Trexlertown report

From Herb Gayle:

Hi Robert,

The races were incredible today in T-town...the skaters came to race and there was no slacking from the go.  I will speaking about the pro master/veteran' s race which was the event I entered.

Miguel Pantino, David Dolnick and Empire's Noel Johnson were pushing the pace. This month we skated in a counter clock direction which is ideal for sprinter Jeff Foster.  This is Jeff Foster's home track in Pennsylvania, so the master/veteran men know that we have to work hard at the beginning or expect Jeff to give us the royal spanking in the field sprint.

With two laps to go, of nine, the tempo increased and I was hoping for a delay, so I could rest before the inevitable pack sprint.  

Jeff had a few surprises up his sleeves and he would move to the front of the pack to slow things down.  On the last lap of this 15k sprint, you could feel a crescendo of adrenalin.  

Glenn Corso, Noel Johnson and David Doigle took off down the long back stretch.  I was somewhere near mid pack of 12 skaters hat stayed together...some skaters were down a lap or dropped off the pace.

I put the hammer down and passed Glenn, Noel and David before the final turn.  I kept moving my feet in this wide turn, then I heard someone gaining on me and it was Jeff.  I made it to the finish line before Jeff caught me.  Where did he come from?  According to one unnamed skater; " I saw one dark shadow blow by me, then I saw another.(smile)

The elite mens 15k race was super fast from the gun courtesy of my Canadian Olympic gold medalist and friend: Olivier Jean.  I decided to skate another race at the back of the pack with the young lions.   Man, these guys took off and left us master/veteran skaters in cloud of smoke.  A couple spectators were teasing me and said, "they went that way".  I kept plugging away until I got lapped with 4 laps to go.
 
The most amazing thing I saw from way behind the elite men's race was a fallen skater getting up immediately after a hard crash.  OUCH! That must hurt, but this brave skater did not give up; he managed to catch back up to the leaders and he won the elite men's race.  Congratulations to Keith Carroll...you are the best!

Bye for now.

Herb