Patineurs de vitesse: September 30, 2007

Shift supervisor Herr strudel was baffled... the power grid monitoring system indicated a mysterious surge in demand in the east sector, in particular at the Berlin Innside hotel...

Normal evening peak demand period was over.. and yet...

Ya, that was us causing chaos on the grid. Having gathered every available hair drier, the post race gear rescue was in full swing.

Some years back, getting ready to gun my 4WD down the Oodnadatta Track into the central Australia desert, I asked the proprietor of the pink roadhouse about the condition of the track;
"shot to shits" she replied.

Looking at the soaked boots and water clogged bearings- after more than 4 hours of decent soak pre and post race, as well as during- I knew that there was little chance any amount of hair drier activity would improve the condition of said from a similar STS status. It was thus that I decided the time has come to retire the faithful set. After all, it's been around - Ahem, yah, cool.

Judging from the audible evidence conditions were not much better in the other rooms on the 6th floor. I found Marco kneeling on the floor looking like Clint Eastwood in a B grade western, clutching a pair of driers like good old sixshooters over some rigged holder trying to rescue his gear- while John and Peter in other rooms- were performing their versions of the same, to varying degrees of success.

After such ' immersive experience' it was time to head to the post race party- near the east station. Where the wall was once separating east and west, a fence and security guards were now separating registered races from other Saturday night revelers queuing to get in to the giant venue, a large warehouse in the style of east german monumental architecture.

Inside, trophy presentation was in full swing, the marathon heroes marched onto the stage to the sound of very loud bass thumping noises ( or was it the German Brain Surgery techno group latest mix?) while on the giant video screen a reply of the live coverage of the skate marathon by German TV was showing. it was a chance for us to see the race from an observers' perspective- with amazing overhead shots taken from 2 helicopters- and it showed once again how wet it really was.

For a couple of days the weather has been unstable, but we were hoping for dry conditions on the Saturday, race day. Despite weather forecast, and even more so, the fact that a steady drizzle was falling outside, after lunch we attempted a traditional Cree Indian rain stopper dance, followed closely by an Australian drizabone chant- but alas- something or someone (that CIA again?) was jamming the upload communication to the heavens- so the one way traffic (downstream...) just kept on coming.

By the time we were ready to head out, the drizzle got excited enough to turn into full on downpour- so as we got to the station and on the train to join the other few thousands heading for the marathon- easily recognized by the orange bags- we were suitable soaked.

The marathon compound was chaotic, especially by German standards, but all the facilities were there, and we soon changed into race gear ( so now all our clothing were wet) and handed our bags to the storage folks. Each bag, which we received with our Marathon kit the day before- had our race number on it- and storage areas were allocated by number blocks, so it was a simple matter of pushing your way thru few thousand soggy skaters to get to the designated area and hand over your bag.

From there we headed to the start blocks- divided by designated marathon times, based on previous best time, based on -oh, forget it. we had our timing chips ( cutely named - champion-chips by the organizers) on our boots and managed to get to our start area on time, and stood there for about 20 minutes getting even more soaked than before, until finally- the start.

The image of thousands of skaters taking off on wet roads, tram tracks, leaves, and puddles was amazing, if somewhat unstable. No sooner had we started that we experienced our first encounter of skater hydroplaning- (have a look at the image of the two skaters below to see how much water was on the road) and also started to become familiar with a variant of the Heimlich Maneuver- the FRITZ maneuver- where a sliding/ falling fellow skater (being Berlin-they were mostly German) would grab you as they started sliding towards an earthly/ tarmac encounter- this required a quick leap and shake routine in order to maintain momentum, and reject the sudden show of bonding- while avoiding a personal aqua glide towards a fatherland encounter.

Sharp corners and tram tracks did not make matters easier, and at about km 10 the rain become a full on downpour, leading to a new discovery of just how much water a pair of carbon skate boots can hold.

Still, with the crowds cheering under their umbrellas, and the clock ticking in sync with the rain drops, before too long ( well, longer than we hoped for, but) we could see the Brandenburg Gate and the finish line- just, and picked up speed to discover a nice section of cobblestones just before the finish line.

Soaked beyond caring, we cruised over it and into the arms of the reception party- a bunch of volunteers who covered us in yellow warming cloaks ( their term) and directed us to banana alley ( where, you guessed it-we were fed bananas) and got medals, warm tea, were photographed, and slid our way to collect our clothing bags.

From there it was just a short trip to the changing tent- where all notions of German order disintegrated into a colossal strip show, as everyone, together, attempted to get out of soaked skin-suits and into ( just) drier cloths. If you ever attempted this, you'll know how sticky wet cloth can be- with the resultant slapstick routines as people attempted to extract themselves standing in crowded space, on the yellow cloaks- now floor mats.

The original plan was to head over to the event area for post race activities, but in our state ( and it appears most everyone else felt the same) we headed back to the hotel- managing, along with others, to provide a free service to the German train through the act of flooding the train cars' floors with excess water coming off skates and bags, and , well, everything.

Bring on the ark.

Back at the hotel the drying rituals commenced, which brings me back to shift supervisor Herr Strudel... and you know the rest.

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Aftermath: This pretty much sums it up. I hope to get some info from the Majorca crew- some spectacular downhill routes were reported over dinner, and I hope we can post details (are you there John :-)
A 4 am start to get to the airport to catch a flight to London, and than on to OZ, did not leave much time for further reports from berlin. I am currently collecting images for some web albums- links to be provided shortly.

I will also add some course elevation/altitude/grade profiles ( taken from my trusty GPS that accompanied me to all events ) and notes, in the next week or so.

Thanks for reading, commenting, and, well, welcoming us all back.
As David would say- it was FANTASTIC.