I did it…

NSIM 2023 – yep…done that…dun’it…did it…registered for next year…more to come (up)

Photo credit: Tone Coughlin Photography LLC

Skating Past Life’s Turds with The Speed Weasels

Like a high-speed waltz through a minefield of surprises, life often treats us to its own peculiar brand of… shall we say, “gifts.” And so it was this past, crisp Sunday morning at Boyd Lake State Park in Loveland, CO, as the sun stretched its arms and sleep was still the sensible choice for most mortals. But not for us, the intrepid members of the Speed Weasels. Yes, that’s right – the same guys that manage to clinch the coveted second place slot in our age groups or events in the Northshore Inline Marathon in Duluth, MN, every single year…we’re back. Hell. We’re practically professionals at this. Kind of.

What we’d look like if we were skating on speed nuts…

Armed with determination and coned-out wheels that hummed with ambition, (or rusty bearings,) my trusty teammate Tone and I embarked on a 26.2-mile training quest – a journey that would rival Frodo’s but with a lot more Lycra and Spandex involved. The goal: to conquer the marathon distance before getting to Duluth in three weeks and, in the process, embrace life’s unexpected challenges. And by challenges, I mean we had to leap over not one, but two colossal, turdly obstacles that littered our pristine trail.

As we defied gravity (and our own sense of self-preservation) to hurdle over these, uh, unexpected milestones, it struck me that this experience was more than just an agility test. It was a metaphor – a stinky, unforgettable metaphor for the times life flings its less-than-rosy offerings our way. You know, those moments when you’re minding your own business, zooming down the path you’ve paved for yourself, and then splat, you’re confronted with a hefty dose of… well, crap. It’s times like these I like to be leading the pack…

In that moment, as I soared through the air in a graceful arc (or at least I like to think so), I realized that our ability to navigate these unsavory surprises was a testament to the resilience we’ve honed over years of skating, failing, and sometimes coming in second place – the first loser, as I affectionately call it. Tone was able to deftly avoid a date with the dastardly turd rails and I bet if there were a camera present, he’d have looked damned good doing it. F’in guy never takes a bad skate shot…

Back to the trail turds…I can’t help but admire the poetic absurdity of it all. Life, like skating, demands adaptability. It requires us to face challenges head-on, even when they smell… questionable.

I think I’ll get cast this year…my skates are a little dated, and just wrong…

So, as we roll our way towards the impending marathon in a mere three weeks, I find solace in the fact that if we can masterfully clear the path of life’s unexpected obstacles, we can certainly handle the race course and highway 61. It’s as if the universe is telling us, “You’ve got this, you conqueror of turds!”

As I crossed that make-believe finish line at Boyd Lake, skates still buzzing and heart alight with a mix of accomplishment and mild nausea (because, let’s be real, those turds weren’t just figurative), I couldn’t help but grin. Life’s a journey – a strange, unpredictable, often hilarious journey. And as long as I’m still out here, skating my heart out, I’ll gladly embrace whatever metaphorical turds it decides to toss my way.

Because, my friends, that’s the secret to being the first loser, and being a winner!! 26.2 miles, 15.7 avg.

FirstLoser | Inline Speed Skater

Generative Sk8ing

Generative Sk8ing

Well, well, well, look who’s decided to dust off the old inline skates and roll back into the blogosphere like a relic on a set of slightly rusty bearings, squeaking on past like a version of a certain “First Loser” we knew so long ago. Yep, it’s been half a decade since my last keyboard confessional, and I can practically hear the internet rejoicing at the return of my less-than-triumphant tales. But hey, who needs gold medals when you’ve got the silver lining of self-deprecating humor, right?

Deja vu all over again? At least my turns are as tight as my toupee, especially on the trail…

If you’ve been following this virtual journey of almost-glory since the days of yore, you might remember the Northshore Inline Marathon – that yearly test of my speed, stamina, and knack for snagging second place faster than you can say “Cadomotus.” Ah, the memories of those scenic roads in Minnesota, (that I never really saw for more than two feet in front of me at any given time), the cold Lake Superior wind in my hair (or under my helmet, safety first!), and the rain on the blacktop. I’m going back to do it again, but now with the knowledge that – Jayzeus – since the last time I did this and now, Joey Mantia has waved goodbye to ice skating…faaakkk – I hope he’s not registered in the open for NSIM 23! That course record still stands, doesn’t it??

When they finally fit like they’re yours…that’s when you can really start stinking them up – #footfunk

Well – like always, my primary motive for skating has involved weekly pizza consumption and weight management…and I’ve been over-indulging in meat-lovers party pies. So today I went out on a F&*K! tour as in “WTF was I thinking?!” and skated 21 miles in new skates in the mid-day heat…my “extreme temperature” training day I assured my wife as I was crying to peel my skates off (as if I had planned this reckless endurance test)…feckin eejit is what I am…but did it I did, and man-o-manischewitz am I feeling it. Yeah man – I’m older, it’s different, extreme skating was always hard, but dayum son, what you mean I gotta do 26 miles tomorrow?!?! Faaakkkkk Do it I will. Will it to done. Get low, down in the heel, full blade to the side, fall forward. That’s my mantra, because imma sk8ing mofos…The Art of Skating a Straight Line: Inline, My Tai Chi – my new book, coming soon!

As I reunite with my trusty keyboard and channel the spirit of self-deprecation that made “First Loser” a beacon of underachievement, I can’t help but marvel at the twists and turns my training and my skating have taken. It’s different these days. I’m not the fastest kid on the team anymore. Like Roy Kent, there are slightly younger guys in better shape eating my lunch…faaakkkk. So it goes.

Whistle! I call whistle on this getting old shite. Faaaakkkk…when did my heels start hurting?!?!

Here’s the deal – like before, only moreso, I don’t give a ratt’s butt! I’m having fun being back on my skates and preparing for NSIM in a few weeks. Yeah, yeah, but, butt it’s not as much fun as it used to be(!!!) and it seems to be costing me more in terms of effort(!!!!!!) Maybe it’s because I’m over 1,500 days older since I was really skating with any pep?? Faaakkk – it’s been a while since I gave this thing the effort it deserves.

In my defense, I’ve been busy. But I’ve been lazy too. That’s the truth. But here’s the deal – I’m back. So between now and race day – First Loser and The Speed Weasels are rolling with you!! What are you doing to get ready? I’m on new skates, ramping up miles, hitting the hills, and getting stoked to be there in September! Share in the comments!

You reach the conclusions.

Like a supreme court nominee who drinks and thinks with his entitled, tiny, little gavel, my training schedule is on auto-pilot. It’s that time of year where I’ll go into drunken black-out mode – I’ll do what I do, what the animal in my loins tells me to do – and I don’t need to think of it, won’t remember it, will probably lie about it, minimize it or deny it altogether when it’s all over, when I sober up and zip up in Spring. Yes, it’s off-season & dry-land time!

We should pray for the skaters.

Why do I do this? Because it’s what I know. It’s in my DNA. It’s that time of year when Plyo’s are the New Black and Advil becomes something I need to list on medical screens as a permanent medication.

But it doesn’t stop there…nope. Time to get out the crud bearings and smaller wheels and make my trail skate as daunting as possible. Find every damn hill and climb it in full, gale-force headwind. It’s what makes skaters great again. And that should get me where I want to be next year…standing next to you on the podium in Duluth. Ya, you betcha.

Gettin’ some trail

Like Judge Roy Moore finding out there’s a new mall opening right next door to the high school filed hockey complex, I felt a twitch and jumped for joy when I read that they were finally connecting the paved trails between two of the most skate-friendly towns on the planet – Loveland and Fort Collins, Colorado. It was too good to be true, and long overdue.

But sho’ nuff, it’s done, and open, and glorious! Two pristine new miles of smooth concrete connecting the 35 miles of trail network in Fort Collins to the 18 miles I lost me belly on the first time in Loveland. I’ve spent countless hours striding and gliding in both towns, and now it’s all come together. Eventually, this may be integrated into a bigger project, the larger Front Range Trail system, which will extend from New Mexico to Wyoming. I imagine a trail like that would see more action that a Ficus tree in Harvey Weinstein’s private casting room, but in a much more wholesome way…gives me a chubby just thinking about it.

The new two mile stretch cost an estimated $1.2 million dollars to build. At $600,000 a mile, it’s cheap compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on medical facilities being built to accommodate the deteriorating American couch sloth. We’re now the most obese nation on the planet, with nearly 40% of the population tipping the scale harder than Kevin Spacey groping for glory in the Newsies dressing room. It’s obscene!

And so, hats off to the region’s open lands and trails managers, who’ve done the community a huge service with this extension. If more people are encouraged to get out there and recreate, maybe we can all pull back a few inches on the belt by this time next year, a payback and ROI that’ll be well-worth the investment in the long run.

But I just read that they’re estimating 250,000 people are going to be out there, using the trails. As much as I’d love to see a healthier planet, I don’t want them out there when I’m skating. Especially with their dogs on their 50 ft. extenda leashes, and definitely not those Lance-Wanna-Be’s – because you know how I feel about them. So I’m all for sharing, just don’t be out there early in the morning, unless you know how to keep right. Passing on your left…

 

 

Ready When You Are

Like a chronic behind-the-wheel nosepicker who hasn’t picked and flicked in the last few trips to the Quiki Mart, I’ve been itchin’ to get back out there and slime someone’s windshield with nasal aggregate. It’s time to strap on and suit up…to start skating in earnest again.  Outdoors, on the trail. For fun, not profit. Actually, the only money I’ve been making money off speed skating the last few years is by selling my gear on ebay or Nettracing…but that hasn’t been paying the bills…like this sport ever did.

But I’ve also been thinking about writing again…about something more than Human Capital or shenanigans within Supply Chains. So I’m gonna start firing off snot rockets here on the blog, and I’m I’m gonna start skating again. Russell Stover’s Pectin Jelly Bean season is officially over, time to start masterblading with gusto.

Where to start…well, it’s all about striding and gliding. About the speed of intelligent motion. It’s falling forward and double penetration. Whoops! I mean pushing, double pushing. (Awkward!) It’s about getting low, down in the heel, pushing the full blade to the side and falling forward. I think it’s like riding a bike, but…it’s not. Because cyclists still suck, at least here in my town they still do. F them. Freelz. Developing…bigly.

 

Speedskating Without a Plan

Happy New Year to all, including to my many readers and those who have raced me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love! You know that no one loves speedskating more than I do, because I’m a great, great lover of speedskating, and too, you know, I’m a very smart speedskater. While I’ve taken some time away from this blog, I haven’t exactly been taking a nap. You know, like I went away for three, four, six, eight, sixteen months and came back. No, no naps for me. I’ve been busy. And sometimes, I think about coming back to this thing, but, you know, I can only do so much in a day, and many times, this isn’t one of those things.

But look, things are getting bad out there. One of they key problems today is that speedskating is such a disgrace. Good people don’t go into speedskating. Well, maybe that’s not true, but who cares, I said it. I’m just saying whatever the hell our president-elect says, in the hopes that millions of people will start following me and I can quit my day job and be really, really rich, and stupid.

Like, I see they do this big race down in Colorado Springs now at the Velodrome. I think it’s great, really wonderful. But you know, when that dome went up, I was thinking it needed a wall too. And you know what, I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall around that Velodrome, and I will make Columbia pay for that wall. Mark my words. Because, why not?

You might think I’m incoherent, but I just need to say…and this should be obvious to you all…Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated speedskaters in Hollywood, doesn’t know me. Okay? It’s also been bothering me, all these things people say about my small feet. You know, I order my skates smaller than my shoe size, because I’m very smart. Look at those feet, are they small feet?

And, [Skating rival Not To Be Named] referred to my feet: ‘If they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee. So you know, my toes are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body. So get a grip, okay?

So I haven’t decided yet if I’m coming back or not. But I’ll tell you this, I have never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke. And I love soda, it’s the best. But only Ginger Beer. Love Ginger Beer. I’m just skating without an agenda this year, and whatever happens, happens. We will see…

 

 

And there you have it…

  
This pretty much sums it up. The end..?

The obligatory “10 Things All Inline Speed Skaters Must Do” post – part 1

If you open the pages of any of your favorite magazines (mag-a-what?), at some point you’re going to come across one of those obnoxious “Our Top 10 Things Our Editors Got Bribed To Tell You To Do Before You Expire” lists. Well, in the spirit of trying to give you something to think about as you’re out there thinking about all of the skating you’ll do in this new year, here’s this skater’s attempt at joining the club of overblown bucket list wonks…

In a nutshell, on this list you’ll find ideas, activities and excuses to spend your hard earned cash on in pursuit of more time on wheels. Take it for what it’s worth, and keep the change ya filthy skate animal.

All kinds of good crap, labeled A through K, that I can’t live without. Now where’s my skate wrench…

10. Build the ultimate skate bench. Get all those spare frames, beat bearings, stripped axls, worn wheels and stinky boots out of the boxes and onto the countertop of your very own workspace. As the skater of the house (or Alpha Skater if there’s more than one of you and you need to quickly jockey for this coveted position of ultimate dominance) you need a space to call your own. That quiet, peaceful, wondrous place for you to fine tune your equipment and spend long hours stroking a hair dryer over your carbon fiber. (Makes a good spot to stash girly magazines too.)

“No worries General Kenobi, we’ll overtake the Separatists on the highway. Victory is ours.”

9. Skate a marathon. Point or point or crit-skate, there’s really no better way to get a real bang for the buck with every dollar of that entry fee than by skating 26.2 or more miles with your fellow masterblader’s in all your spandex-clad glory. Put it this way, when you’re skating outdoors in a skinsuit alone…you’re a wannabe. But in a large group going incredibly fast in tight packs, you’re a spectacle. You’re part of an unstoppable force to be reckoned with, fueled by tiger’s blood, adrenalin and big wheels strapped to your feet. No one will make fun of you, and you’ll have had the experience of a lifetime, even if you place second.

It was his indulgence in pre-race whip-its that ultimately undid his indoor career…

8. Skate an indoor meet. I haven’t done this yet but they tell me it’s fun. Actually, that’s not true. I used to approach every practice as if it were Nationals, so in that sense, I was skating an indoor meet several times a week. And I was winning, big time. But that was against 6 year old beginners on PlaySkol blades. (Crushed them ankle biters.) But if I had to register in my age division with anyone skating more than three months, it’d probably be a different story. I had planned on skating indoor meets last year, and the year before, but now I’m not so sure it’s in the immediate future. Still, it’s a bucket list item, so on the list it stays. I encourage everyone reading this to at least give an indoor practice a try.

Nothing feeds my ego more than dusting a cyclist on the trail…

7. Skate outdoors, preferably on a mixed-use recreational trail. This goes the other way. I’m continually surprised when I meet indoor skaters that don’t own outdoor wheels, and have never even tried skating around a parking lot. Look…there’s a whole wide world out there beyond the funky smell and bad carpet of your local sweat shop (rink). Set your frames in a neutral, middle of the boot position, get some beat up indoor wheels and at least go for a short skate on a wide sidewalk. It could quite literally open whole new worlds for you, not to mention simulating the feel of a WIC event. Dude, the rest of the world competes outdoors…

The closest I’ll ever get to that many medals…

6. Send me money. You know you want to. IM me for details. It’s the right thing to do.

That’s one way to express yourself…

5. How do you keep a skater in suspense? Come back next time, I’ll tell you. Till then, keep it rollin’…