2008 inline season review

All the race events of 2008 are over, it's time to make a quick summary.

I've started the season at absolute 0 level. My goal was to learn to skate and gain some racing experience. So we can call this year a development year, starting from scratch.

I've attended:

• 4 track races
• 1 half-marathon
• 1 super-marathon relay

Initially I wanted to go to Kosice as season closing but due to other factors I did not manage to get there this year.

It started with the half-marathon of Wink Marathon in Siófok. Lacking actually everything I'd have needed even the fact I've finished can be seen as a good result. I missed my target time of 1:25 by 4 minutes, but that did not put me back at all. Instead it made me realize what I should do - train! Train systematically, work on drills and gain endurance. Sound like a lot of work and no fun, but - it seemed like fun :)

The track races were quite a bit of challenge, lacking crucial skills like proper crossovers or nice lateral push. However I never wanted to skip them, I thought of these as laying down some base to measure development later. And in fact there has been some development, I was able to takeover Feri once! He trains regularly with the club, along with the kids, so obviously he should be ahead of me - but still a good target ahead...

Well in fact I finished last every track race except one (due to a fall ahead), but the latter 2 races I finished less metres behind the others. And that is an advance.

The super-marathon relay came as a surprise event just the moment I was feeling down not being able to go to Kosice. So I did not think about it but entered. In fact it was about a half-marathon distance and I was quite pleased how it went.

All in all I am happy with the progress I made this year.
Next year I want to cover more mid-distance races and work on my technique to get competitive on track events, too.

Turul Cup 2008

The closing stage of the Hungarian Cup was held at Tatabánya early October.

There was uncertainity until the last week exactly where it would take place - they've built a new, 200m banked track in Tatabánya recently but we heard news the asphalt cover was terrible, bumpy and uneven, so the club leader wanted it to be redone completely. That would put us back on the industrial roads near the city that were used in the previous races - see my spring opening review...

Well the last week it was confirmed the new track is a no-go :( Sad but at least understandable.

We decided to go a day early, do some shopping in Budapest (looking for some furniture elements and sportswear - for Peter of course...) and spend the night in Tatabánya, do a comfy wakeup and miss out the early-morning rush. Everything went fine but - the morning we woke up to see a day of slow, steady, un-forgiving rain under a grey grey sky. Bammmm. Now if there is an idea I don't like that is surely the idea of skating in rain in 8 C or so, with 25-30 km/h winds. Definitely not loving that.
Anyway we drove to the meeting point while contacting everyone else in the team so we met 4 other cars there and one local. He lead us to a school as we were told the amateurs will compete indoors. Wohoo, not a bad idea at all, I thought. Until I saw the gym :D

It was tiny! One round was about 70 metres all in all, and it had plastic cover. Skating on it it felt like skating on melted chewing gum until a point where it totally lost grip and you were off in the air, heading for the walls sooo close. I was like... erm... scared :)
We had 4 and 10 laps to cover. Completely missing warmup we started with the shorter one. Feri took the lead but suffered in the turns on his 100mm wheels, so in lap 3 I overtook him from the inner side. He made a nice recovery and it was a draw I think on the finish line - a photo finish would there be such a device around :) However a few good photos were shot where both of us are smiling, almost laughing while skating around.
For the 10-lap race we were joined by the ladies (so we were 4 on the track...) and this time he seemed to find a good trajectory and gained a small advantage lap by lap, I finished half a lap behind him.

It was early afternoon when the podium ceremony has finished and we all went out to the edge of the town - leaving everything behind you could associate with comfort.
It has dried until then (result of the heavy winds, not the heat) and Peter had his first distance, 200m, quite early. He missed warmup totally and suffered all the 200m, finishing with a face usually known only from the end of training sessions. Right after that we put him back in the car and (oh well forgive me all enviroment-friendly ones around) turned the heat full up with the engine running.

200m finish with same cat girls, sprinting along with teammate Reka

His 400m was a suffering one again - but he made it, won all 5 races in this year and became a champion with 100%!!!
He had a relay with Bence (2 years older), 3 * 700m. Bence started and was in pos. 2 when they changed:

On the headwind part of the course Peter was caught and overtaken but he managed to not fall back significantly and came in about 15 metres behind that guy:

It was Bence's turn again and he quickly reclaimed position #2 and held onto it until the finish. So it was a good race claiming a silver medal and remember, Peter was the youngest of all participating. But not the youngest one present :)

Moira fighting the winds

We had 2 series of podium ceremonies, first for this particular event (individual/relays), and the latter for the overall championships. In fact the team had quite a few times reason to cheers, seems like all the hard work is beginning to show in results.

Winner of XVII. Turul Cup

Cat E-F relays - silverHungarian Champion 2008, Cat. F

Gosh it was so good to get in the car... no wind and no chilling cold in there :) We had our usual post-race McDonalds visit, packed and headed home - it was a silent drive since both our small elves fell asleep quickly :)

Supermarathon

There was a 56-km running event held nearby, called 'Homokháti Szupermarathon'. The small villages and towns wee bit west of Szeged are commonly called 'Homokhát', means 'sandy part' or something like that.

I was not insane enough to cover that distance by myself so we entered the relay. We were 3 in the team (called 'Kiribati Turbo 608'), and there were 5 etaps to go, so Feri did the first (7 km) and the third one (12 km), myself the 2nd (13 km) and the 5th (7 km), Szilvi had one distance to go (15 km). The main difficulty of the race was not the distances but the road surfaces. Etaps #1, #3 and #5 were quite rough, someone called it a hazelnut choc...
Weather was fine if you like windy overcast 10C, after a rain... there were a lot of runners and hurdes of schoolkids running a 1km distance. We've met some skaters from Budapest, from Kori2000 and had a nice chat with them. They opted for skating the whole distance, but as a pleasure run, not as a race.

Well we left Feri behind for the start and drove to the first relay point and waited quite a lot. It turned out the start procedure was repeated for some reason so everything was postponed half an hour :) Anyway Feri arrived at some time and then came my 13 km. The first 2 kms were very rough & tough: headwind, bad surface, even wet at some point. But then the asphalt turned quite smooth and after a big turn westwards headwind wasn't a factor anymore. I tried to catch up with a guy skating about 300m ahead of me but with no success, in fact the gap has remained the same by the end of my etap. My back was aching badly after 20 minutes but... I've reached the next checkpoint and it was Feri's turn again.
Quick drive up to the next meeting point and talking to Feri meanwhile, he suffered very much on the rough asphalt. He turned up at some point though and Szilvi started. We drove to the last meeting point - and then disaster came.
The race route was a loop, like a lasso - the first and last distance were the same route but opposite direction. We were waiting and waiting and then decided something has happened to Szilvi. Feri got in the car and went off searching for her. Later it turned out she missed a crucial turn and got lost. Feri found her though sometime later, she must have covered 10 extra kms by then... Anyway she got to the meeting point and I was on my way to finish. Though the asphalt was rough still I quite enjoyed this second distance, and during the last 3 kms I was quite happy, skating smooth style with big strong sidepush and nice recovery. I was really having fun then.
Crossing the finish, line Szilvi and Feri were waiting for me there and we were given a gift package each. There was no prize for the skate relays but that's no problem.
I've checked the race times and I was over 20km/h - hooraaaay!

3 kids of the club were also doing a relay, namely Petra (10), Balázs (16), Marci (10, Feri's son). They handled it professionally, but they also had trouble on the 3rd part. Balázs covered distances 1,3 and 5, while Marci ran the 2nd and Petra the 4th. When I asked them after the race, they were not tired at all!
Some photos of big numbers of crazy runners and small numbers of crazy skaters here.

After all, it was a pleasant ride (minus Szilvi getting lost) and we may do it again next year, but I think we could do it as individuals. Now do I sound insane? :D