Texas Road Rash Reports, Photos - Post 'em here

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Permalink Reply by Hoffmonster on April 18, 2009 at 4:42pm

The weather was p e r f e c t!!

Bowen and Stelly put on a great show! I have no pics, but there were a lot of other folks taking pictures, I hope someone got the last 5 or so seconds of the pro men race.
Post em if you got em!

Justin almost out hawked him. We all looked at each other after they crossed. Wow!

I had a terrible race. No excuses, just did not skate very well.

Props to all who skated.

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Permalink Reply by Regal Inline on April 18, 2009 at 7:05pm

Pro and Pro Master heats were tight at every lap and some great hawks at the line. This photo is from J. Jeffries of the Open Men race start, hopefully more will get posted. I will have my camera and computer tomorrow to try and get some pics up during the race in between announcing.

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Permalink Reply by Regal Inline on April 18, 2009 at 7:08pm

Regal Inline said:

oops

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Permalink Reply by Regal Inline on April 18, 2009 at 7:18pm

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Permalink Reply by Hoffmonster on April 19, 2009 at 2:34pm

Results posted.. That was fast!

http://www.cadencesportsonline.com/results.cfm

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Permalink Reply by Robin on April 19, 2009 at 4:11pm

Botero EASILY wins the TRR today. He left the field after the first lap and never looked back. I have never seen such a strong skater at the TRR before thats for sure. It was very windy at points the course and then very fast on a downhill with the tailwind (we got up to 30mph+).
Despite a fall with a few yards to go to the finish Rice gets up and wins her Master Womens title. She tucked in behind the Master Mens group and never looked back.
On the previous day we had an oval type track (in a parking lot) elimenation race with Bowen and Stelly hawking it out......Bowen barely gets Stelly at the line.
I arrived at the TRR on Sat at 1pm and saw water everywhere in the parking lot and thought NO way are we skating today. The beautiful sun came out and dried it up with a little help from blowers and squeegies and by 4pm races were on.

Great weekend of racing......Sunny, warm and windy.

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Permalink Reply by Rob Bell on April 19, 2009 at 7:44pm

Elimination Race:
I can't say much about it. It's really not my style of racing. I wasn't even sure I was going to skate it until about 30 minutes before the start. My strength is the ability to hold a high speed for a long time and I have an endurance level that gives me an edge on the competition as the race goes on.

It's no secret that I'm not a great sprinter, and to do well in those elimination races you really have to be.

When they told us on the line that we wouldn't have any neutral laps and a skater would be elimated on the first lap, I knew I was in trouble. Two of the best indoor skaters in the country (Justin and Will) were out there and I knew they'd be able to throw it down pretty hard on that short course with all left turns. Most of the other guys out there had a strong indoor background too. I was in a pretty bad position going into the final turn...last place. I started wide and tried to pass on the inside, but the skaters in front of me did a good job shutting that lane off. I was elimated first. Yes, it hurt the ego, but it also motivated me for the marathon.

The Marathon:
To add a bigger bruise to the ego, I fell during my warmup. I hit a slick spot and my feet just went out from underneath me. At the time I didn't think I ripped my uniform or had any road rash, but AFTER the race Alex pointed out that the whole crotch of my suit was gone.

I knew Jorge was the guy to watch. He made us hurt at Squiggy and he destroyed everyone in Tampa last week. He made a few hard attacks that really shred the field. I honestly don't remember exactly where his final attack came, but I think I got stuck behind a gap in the field and wasn't able to catch up. Our group worked together pretty well for a while and we were gaining on him, but once people started getting tired they stopped pulling through, and once they stopped pulling through our momentum was gone and his lead kept increasing.

The pack shrunk down quite a bit, but all 4 Simmons guys were in there still. We timed our attacks pretty well and were able to shrink the field down a little more. Alex got pretty far off the front to where I thought he would stay away, but Norm put in a big pull to reel him back.

At the top of the big climb on the final lap I tried to break away from Justin, but he's just too responsive. The two of us ended up getting away from the other guys. That meant that the him and I were left to duke it out for the 2nd spot and the 4 masters that were left were by themselves to see decide the pro masters race.

Justin passed me with a little over a mile to go. I let him pull the rest of the way. With about 1/4 mile left he through a couple hard left crosses to try and get a gap. I was right on him. Through the right corner I was still on him. He started to fade and I really thought I would get him, but he's a really great sprinter. As soon as he saw me make my move he through it in top gear and I couldn't get around him.

The 3 Simmons skaters were able to work over Norm to take the top 3 masters slots. Alex initiated the sprint early and made Norm play catch-up. Ryan was able to set Richard up perfectly in the last corner. This was Richard's first pro masters victory. Aside from the win, they were very happy to finish so high up in the overall. This year's Texas Road Rash had bigger names than any other year I can think of, so an overall 3rd,4th,5th,6th place for Team Simmons makes us pretty happy.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Burnson on April 19, 2009 at 8:31pm

Nice race report, Rob. ... Thanks! ... I'm pretty impressed with how well you did after falling during your warm up. I think that would about do me in.

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Permalink Reply by Jim White on April 20, 2009 at 6:38am

Part of Debbie's story was reported. The rest of the story is that she won the race skating with a broken arm. Best wished, Debbie, for a quick recovery!

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Permalink Reply by Michael Garvin on April 20, 2009 at 2:33pm

My report has been posted ...

http://www.littlemdesign.com/livebreatheskate/

Had a good time, came home with the wrong kind of trophy though. ;)

(^_^)/
mike.

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Permalink Reply by ComeUndone on April 20, 2009 at 2:37pm

My race report...

Elimination: http://wscwong.typepad.com/inline_skating/2009/04/first-came-the-ro...

Marathon: http://wscwong.typepad.com/inline_skating/2009/04/then-came-the-rea...

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Permalink Reply by Bill in Houston on April 21, 2009 at 3:37pm

This got really long, so instead of waiting until the end, I’ll go ahead and say thanks to everyone who had a hand in making this such a great event. Richard and the rest of his HCIC crew, and the Round Rock PARD did a great job again. I do not know how an event could be run any better than this one. Many thanks to the HCIC and RRPARD for putting on this event!

It was also great to see online pals like hoffmonster, gospeedracer, ArtG, gopherfan, WonderGirl, Johnny Chen, dinobot, Danny Dannels, ComeUndone, Rob Bell, etc, etc, as well as all the other skaters who came from the four corners of the globe, or at least of North America.  Thanks for coming!

HouBMan and I drove up to Round Rock on Saturday. It was absolutely pouring rain in Houston, but the weather got better and better as we approached Round Rock. By the time we got to Round Rock, the sun was shining between the clouds and it looked like Sunday was going to be beautiful.

I picked up my mint G4 wheels from Debbie (Thanks Debbie, Glenn, and Alex!) and put them on my skates once the elimination races were over. I tried them out in the Dell Diamond parking lot. They felt very good, rolled nicely, and seemed to have a good combination of grip and roll. At my skill level, that is about all that I can say about them right now.

I had a nice time skating around in the parking lot and felt pretty good. Later my legs felt more fatigued than it seems like they should have. Between the soreness and the cold shivering chills I had during the night and some digestive distress, I think maybe I caught the same little fever bug my son had. Or maybe I get more stressed about races than I think I do, and it comes out in weird ways.

Next morning, up at 5:15, heading out for pancakes and coffee. I wish races could be at 10:00, or at 3:00 in the afternoon. I’m not much of a morning exercise person. Back to the hotel, packed my stuff, headed back to the Diamond.

At the Diamond I put on my skates and rolled around the parking lot with everyone else. Felt great again. I tried to warm up well to keep from blowing up my lower legs like I have been lately. Right on time, they called us all to the line, and we slowly made our way over there. We had the playing/singing of the national anthem, which I always like, and a few final announcements by Richard Littrell.

At a couple of minutes after 8, the Pros took off. About 3 minutes later, the rest of us took off. [When you talk about skating in Texas, there’s always wind involved, so you usually don’t even bring it up. But, this year the wind was from the NNW at about 15G19, which made the course skate very very differently from last year, when the wind was from the South at about 18 mph.] So the reason I mention this is that the normally somewhat hairy step downhill right after the start was made much less so by the stiff headwind. So, sure we were all going 20 mph right next to each other, but it was a nice change from the 30 mph last year. 

I wanted to start fast and then let pacelines form behind me and then jump on to one as it went by. I think it was a solid strategy, but I wasn’t able to hang on to the first two that went by. Monique (SkateQuest) and I tried to catch up to one, but we didn’t have enough gas. So there I was, 2 miles into the race, trying to draft with junior-petite Monique, who was a very friendly person, but who doesn’t cast much of a wind-shadow.  About a mile later, another line went by, and Monique jumped on, but I couldn’t hang, so I was by myself by about mile 3.

Over the course of the next ~7 miles, I was mostly alone. A tiny guy passed me, and I couldn’t get enough draft to hang. A bigger guy passed me, but I couldn’t quite keep pace. Finally, after miles of uphills into the wind, alone, I spotted my perfect drafting buddy. He was about my size, looked and sounded about as tired as me, and seemed like a decent guy. So for the last 2.5 miles of the race, I had someone to skate with, and it was helpful. I later found out that his name was Mark Luttrell – thanks Mark!

I crossed the line with the clock showing 1:03, figured out that it would be showing gun time, and congratulated myself on my 1-hour half marathon. Later I found out that my time was 59:59.64. It doesn’t get much closer than that! That was good enough for 2nd place in my age bracket, behind the guy with a plate in his ankle who’s only been back on skates for 4 months. Yes, ArtG got 1st place in our age group. I think that guy might turn out to be a pretty decent skater… :D

So, reflections on the race. Hmm, looking at my goals for the year, I had put that I would do the full marathon in 1:46. Ya, well, that was a little ambitious… This lower leg compartment thing has very much reduced my ability to skate hard. But, in the last couple of weeks I seem to have made progress on it, and it was not an issue in this race, so maybe I will have a better season from here out. This, umm, intestinal distress thing is still hitting me before races. I’d like to figure that one out. My pace for this race works out to be 14.1 mph, as compared to 13.9 for the Houston (full marathon) race. For Houston I had someone to work with for most of the race, and the wind was a non-factor, and the course was flatter. So I’d consider this race to be indicative of progress and improvement, even if it wasn’t as much as I hoped. The wind really was miserable, with pretty much everyone agreeing that this year was a lot worse than last year, so being able to go sub-1 hour in these conditions was a pretty good result for me. This was a good test for me to see what I had, and helps me know what to work on going forward. Time to start training for the DFW marathon, and the Houston marathon. I think that I really need to focus on form and efficiency.

Thanks again to Richard, Nicole, Brian, and the rest of HCIC, and to the Round Rock PARD folks! I’ll be back!

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