NSIM'15

[Spencer.Berry]

http://www.duluthrunning.com/wp-cont.../FullPrint.htm
Bart 58:49
Joey 1:04:19
Jan: 1:05:18

Very impressive! Looks like there might have been a light head wind. Will be very interesting to hear more details.

[Spencer.Berry]

Interestingly, Bart was skating long track in Utah on Wednesday. Amazing how easily he transitions between ice and inline.

[kufman]

Originally Posted by usask8er1

Looks like Joey indeed can be an endurance skater. Bummer the record didnt fall. Kind of make me wonder about Harry Vogels claim that the record was BS.

It the wind conditions were equal, the record would have been crushed. A tail wind has a huge impact on times.

[usask8er1]

Originally Posted by kufman

It the wind conditions were equal, the record would have been crushed. A tail wind has a huge impact on times.

Ohh I may have misheard, from people there It had sounded like there was a nice tailwind. The fact that he did his first half with a 2:10 pace is just unreal, specially now knowing that wind was not on his side.

[sxevegan]

Originally Posted by mrv

It's funny guys that no one mentioned Jan Blokhujsen because the scenario is very clear.
It seems the plan is as follows:

1) 1 mile after the start Bart and Jan (who dont know who Jan is - look into wiki) probably will push to the limit and broke the elite group - maybe one, two, three skaters will be able to survive next 3-5 miles (it depends if they will cooperate with B&J or not)
2) after mile 7 - Bart and Jan will be probably alone

Assuming weak side wind and 125mm frames they will be able to maintain ~47km/h - it allows to go below 54mins.

Bart already did the same with Severin Widmer (he was outpaced ~10 mins before finish) last year in Berlin. I think Jan has no significant experience in inline but he is stronger than Bart on ice and Stronger than widmer on inlines. Depending on the road situation Jan will try to do the same or even will pass the finish with Bart. On 110 wheels they can broke the record but by seconds and wind they will play important role.

sxevegan: I don't think Joey is endurance skater and if he starts he may be one of the skaters who survive 7 miles. Afaik Joey will not start there - if he will, he for sure help Bart as he knows perfectly he is not endurace type of skater.

Spencer.Berry: Bart many times mentioned (in Berlin in afterrace interviews) that he hoped that Severin Widmer survive at least 40 mins cause he was not sure about surviving alone.

My prediction was pretty close. About a half mile in, there was a separation with Bart, Jan, Jarrett, Joey, Stelly, Ryan Chrisler, and me. I'd say about a mile or so later Jarrett, Ryan, and I were off the back and absorbed by the chase group. Stelly was the next to drop back. Then Jan. Joey and Bart were together for quite a bit longer. The chase group worked hard for a while, but the pace eased a bit around the time we caught Jan. We could see Joey up the road for the last 6 to 8 miles of the race, but he was able to keep his pace high enough that we never caught him.

[evilzzz]

Originally Posted by kufman

It the wind conditions were equal, the record would have been crushed. A tail wind has a huge impact on times.

Also consider that he skated most of it solo, while Chad has his teammates cutting the drag behind - it was definitely a more impressive performance.

To be 6 minutes faster than the rest of the elite field.. It's simply ridiculous how much better Bart is than everyone else around. Can you imagine if, say a running marathon was won by an equivalent margin.. the winner would be 12-13 minutes ahead of everyone else. The level of his skating is simply mindblowing. We use the word genius too commonly, but Bart is genius.

[SkateMO]

Originally Posted by evilzzz

Also consider that he skated most of it solo, while Chad has his teammates cutting the drag behind - it was definitely a more impressive performance.

To be 6 minutes faster than the rest of the elite field.. It's simply ridiculous how much better Bart is than everyone else around. Can you imagine if, say a running marathon was won by an equivalent margin.. the winner would be 12-13 minutes ahead of everyone else. The level of his skating is simply mindblowing. We use the word genius too commonly, but Bart is genius.

What do you think makes Bart so great? I can't imagine that his technique is simply that superior to everyone else. Maybe it is though. I'm not surprised that he beat most of the elite field by several minutes. Even though there were some terrific skaters in that pack, most of the guys don't skate a lot of WIC events and aren't really on Bart's level. It is impressive that you have a quality group of skaters working together though against a slight head wind and the 15 of them together can't match Bart. It's even more impressive that world class skaters like Joey and Jon can't even stay in his draft. When I watched one of the live streamings of a WIC event online several months ago, Bart was dropping some of the best skaters in the world like it was nothing.

When Chad came up, he had a completely different skating style (to my knowledge at least). His ability to use the double push when many skaters couldn't, allowed him to be almost unbeatable for many years. In Bart's era, most of the top skaters skate very similar to each other. Honestly, when I watch Bart skate, I don't see anything unique about his technique from any of the other top guys. So, I guess I'm just trying to understand what makes him so dominant. Right now, if Bart is #1, I don't think the next four or five guys in line, working together, could touch Bart in a marathon. That's almost hard to comprehend if you think about it.

[Spencer.Berry]

Congrats to skate log member "sxevegan" -- looks like a very impressive finish with the main elite pack!

Congrats also to "Team Stressless" -- they swept the podium in the pro men's division, and got #1 and #2 in pro women's!

Congrats also to everyone who traveled to Duluth to support inline racing! Unfortunately I didn't make it there -- maybe next year.

[Spencer.Berry]

Originally Posted by SkateMO

What do you think makes Bart so great? I can't imagine that his technique is simply that superior to everyone else. Maybe it is though. I'm not surprised that he beat most of the elite field by several minutes. Even though there were some terrific skaters in that pack, most of the guys don't skate a lot of WIC events and aren't really on Bart's level. It is impressive that you have a quality group of skaters working together though against a slight head wind and the 15 of them together can't match Bart. It's even more impressive that world class skaters like Joey and Jon can't even stay in his draft. When I watched one of the live streamings of a WIC event online several months ago, Bart was dropping some of the best skaters in the world like it was nothing.

When Chad came up, he had a completely different skating style (to my knowledge at least). His ability to use the double push when many skaters couldn't, allowed him to be almost unbeatable for many years. In Bart's era, most of the top skaters skate very similar to each other. Honestly, when I watch Bart skate, I don't see anything unique about his technique from any of the other top guys. So, I guess I'm just trying to understand what makes him so dominant. Right now, if Bart is #1, I don't think the next four or five guys in line, working together, could touch Bart in a marathon. That's almost hard to comprehend if you think about it.

Good question! I'm guessing it must be superhuman aerobic capacity. I know that Team Stressless has been doing some lab testing, but I haven't seen any results with info about VO2 max or anything.

[sxevegan]

That's a great question.

Even though I'm less than happy with my performance over the last mile or so of the race, I'm really glad that I was there and was able to skate iwth Bart; even though it was only for a few minutes.

I did feel pretty decent going into the weekend, and I've been skating as fast as I ever have before in training.

Skating with Bart was a completely humbling experience. There's plenty of guys in this country that are better skaters than I am. Better technique, better fitness, etc. Thanks to drafting, I can skate behind guys that are better than me, and usually not get dropped. Drafting allows a guy like me to go stride for stride with just about anyone. I remember Texas Road Rash a few years ago where I was fresh and feeling good right behind Joey. He picked up the pace to a point where even in the draft, there was nothing I could do to hang with his speed. He wasn't sprinting. He just opened up his stride and there was nothing I could do except get dropped. It was really the first time that's happened. Yes, I've been tired and gotten dropped many many many times, but being fresh and not being able to keep in stride with the guy in front of me has never happened.

Well, it happened again at the start of NSIM. Somebody said we were doing 46mph down one of the hills near the start. I don't know if that is accurate or not, but I am 100% sure that it was faster than I had ever gone on that course before. Bart was looking smooth on the front, but it was like a was racing a 300m time trial that never ended behind him. I told Dave that it felt like somebody cranked a treadmill on full speed and told me to jump on it in my running shoes. My body wanted to keep up, but it couldn't. It was a really wild feeling.

I remember the emotional letdown jsut a minute into the race knowing that any second I was going to get dropped, and the leaders were going to get away. I felt bad that I was about to get in the way of all the guys behind me, but i looked down and there was only one shadow left in our group, so on the positive side I had lasted longer than all but 4 of the guys who started.

So why is he so fast? I think its a combination of things. Some guys have great technique, but don't have the aerobic capacity of Bart. Others might have the aerobic capacity, but lack the technique. Bart obviously has both. His cruising speed is so fast. Faster than anyone I've ever skated with before, besides maybe Joey. I think that's all due to form (but I'm not sure what part of his form does it). The other part of the equation is that he can hold that cruising speed longer than anyone in the sport right now. I was huffing, puffing, and tasting blood in my mouth minutes into the race. He was calm as could be, and never really slowed down the whole time.

After the race, Joey said he loved his 125s. Justin Stelly took 2nd in the field sprint, and he had just put 125s on the day before. He liked them too. The top 4 guys were all on 3x125. Sitting in the pack, I didn't feel like my 110s were hurting me. I know for sure that 125s wouldn't have gotten me to the finish line any faster or in a higher place. My position at the finish was all because of tactical errors in the last mile, and not equipment. I did finally buy some 125s though, and I'll be giving them a try in a few weeks. I don't think they will be faster, but I really need some new race wheels (I have 2 or 3 seasons of racing on my F1 G13s right now) and I don't want to pay for 110s right now if everyone else is racing on 125s next year. Even if 125s aren't faster, I'd still prefer to be on the same size wheels as everyone else, so that when I get beat I can't make any excuses to myself about equipment, since we are all on a level playing field.

[mrv]

Originally Posted by sxevegan

Skating with Bart was a completely humbling experience. There's plenty of guys in this country that are better skaters than I am. Better technique, better fitness, etc.

Well, it happened again at the start of NSIM. Somebody said we were doing 46mph down one of the hills near the start. I don't know if that is accurate or not, but I am 100% sure that it was faster than I had ever gone on that course before. Bart was looking smooth on the front, but it was like a was racing a 300m time trial that never ended behind him. I told Dave that it felt like somebody cranked a treadmill on full speed and told me to jump on it in my running shoes. My body wanted to keep up, but it couldn't. It was a really wild feeling.

So why is he so fast? I think its a combination of things. Some guys have great technique, but don't have the aerobic capacity of Bart. Others might have the aerobic capacity, but lack the technique. Bart obviously has both. His cruising speed is so fast. Faster than anyone I've ever skated with before, besides maybe Joey. I think that's all due to form (but I'm not sure what part of his form does it).

sxevegan: fully agree about Bart - he is endurance superhumanoid. With all respect to Joey he is more technical (who knows maybe technically he is better than Bart) but not as strong in the endurance as Bart. Joey survived for 10 miles because super-technique. At this moment possibly few mens on earth can follow Bart's tempo for longer period of time than Joey:
- Peter Michael (NZL)
- Even Fernandez (FRA)
- Alexis Contin (FRA)
- Boris Pena (COL)
This last guy may become in next few years serious rival for Bart.

My explanation for SuperBart is that he is doing all basic technical things perfectly and he has body composition dedicated for endurance. In some aspect he is like top Kenyan runner - low fat and... just as many muscles as needed, not even additional pound.

By the way - on all photos from the Race JAn Blockhuijsen is 2 meters behind Joey or Bart. I wonder why. Maybe he was used to ice stride and wanted avoid collission while being closer. Do you have any observations? Could you explain this?

[bjvircks]

[evilzzz]

My thoughts on why Bart is so dominant:

- He is one of the few true all-time great sportsmen who can transcend his sport and would be at the top no matter who else was around. However, without wanting to take anything away from guys like Joey & Jan, skating is not really a mass-participation sport, and I think it is fair to say that the depth of the elite field in the world today is not as strong as, say, cycling or running where the competition is higher and the margins between the best are much smaller. It would be like taking the best Kenyan marathoner and dropping him in the US - he'd automatically be 3-4% better than anyone else, and at elite level that is massive.

- some guys and gals are simply genetic freaks. Not the top 1%, but the top 0.0001% - the 1 in a few million. The guys simply have the raw materials that others don't. The Usain Bolts & Chrissie Wellingtons of the world. Not only the raw base materials, but the freakishly high response to training - they get better, and continue to get better long after everyone else reaches their own natural plateau. I would love to know what Bart could run a mile in, or his bike FTP. I'd reckon they'd be world class numbers.

- He *does* have better technique than anyone else. I am not a coach or any sort of qualified sports scientist, but to my eye the quality of his technique leaves absolutely zero room for any wasted movement. There's no extraneous activity going on that doesn't contribute to forward movement. It's a quality that you see in very few sportsmen of any discipline. A good example would be to watch how Mirinda Carfrae runs during the run leg of an Ironman triathlon - she regularly runs 10-15 mins faster than everyone else and it is easy to see why when you just watch her running down her competitors - absolutely zero wasted movement. Easy to watch and describe, anything but easy to do. Gwen Jorgensen at Olympic distance is another great example - I watch her run and I just think "perfection" - impossible to improve upon.

- Lastly, I think that the role of the brain is not to be underestimated. It's the brain, afterall, that makes the expression of technique possible. We call it "muscle memory" but really it's the brain's ability to work out what is optimal and make neuromuscular adjustments down to precise thousandths of a second that multiply over and over with every single stride, so each millimetric improvement is compounded to a far greater sum advantage.

- Being better, he beats the opposition into submission, and the natural order has become a self-fulfilling propehcy. his competitors know that they don't have a chance when they toe the startline with Bart. Therefore as they are already racing for 2nd place, the results are rarely reflective of what they could have achieved had they pushed to the very maximum of their own ability. They couldn't have beaten Bart, but maybe they could have lost by 2 minutes instead of 5. The mental advantage is huge.

[usask8er1]

Originally Posted by evilzzz

- He *does* have better technique than anyone else. I am not a coach or any sort of qualified sports scientist, but to my eye the quality of his technique leaves absolutely zero room for any wasted movement. There's no extraneous activity going on that doesn't contribute to forward movement. It's a quality that you see in very few sportsmen of any discipline. A good example would be to watch how Mirinda Carfrae runs during the run leg of an Ironman triathlon - she regularly runs 10-15 mins faster than everyone else and it is easy to see why when you just watch her running down her competitors - absolutely zero wasted movement. Easy to watch and describe, anything but easy to do. Gwen Jorgensen at Olympic distance is another great example - I watch her run and I just think "perfection" - impossible to improve upon.

I think it would be hard to argue his form is any better than some of the top guys like Jarrett Paul who is as technically sound as it gets. Clearly that alone does not get you the win every time.

My strong belief is that very few people in this sport get the time and as well as the coaching and amenities that people like Joey and Bart get. Joey will be in Colorado one day doing high altitude bike training, later in the week he will be doing lactic buildup testing at the Under Armor facility in Florida and then before you know it he will be on the skate treadmill at the Pettit in Milwaukee. Most people have jobs, families, and other things that hold them back from being the absolute best they can while others dont. Others also make the decision to go to sports that have a payoff for their talent and athleticism, their is little incentive for someone to spend their life being the best at skating. Most of the people who find they are phenomenal at this sport go to bicycling or ice for the mere fact that if they are going to invest the time, they want the money for it.

[mrv]

Originally Posted by usask8er1

Others also make the decision to go to sports that have a payoff for their talent and athleticism, their is little incentive for someone to spend their life being the best at skating. Most of the people who find they are phenomenal at this sport go to bicycling or ice for the mere fact that if they are going to invest the time, they want the money for it.

That's why Joey decided to be in Europe. The game has changed from the moment when Dutch tried to be the best in inline skating. They introduced bit of new technology into sport like: post-mortem motion analysis, realtime movement correction based on sensors and some old stuff like per training lactic acid level analysis etc. I do not have a very big picture what happens in US in inline or skating federations but I think Europe now knows and do more for sport. Also being top skater or top inliner in Europe can be profitable - no olympic medal needed. And last - I think most important difference between two continents is that in US audience recognizes only champions while Europe recognizes also being second and third

[Spencer.Berry]

Inline speed skating is definitely not the best sport for getting rich!
This was an interesting thread related to inline salaries:
http://www.skatelogforum.com/forums/...ad.php?t=14718

[evilzzz]

Originally Posted by usask8er1

I think it would be hard to argue his form is any better than some of the top guys like Jarrett Paul who is as technically sound as it gets. Clearly that alone does not get you the win every time.

My strong belief is that very few people in this sport get the time and as well as the coaching and amenities that people like Joey and Bart get. Joey will be in Colorado one day doing high altitude bike training, later in the week he will be doing lactic buildup testing at the Under Armor facility in Florida and then before you know it he will be on the skate treadmill at the Pettit in Milwaukee. Most people have jobs, families, and other things that hold them back from being the absolute best they can while others dont. Others also make the decision to go to sports that have a payoff for their talent and athleticism, their is little incentive for someone to spend their life being the best at skating. Most of the people who find they are phenomenal at this sport go to bicycling or ice for the mere fact that if they are going to invest the time, they want the money for it.

I totally agree that a full application of sports science would be a huge advantage to any athlete, and if Bart is getting this level of support and others aren't then ultimately it means is far better trained.

With regards to "form" and "technique", these are terms we are use to describe the technical proficiency of someone's skating, but they are rather nebulous.

From a purely sports science perspective, there are 3 components that contribute to performance:

Aerobic capacity
Movement economy
Lactate threshold

Movement Economy is a quantifiable expression of terms like "technique" and "form".

With regards to skating, because of the theoretical square law, in order to be 5% faster than anyone else (the margin we saw at NSIM), Bart would need to have a 15-20% bigger aerobic engine, all other things being equal... and I just can't see that. Is it likely that Bart has a VO2max of 90ml/kg/min while other elites top out at ~72? Almost impossibly unlikely imo.

More likely his superiority is spread over all areas, his economy (ie skating form) is a few notches better which creates slightly less drag and allows him to consume less oxygen for the same output - therefore he is able to maintain the same speeds as his competitors while operating at a few % lower compared to his max. In addition, his maximal oxygen uptake is also probably a few notches higher, and then he is probably fitter which allows him to operate 2-3% closer to his own (higher) VO2max than his competitors can at their (lower) max levels.

[bjvircks]

hey ese002... do you happen to know about what mile is was when the group you finished with separated from the A1 leaders? I see that the 3rd group fell way at about 8.5 miles into the race.

[ese002]

Originally Posted by bjvircks

hey ese002... do you happen to know about what mile is was when the group you finished with separated from the A1 leaders? I see that the 3rd group fell way at about 8.5 miles into the race.

Unless there were earlier breaks that I did not see, the A1 leaders broke from Pack2 moments before Pack2 broke from Pack3. I did not note the distance at that point but 8.5 miles sounds about right.

When I pulled out and surged forward, I thought there was still one unified pack. By the time I merged in and had a moment to look around, Pack 3 had fallen off and there was an insurmountable gap between Pack2 and Pack1 (especially from the back from Pack2)

[ese002]

This is why I need to learn to skate lower. (That's me on the far right rear)