Why I lied

In Speed Skate World (see the Blog Roll at right) on November 21, Peter Doucet mentioned that Skatelog’s Jessica started a 2008 Montreal 24 hour Skatelog team. Technically I should be one of the first people to sign up. By rights I ought to be there with Skatelog wearing one of their florescent jerseys. Sorry, not happening.

Oh, make no mistake, I will be in Montreal, I will be skating with the usual suspects, the same eccentric trouble makers at TISC I’ve come to know and love over the past year. Well alright, not really love so much as stand being in the presence of, sort of… oh okay I admit it, like enough that I’d go to Jacky’s (see Passion on Wheels in the Blog Roll) house warming this evening, and haul ridiculously huge numbers of wheels over the border just to save everyone a couple bucks on shipping.

Back at Skate Log, I did promise Jessica and everyone else in April or May, I’d skate with them in 2008 in Montreal. I’m a promise breaker, I’m right up their with heck’ve a job Bushie. Of course I am not singularly responsible for the decline of the greatest country in the entire World the way that Son-of-a-Bush is. So I guess I’m not right up there with heck’uve a job, I'm not right up there, but I must be pretty close.

So why I am breaking a promise and why am I being so flippant about it? Well first of all if the choice was strictly between skating on a team with people I hardly know or skating with my friends at TISC it is hardly a tough call, if skate with my fellow TISCers I know it will be more fun and an awful lot less awkward. But that is not the main reason I will not race with the Skate Log bunch. Let me rewind a bit and go back to July of this summer just past.

At Montreal in the 24 hour marathon this past July something rather mind boggling took place, the Toronto Inline Speed Club’s Eric Gee (coach, boot maker extraordinaire, web master and Blogger on EGCSkates, see the Blog Roll on the right) skated for 24 hours with almost no interruption. Periodically members of the Toronto Rec team the T’Recs brought necessities of life, energy drinks, gel packs, to Eric to sustain and I think four times over the 24 hour period Eric stopped for scheduled washroom and foot resting breaks of 20 minute durations. (Eric if you read this and I got it wrong please let me know.) The fact that Eric had spent months training at Rondo Park in preparation for this event made Eric’s first place finish, 103 laps or about 460 km, in 24 hours inevitable. But that day, well alright the second day, when Eric’s name was announced as the winner in the solo category, we at TISC were all very proud and delighted by Eric’s well earned victory.

Its difficult to put words to feelings sometimes, but even now, more than four months after that race I think the best description I can give for my own feelings were one of victory. My own team (Canadian Racing And Performance) did… well alright by the standards I had for myself at the time. But Eric’s first place, that was something in some small way we all tried to share in. For myself, I played a minor roll, the one lap I got to pull Eric and Candy (see Dream Chaser on Wheels) as Candy supplied Eric with gel packs.

There were other soloists too though and not to diminish what they did, but none of them came first. One thing I clearly remember though, was during the night members of our, Canadian Racing And Performance, team pulled Lawrence ‘More Cowbell’ Pelo for almost two hours.

In the days that followed the 24 hour, members of the Skate Log forum congratulated Lawrence as a conquering hero. You can see the results here, Lawrence did finish, a full 3 laps, almost 15 km behind Eric. But when someone, who I will not name, told Lawrence (this is not a direct quote since I don’t want to embarrass anyone) ‘I heard that the people from Canada pulled Eric all the time so he had an unfair advantage over you.’ Well that really angered me. The person who made that remark was not in Montreal and excuse me, but last I checked the name Canadian Racing And Performance was an accurate descritipion of the citizenship of the people who pulled Lawrence for two hours in the rain. (Six of us were from the Toronto area and four of us were from Montreal/Ottawa.)

It finally got to me, Eric won, it was a clean race, there was no cheating or even accusations of cheating that I am aware of. Yet some of the people at Skate Log had to trash Eric’s victory to enlarge something they were not even a part of?

Perhaps I am being petty and small, but frankly I do not care. Eric won, it was a good, clean, hard earned, win and when someone comes along as says ‘oh he had an unfair advantage’, well that’s just not right and I won’t be a part of any of that.

I will be going to Montreal in 2008 for the 24 hour marathon, but I will be wearing the blue, orange and black of the Toronto Inline club. Not the Skate Log colours as I had previously promised. And you know what? If that makes me a liar that is just too damn bad.