A Busy 24 Hours

Last weekend's Montreal 24hr Relay was a very different experience for me than last year. I was a member of the TISC T'Recs, an 8-person team which was down to 7 people 13 hours into the event. As expected, I got to skate quite a bit more than last year. I skated a total of 14 laps for my team with my fastest lap time of 10:21 in the 4.7km course which beat my best time from last year by over a minute. Although I still cannot skate a sub-10-minute lap (that would be an average speed of over 30km/hr), I was pleased with this improvement. I think it will happen next year if I keep training hard. What was even more exciting was that at around five or six hours into the event, our team (which had no intention to be competitive) was 21st overall! I was so surprised and so proud of our team.

Yours truly, support crew extraordinaire (picture by Peter Doucet)

Now, the busy part. Skating for my team itself was not at all stressful because we took a pretty laidback attitude. However, I was part of EG's support team in his quest to break 500km skating solo for 24 hours. Equiped with a race schedule and a radio, there was a lot to take care of including fluid/gel handoff, towels, ice packs, food replenishment, wheel changes, equipments for night skating, monitoring his competitors, etc.

While I was checking the standings, I first noticed that he was down by two laps from the first place skater of 11 laps. No matter, he probably let them go and just stuck with his race plan. A few hours later, I got very concerned when he was down by 10 laps. I checked the lap times on the computer and to my horror, there were lap times of 45min, 50min, and even over 1hr! I knew that he was not taking breaks so it could only mean that his timechip was defective! That was absolutely the last thing I needed to know. After speaking with the officials, I was given a new timechip and they reassured me that they would correct the lap count. During one of EG's scheduled breaks, I recorded his GPS distance/speed and reported back to the officials that the new timechip was now in use. You can imagine my frustration when I found out that the corrected lap count was adjusted based on estimation and some of the estimates was up to 23 minutes per lap. Knowing his average speed in the first segment, the numbers just didn't add up. It took us a while but we eventually got all the lap counts sorted out. However, the confusion didn't end here. Apparently, other solo competitors also had timechip issues. For the longest time, the second place skater was someone who we suspected was absent for the competition as NOBODY had seen him all day. In our stressed out state of mind, it was tempting to start speaking of conspiracy theories. After much investigations by RA, we finally found out that the timechip was given to another skater. As a result of all these timechip mix up and issues, during the first 17 hours of the competition, nobody had any ideas of the current standing.

With two hours left to go in the competition, EG was barely rolling and I got increasingly concerned. I decided to skate with him (only trailing behind because I didn't want to get him disqualified) to keep him company.  At that point, we were cruising at such a slow pace that even runners got ahead of us. Finally, with only one hour to go, EG had to take a break once again in the paddocks. He was exhausted and in pain and he wanted to rest until the last 30 minutes of the competition to skate the one lap that was left in him. Although he was in the lead with laps to spare, it was still a risky move. With much persuasion/threats, we finally got him back on the track and I skated behind him to make sure he gets in at least two laps. To everyone's surprise, his legs came back and started at a good pace, fast enough to drop me! I chased him for two laps before deciding that he probably wasn't sitting somewhere on the side of the track crying. The clock was ticking and excitement was in the air in the finish area. We cheered as one after another skaters came through the relay zone for "just one more lap". Finally, we spotted EG and he racked up four more laps since his last break. By the official count, he skated 103 laps in total and defended his title from last year.

Congratulations Single Speed!!

Finally, it was over! (picture by Peter Doucet)