race report: 2002 Great Skate of Texas Inline Marathon
Hats off to David Darr for making the 1st Annual event such a success.
Bonnie Blair was the guest of the honor at the dinner banquet. Cancer survivors, including Bonnie's brother, gave moving speeches on their experiences and future of cancer treatment and prevention. K2's Dean Burke (finished after our Chris and Jason :) gave an inline speedskating 101 talk, completed with a race video provided by Bont's Debbie Rice. I felt bad keep aiming the flash at Bonnie's face. Sigh, nothing screams out _amateur_ like a point-n-shoot camera on a $20 tripod. Bonnie was very understanding when I apologized. I finally met our virtual member Paul in person with whom I had discussed his Greek-God-like physique. His daughter Skate-Like-Wind Stacey also made the trip from Florida.
I planned to take 5k and 1-mile pix on skates. The 5k skaters were much faster than I expected. Yeah, I was having trouble keeping up w/ little kids. I never reached the leader of 5k. I stopped chasing after catching up w/ little Marvin the Energizer bunny.
I lingered too long on the 5k course and missed the start of the 1-mile Fun Skate. I barely got there on time to make the wrong turn w/ some front skaters. Yeah, my gift for getting lost triumphed again. I didn't take many photos on the 1-mile course. It was fun just hanging out w/ Bonnie and our skater friends, and I was anxious to start the 25k race.
After Dean told me K2 team would try to do 27 ~ 28 mph with a mouthful of meat at the dinner, I gave up on my goal of not to be lapped. But I stuck with my original strategy: hang on to jelly boy for as long as I could. Dave and Duane's pack dropped me during the 4th big lap. Renee Coffman from Houston was nice enough to bonk around the same time so I didn't have to skate alone. We picked up and dropped a few skaters alone the way. I wanted to give Renee high five as we finished lap 4—unlapped!—but was too tired to raise my arm.
After I finished 25k, I tried to take pix with my shaking hands and screwed up all kinda Nikon moments. I did witness a girl panicked at the big hill and fell going 20+ mph. Scary sight. I was surprised at how little injury she sustained. She seemed to be in good spirit 20 min after the crash. I wish I had a chance to talk to her; I was late for a wedding (not mine).
It was exciting to see the result in Dallas Morning News Monday, particularly on Chris and Jason's beating the pros. Wish I were there to see the final sprint.
Johnny the event's official snapshot taker
