Gold!

Friday Péter took part in the national student's championship and earned two golden medals!!!

We started to Tatabánya at 8:20, the drive (220 kms) was easy and un-eventful. We were only 2 to go so I've organized Tomi and Balázs to travel along with us, sharing the car and the costs. But how slow we went we couldn't arrive late enough - the amateur's events have just started off so we had plenty of time to do... erm... nothing. So we did exactly that. Of course the skates had to be on all the time :)

The track is just outside Tatabánya, on some industrial roads, a quadrangle of 700m length. It has some elevation changes, too, and the quality of the asphalt is quite good. The organisers had some illustrious buffet set up, with yummy muffins even...

There were many amateurs. So it meant a lot of time to waste. Then at last, around 14:00 the professionals' turn has come. Péter had to race on 200m and 300m distances. There was a 'dark horse' between the opponents we knew nothing about - the other ones he had beaten already previously, in the regionals and in Groß-Gerau. And in fact, on the shorter distance, that guy (Hazafi Ádám from KDSE) was the first at 100m, then - as the track has some climb until the finish line - Péter was able to overtake him, using his strength and nice technique.

The longer distance was much more obvious, Péter won by at least 20m. Double gold!!!

The team earned quite some podium finishes, more on that when I receive the protocols.

We set up for home around 18:30 and had a nice & smooth & fast drive again. And one can imagine what Anikó was like when Péter was in her hands at last :)

Half-marathon sum-up

In short:
I've done it, finished my first half-marathon - but missed my target time.
Péter has also finished - and earned a podium again.

In detail:
The 5th Wink Marathon in Siófok, Hungary was a total mess, lacking much in organisation.
We had to cover 3 x 7 km, but the road conditions were very very bad on at least 3 kms each round. The route was planned taking the competitors down to the shores of Lake Balaton, however while the 30*30 cm concrete tiles may fit runners, they are totally a pain to skate on. Several racers lost a wheel or two, my left 1st wheel got completely loose by the end of the race. There was another part of the track with gravel scattered all around, it didn't help skating conditions either. While the organisors cannot be blamed for strong winds, that thing didn't help either. OK, must admit there was some nice 2 km smooth asphalt road with a tailwind, but that was only enough to rest a bit.
With these conditions in mind, I am not dissatisfied with the time of 1:29 at all. It could have been better by a minute or so if I did not fell the last round, of course on the 'resting' part of the track... Luckily it is only a sore butt, no bruises at all.
Physically, I felt OK throughout the race and wasn't too tired after the event either. I tried it and now I'd like to have some more... :)

Péter finished 3rd in the junior rankings, 3 minutes ahead of me. For 2 rounds he followed an 'older' girl (2 years...) but he missed out her draft starting the 3rd round, so he had to fight 7 km all alone. He did great but was extra tired after finish, that could be cured with some chocolate of course. In 2 hours he regenerated completely and returned to doing what 7-year-old ones should do in open-air events - running around chasing eachother.

Tomi - as promised - tried to win the race and, hmm, well he did. Too bad he missed the turning point in the first round so he went for a 14km, then a 7km - and then those **** organisers sent him away to cover yet one more round. Even this way, racing 28kms, he finished overall 2nd by 3 minutes, and if we subtracted his last round's time, it would give 0:52 for the 21km, a clear win by 20 minutes ahead of the rest of the field. But he was declared 2nd... no glory, no prize money, just bitter taste in the mouth :(


Oh btw those *** ****** ***** organisers registered me as a junior so they hindered my podium finish (ranked 3rd) :(((

Now let's find another event, a decently organised one!

Murphy's laws

LOL I've strained my biceps femoris on my left leg, when 'jumpin' out of the car this morning.
When else? Aaargh :)

Marathon preparations

In fact half-marathon but the title sounds better that way :)

We had a long weekend again and I had the opportunity to trains some more on all 3 days.
Saturday and Sunday a qualified trainer joined us (the mum of Tomi, a kid racing in the same team as Péter) and she taught us 'beginners' a lot. I know I must learn quite a bit but damn, it was hard ;) Anyway I won't give up easily.
This way, practicing technique we covered 12 kms only on Saturday and about the same again on Sunday.
Then on Monday I hit the oval and covered 90 laps in 1:05 all by myself, that is 16.2 km so the goal I've set initially (finish the half-marathon) is easily covered I think. Now I think I should aim at covering it in 1:30. Or should it be 1:25? Ok, let it be 1:25. I put it down here so I won't be able to deny:

Target time for half-marathon 17/05/2008: 1:25

BTW Tomi wants to win the junior's event. Being 12 that is a nice goal but if all goes well he can do it. And when I told my son about it, his eyes turned toooooo bright... :)

Regionals

Wednesday Péter had to take part in the regional qualifiers for the student's national championship, due in two weeks. His races were 180m and 270m and he had no difficulty dominating them. So on 23 May we must travel to Tatabánya and face the challenge there. I forgot to time the shorter distance, but the longer one was 39.6 secs. I don't know about his opponents this year yet - he is in good form, so let's hope for the best :)

The event itself was very poorly organized. Registration was scheduled at 14:30 and it lasted until 16:00... Then the amateurs started and their races finished at 17:30. So we could have come only at that time - 3 hours lost waiting for nothing. The whole event finished at 19:15, but at least the weather was nice (yep it means getting more than enough UV rays again). About half of the team qualified for the national event, which sounds nice but in fact at least 2 more kids should have had better luck. We saw epic fights and again, we saw lack of race experience, takeover attempts at wrong places and lack of self-confidence. And these should be cured somehow.

So I talked to Endre (the coach) and we agreed I'd look around for more races in the nearby countries (Austria, Slovakia, the Czech at first shot).

New skates

Hmm seems like this is a week of new things.

In short: bought a pair of K2 Power 7.0 skates for myself, tested them, fell and bruised my hip and now I'm recovering.


In detail: I thought (see below) and I was quite right my old Roces skates weren't the best for covering a half marathon distance. So last Wednesday I've found this K2 skate and bought them.
I must say it is a quite new world, it is fast and rolls very smooth. It is a typical long-distance recreational skate, provides more ankle support than low-cut racers' skates but makes covering long distances quite easy.
I got rid of the brakes immediately and then took it for a 10-mile ride on Thursday, with Peter and some more adults on skates and some kids on bikes. It felt great and rolled nice, however approaching the car-park, about 200m to go I crashed and 'succesfully obtained' a palm-sized bruise on my left hip. Or thigh. Ok, let's confess, on my left butt :)

At home, Anikó provided 'medical support' - oh well, it was cca 18 years ago last time I had bruises this size, so it almost felt nostalgic :) However, I've covered an hour on the oval on Friday, and some 12 miles on the road again on Sunday, just to get used to the skates - the half-marathon is getting closer and closer and I definitely need to train some more. Got to polish my technique some more while strength and endurance seems to be quite OK.

So here I am, a happy child with new toys :D

Groß-Gerau 2008 - Part 3

Travel home
Well it felt much much longer than the other way. The kids were more anxious and had too much energy sometimes. We stopped in Vienna for some looking-around & quick shopping. Arriving home, Moira jumped in my arms and sobbed for 5 minutes - Peter did the same with Aniko but a little bit shorter :)

Aftermath
Well I wonder what each of the kids will earn from the races.
For Peter it is simple - he is flying, after a nice winter season finish he carried on and earned silver medal on his first race in the spring. A really nice start, I hope he can make it go on this way.
The others I think could gain a lot in experience. We miss race experience, there is so little field action in Hungarian races it is very hard to learn tactics or best practises that way.

Columbia
It was 'devastating' to see them racing. They were skating such an easy style, one could think they were not having their heartbeat rising at all. And they raced very clever, too. They showed a nice teamwork, eg in the women 10km elimination they managed to grasp all top 5 places with 3 or 4 laps remaining. They received a standing ovation and earned it well.

Meteo
Meterology... bah. Both weather.com and met.hu forecasted sunny/cloudy weather, 30% possibility of rain and low winds. Well - Saturday we had no clouds at all so we turned red, and Sunday was only a little bit easier. Oh yes, it was raining. On Friday, in Austria...

Groß-Gerau 2008 - Part 2

The event / Day 0
The kids were enthusiastic to test the track and spent an hour or so skating around.
Later we watched some of the sprint cup event, individual start 300m rush for grownups ;)

The event / Day 1
In the morning our team was involved in the longer distances.
Schuler B Herren 1000m - Bence started like he was racing on 200m sprint. He was caught at 400m, dropped back continuosly and finished 10th (out of 24).
Schuler A Damen 2000m - Barbi had a bad start (as usual), dropped back a lot but then she came up steadily, she seemed fit and strong. She should have been more aggressive though, she slowed down instead of overtaking at least two times, anyway she finished 7th (out of 48).
Jugen Damen 3000m - Szonja was in the middle of the field most of the time, but she also lacked aggression and missed the opportunities to switch to the outer train that moves forward, finished 28th (out of 60). Both girls are strong and skate a very nice way so they shouldn't be afraid to move a bit more forward in the pack.
Jugend Herren 3000m - Roland started rollerskates only 1.5 months ago so it was a good result for him to overtake at least one (55th from 56). Tomi raced exactly like Szonja, with the same mistakes and finished 23th.

In the afternoon we watched and enjoyed the 500m and the relay events for the adults.
As we recorded all our races we had the opportunity to watch them again in the evening and analyze each run, so Endre (the coach) asked for more active, more aggressive racing the next day.

The event / Day 2
Again, our team had to race almost all the morning, first with the middle distances, then the relay qualifiers and then the short runs.
Schuler C Herren 300m - Peter started well (after the first start, which ended in a crash) and finished 2nd (from 7 boys+4 girls). The guy who won was a real sprinter type so no chance to catch him on distances as short as this.
Schuler B Herren 500m - Bence couldn't repeat last day's 2-lap sprint but finished 7th after all.
Schuler A Damen 1500m - Barbi was fighting hard, she managed to stay in the top group all the time, even moved to 2nd position once and finished 8th.
Jugend Damen 2000m - Szonja was more active than on Saturday and managed to place herself in position 23 on the finish line.
Jugend Herren 2000m - Roland overtook 2 times as many racers as previously (ie 2 :) ) however that meant he did not qualify for the last race for the top 40. Tomi was active but lacked the power to move really forward and wasted a lot of energy in position fights in the middle of the group, he finished 20th.

In the relays we could launch only 2-member teams so we were handicapped compared to the 3-racer teams. However it was a good training opportunity.

Soon afterwards the shortest distances followed:
Schuler C Herren 100m - Peter had a very nice start, he was undisputed 2nd after 5 meters and finished 2nd with a nice gap behind him.
Schuler B Herren 300m - Bence made a bad start and fought himself back to place 10.
Schuler A Damen 1000m - Barbi couldn't make use of her long-distance skills and finished 11th after the better sprinters.
Jugend Damen 1500m - Szonja made a nice progress and came in 17th.
Jugend Herren 1500m - Tomi had a bad luck with position fighting and finished 29th.


I couldn't persuade Peter to jump out of the skates until the awards ceremony, so he climbed up the podium still on wheels. Damn I was very proud to see him standing there, shaking hands with the winner and receiving a nice silver award.
Barbi and Bence, being top 10, also were called to stand on the podium of theri category.

The afternoon we watched some great action, the 10000m elimination races of the adults/juniors and the relays. It was around 19:00 or so when we left the track, after all the ceremonies were finished. Back to the B&B, pack up, shower and bed.

It was a long day but an eventful one.

Groß-Gerau 2008 - Part 1

In short: Peter gained 2nd place in Groß-Gerau, in the category Schuler C. Wohooooo!!!

I will compose a more complete description, cut in several posts so they won't be too long.

The Team
Our team consisted of 6 kids, aged 7-13, two girls and 4 boys.

Travel
It was a long ride, 12 hours, but went smooth. We feared traffic near Frankfurt on Friday afternoon but luckily we did not meet any. Google Maps' route plan worked great and helped us get to our destination easily, almost exactly to the house we were looking for.

B&B
We stayed in Worfelden, just about 4-5 miles from Groß-Gerau, in a nice B&B (Frühstückspension Riegel, Worfelden, Wilhelm Hammann Str. 45). It was so typically German, 'alles in Ordnung' style. Comfortable rooms, nice and helpful landlady, super breakfasts. Frau Riegel did everything she could to make our stay comfortable and showed great patience and tolerance towards our (sometimes noisy) team.

The track
The track itself consists of a 200m banked oval with a concrete center place, and a 304m long, 4-corner, unbanked flat track. Most of the races were held on the 304m track, only the adult/junior sprinters competing for the 300m sprints used the banked track.
The surrounding area is very nice green, just behind the local hospital. The event was organized professionally, with 20+ international judges, 2 ex-racer speakers performing really well throughout the 3 days, olympic-style opening ceremony, all kinds of facilities and a lot of merchants.
The kids spent a lot of time in the boots, checking out every detail of any equipment - but if you do a technical sport, you know exactly what I mean, what great pleasure it is to take even the 100th wheel in your hands... :)

Size matters

Anikó is feeling better and stronger with each day, 6 days now since her cholecystectomy, so we took a nice light walk in the morning, the kids on bike (of course).

The afternoon I've joined the other Gábor to skate some, in preparation for the half-marathon in May. I don't really remember whose idea it was to enter but with each day I feel like we are insane to try that :) The kids will have no problem finishing but as it looks now, we grown-ups will spend some time at each refreshing station to collect each and every bit of energy to continue.
We've covered about 1.6 miles on street and 30 laps on the track, then 1 more mile home - a half marathon is 117 laps. And I suffered all the way. I think it must be the boot, I falter in it. I don't feel safe, I must change it ASAP. In fact it is a Roces one, not a bad one at all, but it may be a little, very little bit too big. Some millimetres only, but too big.
Pfff, time to start trying new ones.