Great participation last weekend in Ottawa! Surrounded by dozens of skaters from the Ottawa-Gatineau area, and 5 skaters from Cambridge, we were 9 from Roller-Montreal: Bernard, Benoît, Daniel, Dave, Kei, Pan, Said, and me. Annette Hollman from the Laval club was also there, along with Derek (?) who had found out about the event thanks to this website. On the menu: 3 races on Saturday, including a 2K time trial and a 30K team race in the afternoon, followed by a 42K marathon in the evening; and on Sunday, three hours of hills in Gatineau Park in the morning, followed by an easy skate-tour in the afternoon. Not everybody did everything however, and due to environmental conditions the 30K was cut to a 10K. Lucky thing, too! It was hot as hell, just like last year when I got a bad case of heat-exhaustion -- something I did not want to repeat. Both Saturday afternoon's races were held on a 300m oval in a parking lot. The 2K was conducted as a pursuit -- two skaters at once starting from opposite sides of the course. As more and more skaters completed their race we began to hear a lot of coughing. There was something in the air... maybe the fumes from the 20 or so motorbikes practising in another lot close by. By the time we'd all done the 2K, at least half the skaters were coughing continually, and one even had to go home. That's when the 30K team race was changed to a 10K individual event. Personally I was bothered a lot more by the heat than whatever was in the air, but there's no question if this change hadn't been made a lot of skaters would have been sick. The theme for this weekend was not pure endurance, as you might think, but "honour teamwork". The goal of the organizer, Stéphane Tremblay, was to offer every skater a variety of ways in which to improve: endurance-wise of course, but especially in technique and in the cooperative work of pack-skating. Taking the results of the 2K pursuit, Stéphane made up a number of small teams based on equal strength -- that is, instead of teams being equal to each other, it was the members of each team who were approximately equal and could therefore work together. And so for the 42K on Saturday evening, instead of having teams competing against each other, each team skated at its own pace, focussing on teamwork to achieve the best time possible as a group. This was a great opportunity for many skaters to learn some important things, and needless to say, some benefited more than others. We don't practise team-skating in order to become better team-members. It's bigger than that. Inline races are almost always pack-style, and pack-skating necessarily requires teamwork, whether you're skating with members of your own club or complete strangers. Pack-skating is beautiful, fast, exciting -- but dangerous too! You have to pay attention constantly, both to yourself and those around you, carefully adapting to the ways of the pack; you have to avoid doing things that are tiresome to others, or worse, that could cause someone to fall. There's a whole lot of technique involved in pack-skating, and doing it well takes mental and physical discipline. My 4-person team was a good example. I had Benoît Julien, Inga Petri and Bob Thicke, the latter two good friends from Ottawa, in fact I've done the Ottawa Marathon twice with Bob. We were a bit rough when we started off -- poor synchronisation, cadence always changing, speed always changing, slinky effect... But little by little the tips I gave paid off: "Don't speed up" - "Stay close" - "Synchronise your stroke with hers" - "Don't stay over there, get in back right away"... The course that evening was at the Asticou Centre (Gatineau), really in the woods, lovely fresh air, 22 laps to make 42K. I counted strokes, 100 or more for me, 60-70 for the others before I'd shout "Relay!" Soon we were doing lap after lap at 4:32 to the second, and by the half-way mark we slowly accelerated. Faster teams lapped us now and then, and we lapped the slower ones, encouraging each other as we passed. Most mistakes you can make in a pack are nothing more than tiring. Either you do things that wear out your teammates, or you wear yourself out quicker than you have to. Other mistakes though are downright dangerous. In my team, after a number of laps Bob developed the following habit: after pulling, as he drifted back to the rear he would stay too close, paying no attention at all to the risk of catching his right skate on our left skates. I kept veering away to avoid him! Finally I told him to move away; he realized his mistake immediately, and the others said Yeah! Another mistake came near the end, while Bob was behind me: once, twice, I felt his skate touch mine. Instead of adjusting he did it a third time, and suddenly I heard the sounds of disaster behind me. He'd not only made himself go down, but Inga as well! These things always happen when you skate in your head, for yourself, instead of being 100% in reality -- a reality that includes danger and a responsability toward others. It's rightly said that it is good to fall (in training!); among other things, it makes you learn real fast. But it is never good to make someone else fall. In our case there wasn't too much damage, and we finished together and in high spirits. But in another team, a young skater insisted on repeating a very dangerous behavior, which finally caused a skater to fall and be hurt badly enough that she had to withdraw from the weekend. When you're in the middle of a pack, you mustn't do things that could interfere with other skaters -- suddenly changing cadence, completely desynchronising -- no matter how you explain it, you're rationalizing. Skaters do this when they get too wrapped up in their own competitiveness. They think only about themselves, as if they were skating alone, without realizing that by wearing out other pack-members, making them wish you weren't there, risking the loss of fallen teammates -- they're reducing their own chances of success. Apart from sprints and breakaways, skaters who succeed help manage the pack. Sunday morning, new stuff to learn. Every Sunday, a section of the main road through Gatineau Park is closed to traffic from 7 to 10 am. All you see is cyclists, cross-country skiers with poles and roller-skis, and skaters. The forest is magnificent, the hills make you drool... or quiver... and the early morning coolness refreshes aching bodies. Though our hill-climbing was an individual matter rather than one of teamwork, Stéphane led us together from hilltop to hilltop, stopping each time to tell what lay ahead and, especially, to give some technical tips. To climb well, you have to switch to short quick strokes, breaking out of the pack because everyone will go up at his own speed. At the top we regroup, and (if you're ready for it) you down fast in a train. If you're not ready for a high-speed descent, you go down alone, staying fairly upright, holding back as long as possible before letting gravity take hold, using the air to keep your speed down. I think the OUI skaters are incredibly lucky to have such a fabulous place to train. The weekend was rounded out by a picnic in Moussette Park next to the Ottawa River, followed by an easy tour along the trail leading to Aylmer. At every event through the weekend we met new members of the Ottawa Urban Inline Skating Club, without exception a bunch of friendly and welcoming skaters. I'm looking forward to seeing them two weeks from now, when we'll go to New York for a real race! Big thanks to Stéphane Tremblay and everyone who helped -- Carl, Hélène, Gavin -- as well to all the OUI members who made us feel at home. Super-warm thanks especially to my hosts, Inga Petri and Jan Riopelle. The supper I shared at Jan's with Said, Bernard and Inga was memorable both for the delicious food and the friendship around the table. Rod Willmot