A fine sunny autumn day, flat and fast roads, and I managed the 41.129km of the Berlin Inline Marathon in a total time of 1 hour 35 minutes. Considering I had hoped for 1 hour 50 minutes I’m rather pleased with that. I think it’s something to do with the extra adrenalin of skating in a group. Having never skated a marathon before I was in start group H, the very last group, so was only overtaking people the whole way. I’ll be back next year, fitter and stronger, with the aim of managing an even better time. Today has been the climax of a perfect summer of skating!

I just wonder how best to make progress from here… I saw no person from a Belgian speed skating club at the marathon (and there were clubs from all over the place) and finding others to skate with (fast!) would be fun and also the best way to improve further.

[UPDATE 29.09.08]
Result now confirmed – 01:35:14, average speed 26.59km/h, place 1432 of the 3580 finishers in the Men Fitness category. Not bad for a first ever marathon!

I’ve been skating on and off all summer and when skating marathon distance in Québec recently I thought to myself – why not? I’ll sign up for a competitive marathon on inline skates. So on 27th September I’ll be joining thousands of others skating 42km around the streets of Berlin. All being well I should manage the course in about 2 hours, quite a lot slower than the winning entry in 2007 – 1:12:30 in pouring rain!

I have some new Rollerblade Speedmachine 10.0 skates on order (currently at a UPS depot in Belgium because the delivery vehicle could not find my building today) and I’ll be training along the Brussels-Hal canal and on Rundkurs 4 of the Flaeming Skate Routes on 13th September.