Berlin Half Report

Berlin didn't quite go as planned to be honest. I didn't have my hopes up for top placings, but I didn't expect me to make the mistakes I did, which got me pretty angry.
It's kind of like playing a tennis match as an underdog, and your opponent ist having a really bad day, but all you can do is make unforced errors.
Yeah...
But, I must say, Berlin was pretty damn cool!

Alright then. I traveled from Maastricht to Celle (Germany), where my family lives, on Saturday. Of all the members of my team, only Tim decided to come to Berlin and race. He wanted to improve is half marathon PB. He arrived in Celle at 8 and we went back to my place for some TV and pre race preparation. The weather report for Berlin was showing rain all over the place... So I prepared some SS wheels.

I had half an hour of sleep before we had to wake up (04:00). We put on some old school party music (old school as in 70ies) and were in a pretty good move. I checked the weather report for Berlin again, there was a rain front spinning over and away from Berlin... So the streets should be soaked (how right, but also wrong we were...). Thomas (one of my coaches) picked us up at 5 in the morning and we drove straight on over to Berlin.
All the roads were soaked, some of them had large puddles of water, but it wasn't raining. I had Am-Wings and MPC SS' with me. Yellow and red Matters would have been great to have, but the only Matters I have are worn too far down to be raced on.

Anyways... After strapping on our skates we skated towards the finish line in order to not miss the start of a sprint in case we were in a bad position (Happened to me last year). I memorized a bit of the location, the buildings and skated back. The start was not extremely fast, but there were just so many skaters all over the place (A total of over 1.800 skaters). I decided to choose all the wrong trains to the front (yeah!). But stayed on for a while. At Kilometer 6 disaster struck for Stadler. I don't know who fell first, or why the person fell, but I saw what happened afterwards. At least three skaters were included in an initial fall. Two more fell to the right of them, two tried to jump the left side (without landing successfully)... Another five (minimum) went down all over the place... This is a situation, where I am happy to have chosen the wrong train up, because the wrong train up was on the far left of the road and all other lanes (2/3) were included in the crash.
Maybe I am exagerating the wrong train up part, because we were moving up constantly, but not as fast as I wanted to... And I wasn't getting where I needed to be.
That was the first mass crash, well ... the only real mass crash of the race. At about half of the race the pack moves through a series of tight (wet) corners with small uphill parts. A number of skaters went down in one of the corners, which is really the best place to fall if you're in a line with a hundred other skaters (not). I got around them and attacked as soon as I noticed that they guys in front of me were getting gapped big time. By the time we entered the long Berlin Kuh'Damm road (I'd have to check, but I think about 6K straight road) The group I managed to catch up to had also been gapped. There was nothing in sight behind me and I started to get really, really, really... really pissed at myself for the endless load of errors I had made... But it was getting worse. The group was being lead by quite a few very strong skaters I would have expected to be further up front. I pulled a relatively long lead and reluctantly moved out to draft. Suddenly this mini-skater jumped between me and my group (which just proved me that we weren't going all that fast, since the women caught back up to us...). This mini skater is also known as Catherine Penan. I don't know wtf she was thinking, but the referee on the motorcycle didn't like it either. She was whistling away at both of us. In order to not step on or knock down MPC Rollerblades pro skater I stopped skating (Big mistake)... At the same moment the Powerslide Phuzion skater in the lead probably thought: Women? F* let's pick up speed! Thats what he did. I looked at the ref to my left for a split second too long and the pack shot passed me. I hated myself right then and there.

I hope a few of the readers get a good laugh out of this.

I decided to skate slower and wait for the next group (The first good idea I had that race). Sure beats skating alone. The group that caught up had a skater from my club Percy Keppler, who is a member of the OBFST GBC Team. He told me to catch on and stick with the pack. We all took a few leads, when my back pains started kicking in (something Jan Van Loon (Zepto) and I have in common). I jumped out of the pack before my lead, and Percy, who saw what I had, started shouting at me: "Stay in and stick to the back!"
The rest of the race consisted of attacks from different teams, who were trying to break away solo or help a member of their team break away... Percy did a great job of chasing the breakaways. I was looking out for the kilometers left signs and the buildings I memorized for the sprint... I then recognized a building in the distance and mentally prepared my attack. At the same time the women's field (we had passed again) shot by in their sprint prep. MPC Rollerblade was leading it out. I thought the pack would react, but nothing happened. I guess they didn't know where we were.
I jumped out of the second to last position and decided I'd pull Percy to the finish. I told him to get in behind me, but he didn't move! I guess he didn't want to... I speeded up and skated off the top at a medium pace. Nobody followed me. When I hit the last turn I skated hard. I put all my power into accelerating through the turn, because at some point they just had to realize where we were. I sprinted a little bit and turned around 100m before the finish (for the first time). I was surprized to see a big gap behind me. After checking to see that the gap was big enough I took out speed and rolled through the finish.

You can see me in about all pictures of the women's finish in the back with my red Bont suit.

After the race I found Janitta Spigt and the winner Hilde Goovaerts. I was going to ride home with them and Jan van Loon from Zepto. But because of Hilde we had to wait for the press conference and prize ceremony, before we could travel home.
It's all her fault!
The press conference was in the VIP zone of the Radisson SAS hotel in Berlin. Almost all Zepto Int. members were already there, waiting to feast upon whatever the hotel had planned. But 5 minutes to the food turned into ages. The press conference was nice. Tv and news agencies listened to Scott comment on how freezing cold Europe is in comparison to the summer in New Zealand, where he just flew in from. Hilde explained that she can cope well with bad weather, which she proved at the Berlin Marathon as well. Sabine Berg was there as well, as strongest German athlete (2nd). She really doesn't talk much... or at all outside of the press conference... Her mother seemed like the only person she would to talk to.
Anyhow...
The trip back to Holland was cool... I guess I just like hanging out with Hilde and Janitta (who wouldn't)...
I will be traveling to Stouwdam with Hilde tomorrow and then to some Dutch track training as long as the weather holds... Aaron Arndt is arriving in Switzerland tomorrow and will be travelling all the way to Wilhelmshaven for the Wilhelmshaven Skate Days! I will be there as of Thursday.

BTW. BontWheels are on their way! Can't wait to finally test them!