was really happy to see this video, because I've been teaching this very song to all of my students and to my grade 4/5 choir so they could sing it for the Terry Fox Run at my school. The video is really cool because it features Clara Hughes, one of Canada's 2006 winter Olympic long track gold medalists.


This is my grade 4/5 choir singing the song earlier today at our school's annual Terry Fox Fun- they sounded great! We did the Terry Fox run outside around a 500-meter track- when it started raining and all the students had to go back in the school, one of my little grade 1's said about the rain that 'It's raining because Terry Fox is crying'. I asked why she thought that, and she told me that Terry Fox is crying of joy because all the kids are running and helping to fight cancer



Pictures- Bellusco & USA ST: Pattinaggio Bellusco has a few photo galleries of youngters- see gallery 1 and gallery 2.


Photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco
You can find some short track ice training photos from Midland, Michigan, leading up to this weekend's American Cup #1 thanks to Ohno Zone; Thursday training, Wednesday training, & Tuesday training.


Wednesday practice- photo from Ohno Zone
You can find some picutures of the Toronto Inline Skating Club's last official 2007 outdoor practice thanks to l3xh2k.


Eric Gee working with Jay Brown at practicing bag cross-overs- they're as effective as the luggage lifts the Koreans were doing at worlds- photo from l3xh2k
Love's Video With US Long Track Team: For you long track ice fans, you will definitely get a kick out of reading Andrew Love's most recent post Picture, video + a Muscular Quiz. The video that Andrew put up is sweet-

Mainz WIC Photos & Vids, New Links, Blog Stuff, Roller En Ligne

Mainz WIC Photos & Vids: Go here and you can find links to all sorts of photos . The voice that comes on when you visit this website scared the crap out of me! You can view a few more photos here.


Mainz's men's finish- photo from Bont
You're probably on the prowl for some Mainz videos; thanks to our good friends at Bont TV, you can find one here (news) and one here (middle of the pack crash).

New Links: Here are a few links for you to explore and enjoy- Asta Roller Blog, Les Lémuriens, Dennis Richond's Web Links- page was changed, Hard Skater- this is Pier Davide Romani's site that I mentionned yesterday- Hard Skater? What does that mean??!! Just in case you want to find some club websites, there is a growing list in Skatelog's Forum.

Blog Stuff: I always enjoy clicking around people's blogs- there's plenty of news, information, entertainment, and unique perspectives that can be gained.

Candy Wong has a few entries that I've been wanting to link up to in the last few days; 2007 Outdoor Season Review and a really cool post that I know you'll enjoy (and be envious) in reading Custom Casting By David Simmons (see Candy's casting video from the NSIM below).


Another skater who puts up lots of material is Jacky Schu- I like his perceptive entry called Skating is Waiting. Jacky has become an important member of the Toronto inline skating community- you can read up on one of his weekend skates in Big Pack in Hamilton.


At the Hamilton trail- photo from Jacky Schu
Roller En Ligne: Roller En Ligne has plenty of material to keep us all busy today even if not all of us speak french- Emilie Jude:un rêve éveillé- this one talks about 12 year old Emilie Jude who got to skate with the top skaters. Jessica Gaudesaboos: vers un doublé aux Herbiers?- this one talks about Jessica Gaudesaboos who will skate the Herbiers race this weekend.


Emilie Jude surrounded by D.J. Nation, Dany Finster, Peter Michael, Nicole Begg, Kalon Dobbin, Andréa Harritchelharr, Aaron Arndt and Sigrid Ziegler- photo from Roller En Ligne

Challenge Roller Altitude - photo from Roller En Ligne
You can find some results from last weekend's Marathon des 3 Vallees and also a report on the Lourdes Roller Challenge Altitude which includes linke to results 30km men and results 20km women. There is also a link to the photos; click here to check out all the photos and a click here for a slide-show video (or click play below).

Roadskater.net Material, Reports & Pictures (NSIM, Oomssport, WOW) Short Track Ice News- Scholten Retires & Amercan Cup #1, Quebec Cup Videos

Roadskater.net Material: I don''t link up to Roadskater.net on a consistent basis, so I'll do it all in on shot today; Duluth report from a wheel sucker ;), Tour to Tanglewood reprot and TTT recollections along with many photos.


Tour to Tanglewood- photo from Roadskater.net
Reports & Pictures (NSIM, Oomssport, WOW): Click here for the NSIM report from sXeVegan. Hehehe, I love the comments about my NSIM video. While we're on the Duluth kick, you can check out the Inline Planet's 2nd set of photos from the NSIM.


Master men's Tony Muse leading the way- Toronto Inline's Morgan Williams is on the left- Morgan Williams will be travelling with Herb Gayle and I to the New York 100k this weekend- photo by Darlene Prois and from the Inline Planet
If you browse localmn's photo album, you'll find some more photos from the NSIM. You can find two of Ed Duncan's entries about Duluth; The Northshore Marathon (Story of the Race) and The Northshore Marathon (Story of the Weekend).

I like this one; Skating the Northshore Marathon Twice?. Hehehehe.

Click here for a Oomssport Skeelercup report.

You can check out the Unive World on Wheels Rijssen report thanks to Skate Bond Nederland. You can find some great photos thanks to Harm de Boer Fotografie; , women, men A, men C and V (veteran), and men B.


Women's final sprint- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
Just in case you missed the results from Mainz, here they are.

Short Track Ice News- Scholten Retires & Amercan Cup #1: Canada's Jeff Scholten has announced his retirement from short trac ; click here for more.


Jo Guilmette and Mathieu Turcotte flank Jeff Scholten immediately after his final race- photo by David Gilday and posted on Ohno Zone
The short track American Cup #1 will take place this weekend in Midland, MI. Skaters are starting to arrive and train there- Ohno Zone has kindly posted some pretty good photos and has kept us in the loop about what skaters are doing, like Ryan Bedford and Travis Jayner visiting a grade 1 class. Hmm, grade 1's, I wonder if I can visit a grade one class. Oh, yea, I do all the time! I get to teach music and drama (and now computers) to grade 1's! Hihihi.


Travis Jayner and Ryan Bedford with the wee tiny little grade 1's

Travis Jayner- photo from Ohno Zone
Quebec Cup Videos: Here are a few videos from this weekend's Quebec Cup #4- me talking about AM Wing wheels, some skating shots, and Jean Petit talking about AM Wing wheels, clip #1 (Brian Jalbert's 300), clip #2 (500-meter semi), clip #3 (10km elite), clip #4 (10km), and clip #5 (10km).

Mainz WIC Results, Canadian Short Track Team Trials, Quebec Cup #4 Photos

Mainz WIC Results: You can use the following links to get to the Mainz WIC results; click for men's results and click for women's results. Click here to browse through all the results.

Team Rollerblade has been kind enough to post a play-by-play of the men's race and of the women's race. Check out Team Rollerblade's report along with photos.


Mainz WIC women's race- photo from Team Rollerblade
Canadian Short Track Team Trials: If you're looking for results from the Canadian short track team trials, click here. Click here to see some pictures of the 500-meter races.

Here is the Canadian short track team- most of whom will compete in the first 4 world cup races-

Men's Team
Mathieu Giroux- Montreal, QC
Alex Boisvert-Lacroix- Sherbrooke, QC
Charles Hamelin
Steve Robillard- Montreal, QC
François-Louis Tremblay- Montreal, QC
Marc-André Monette- Montreal, QC

François-Louis Tremblay did not compete in the trials due to an injury, but he received a bye.

Women's Team
Kalyna Roberge- Montreal, QC
Anne Maltais- Quebec, QC
Tania Vicent
Amanda Overland
Andrea Do-Duc- Montreal, QC
Jessica Gregg- Edmonton, AB (world cup #1 & 2)
Valérie Lambert- Sherbrooke, QC (world cup #3 & 4)


Canadian short track team trials- photo from sb
You can browse through a bunch of news and links and also visit Speed Skating Canada for news and press releases such as this one; Short Track World Cup Teams Finalized at National Team Selection 1.

Quebec Cup #4 Photos: The Quebec Cup completed its first ever season yesterday in Montreal with its 4th race. Click here to view my photos (85 pictures). The final overall awards, including product, certificates, medals, and cash were awarded.



2007-09-23 Montreal Quebec Cup #4 (85 photos)


My skates with the AM Wing wheels that I tested; the verdict on the wheels? I like them!

Morgane Echardour and Martine Charbonneay- they finished 2nd and 1st on the day as well as in the final series rankings

I had to put this one up... she was a sweetie

The best chair on earth; Stephane Tremblay!

Recreational master men; plenty of good racing for me to watch and for all of us to cheer on!

Almost finished...

Toronto's Travis Shaw finished 3rd overall in the 4th stage. This is a great accomplishment considering he broke his leg 9 months ago!

Recreational master men- Dominique Clement leads the way

Elite master women's Lisa Meyer leads Olivier Lesieur (junior elite) and Brigitte Beaudry (master elite)

Elite junior man Philippe Clement leading the way while Olivier Lesieur keeps him in sight

Martine Charbonneau and Gabriel Girard lead the elite men, women, and master men

Awards!

Stephane Charron and Robert Mitchell- free boots and all!

Top-3 series overall- Simon Clement (3rd), Brian Jalbert (1st), and me! (2nd)

The Colombian Hematocrit Case, Canadian Short Track Trials Update, Korea ST Video, Strategy, Duluth Report & Video

The Colombian Hematocrit Case: SpeedSK8rs.com has an article called The Colombian Hematocrit Case- you can read and post some responses here.

Canadian Short Track Trials Update: The Canadian short track team trials are finishing up today- click here for the women's 500 results and click here for the men's 500 results. It looks like the 500-meter world record was set in the semi final by Charles Hamelin in a time of 40.95 seconds. Steve Robillard, who won the St Paul inline marathon adn finished 4th at the jr world championships marathon in 2000 in Barrancabermeja placed 3rd in the 1500-meter and 500-meter finals.

Korea ST Video: Click here or press play below for a video of the Korean national team trials super final-


Strategy: The Inline Planet's latest skate tip is Map Your Strategy.

Duluth Report & Video: Click here for a video of this year's Northshore Inline Marathon and click here for Peter Starykowicz's report.

Love- 2 More Great Entries, Topics To Watch (USARS Must Die, About.com, Bridging The Gap, Team Application, Marathon Manager, Where's Guido, Ice Camp)

Love- 2 More Great Entries: Andrew Love's website Zen and the Art of Speedskating continues to grace the internet with some excellent entries. I am lucky to be able to link to his material and we're all lucky to be able to read it for free (might I suggest giving him a tip? Buy him a coffee!). His latest entries include September Determination and The 'Book of Meaghan'. I strongly suggest you read The 'Book of Meaghan' in its entirety.

Discussions To Watch (USARS Must Die, About.com, Bridging The Gap, Team Application, Marathon Manager, Where Is Guido, Ice Camp): Skating forums and message boards are filled with all sorts of entertaining and informative topics and exchanges. Here are a few that I've been keeping my eyes on.

The USARS Must Die! thread has come back to life after being idle for a couple of months. Plus there's 12 pages of reading to keep you reading all day if you like.

If you'd like to make some $ being the About.com inline skating web person, you can fund out more in Get Paid to Write About Skating (About.com Job)- actually, rumours are swirling that About.com has dropped the topic of inline skating. I haven't checked if this is true or not. I've never really been an About.com fan, so I'm not overly stressed about it.

I think that the thread Bridging the Gap Between Rec and Speed has got some pretty interesting and relevant discussions, definitely worth some time spent reading- I like this quote by tdellaringa; 'It's BRIDGING the gap, not CLOSING the gap. The gap will always exist, and we have to stop seeing it as a problem, and realize it's an opportunity. We need to let fitness and rec people know we'd love to have them at our events, and that they don't have to compete in Pro Men or Women to have fun. They don't have to wear a skinsuit, or a lycra jersey either. They can dress up like Captain America and have fun too. '.

If you'd like to be a member of a team, well, at least apply to be a member of a team, the go to G-Skate.com/Hyper/Bont team.

Check out Ice skating Marathon Manager if you'd like to manage your own long track ice team- see the thread here. It's a really cool game that I hope I have time to play!

Now the question of the day is 'Where is Guido'? Some people are trying to find the answer in Guido Patin Carrera . In case you don't know, Guido Ferra is the webmaster of Patin Carerra.

The thread Inline to ice transition camp (Utah, USA) quickly received some critisism minutes after being posted- I think it has a lot of potential to be a good, honest, and frank discussion about an important topic- ice & inline.

Northshore Inline Marathon (Duluth) Video

Northshore Inline Marathon (Duluth) Video: After many blue screens on my computer, I finally finished my Northshore Inline Marathon video- Click here to check it out or press play below.

The video is about 10-minutes long. I think it's a really good and really cool video- probably because I made it. It includes footage from the drive from Mississauga to Duluth, the skating expo at the DECC, the bus trip to the start line, walking up to the line (there's a section that skips over an over- it's there on purpose), people hitting each other with spoons, the start of the elite men's race, and Eddy Matzger and I re-skating the marathon- it was Eddy's bright idea to skate the marathon again so he (we) could cheer on the rec skaters- he did this last year with none-other than the great Steve Robillard!


If you're looking for more NSIM footage, you can check out pixelmech's videos which features some good music; women's racing, part 2, and part 1.

More Northshore (Duluth)

More Northshore (Duluth): I made it back home from Duluth alive but tired. The drive from Duluth to Thunder Bay is a 3-hour drive which has some beautiful parts to it, but the drive from Thunder Bay to Toronto is 13+ hours long and features some stellar views that are already making me seriously consider driving to the NSIM again next year.

I've been working on my NSIM video. but when I start useing the video editing software, I get blue screen. Not good. Not good at all. Help Eric?

Hmmm. I'll keep plugging away at it tomorrow.

Before I bore you with a few of my photos from the drive, there's plenty of NSIM content that I would like to share with you. We can start with Herb Gayle's NSIM photos- he sent them to me so I could put them online for him.

I want to take a few lines to mention that I think it is really nice and also very important that Team Rollerblade has been consistenly present and supportive of NSIM over the past few years. Duluth fell from sights for most of the top pro teams when the NSIM was no longer part of the World Inline Cup calendar. The Team Rollerblade skaters are always mixing things up at in the races at the NSIM. Yes, there are other teams and clubs who always make the NSIM a part of their season and it' great that everyone makes their way to Duluth. You can view Team Rollerblade's photos from the NSIM.


Team Rollerblade at the expo- photo from Team Rollerblade
Also another interesting post on the NSIM is Christine Stitt's theme of the 6- you'll understand when you read her entry (it's the 9th one down). I copied it below;

'Following up with the 6 theme ... I was mistaken there were actually 16 of us that skated.

Of the 16 (note the 6):

1. 6 were female
2. 6 placed in their categories
3. 4 placed 6th
4. 6 have the number 6 in their bibs'

You can view Mike Garvin's photos as well as his detailed report- a good report to read from someone who is relatively 'new' to inline skating and who recently suffered an injury this season, and still managed to perform well at the NSIM.

Toronto's Candy Wong posted her pictures from the award presentation and posted her thoughts on this year's NSIM.



2007-09 Duluth Northshore Inline Marathon Herb Gayle’s Photos (112 photos)

Driving home from Thunder Bay to Ontario; 1400km, 13+ hours, a few towns, lots of lakes- gotta lova those construction delays!

Driving home- I saw a few of these trucks

Driving home- the long road is sometimes hard to see thanks to all the dead flies and bugs on my windshield

Driving home- I saw a few cyclists like this one here- where are they going to? Where are they coming from?

Driving home- I don't know what this thing on the truck is, but it was big and they needed police escorts to move it along

Driving home- this forest was burned down in a wild fire- you can see the bare hills in the back of the photos. It was really strange driving through this section

Driving home- I got to stare at scenes like this for hours and hours and hours

Driving home- many of the lakes unveiled themselves slowly as I drove over the hills- very breathtaking. 90km/h was the speed limit, yes, but I slowed well below 90km/h to take in the views

Driving home- more of what I saw

Driving home- This is about how much I had left to drive... if I was going to Ottawa or to Sudbury. At this point, I was down to about 700km to go!

Julie Glass and her little one- photo from Herb Gayle

Toronto's Morgan Williams, Ed Duncan, and Herb Gayle- all fast and feared in the masters and grand masters!- photo from Herb Gayle

Toronto's Sarah Hopkins and Travis Shaw<- photo from Herb Gayle

Team Speed Inliner Basilisk- photo from Herb Gayle

K2/ Empire surrounding Herb Gayle- photo from Herb Gayle

You knew I would put these littel guys on- photo from Herb Gayle

Elite men's podium- photo from Herb Gayle

Master men's podium- photo from Herb Gayle

At Grandma's- it's always a good time! Left to right- Michael Cheeks, me, Brygitte Mendez, Joey Mantia, ???, Julian Rivera, and Herb Gayle- photo from Herb Gayle