"Wies'n", Munich, Germany

My 24skate began like last year on the big field Theresienwiese (literally: meadow of Theresia; in Bavarian short: "Wies'n", pronounciation: weas'n) where the "Octoberfest" takes place every year. This year I had to use another circuit there, because part of it is fenced off to form a big parking lot - but the rest of the area is closed for motorized traffic. So I went there on Saturday together with my younger daughter to measure the lap distance with my bicycle odometer. Here you can see her assisting me in drawing the "curbs" with a piece of chalk.



Sunday morning I woke up well ahead of my alarm clock about 5:30 a.m. Obviously it just had stopped raining: The water was dripping in heavy drops from the leafs on the trees, the street was soaking wet. The conditions were looking ideal - for speedboating, not speedskating. Despite Rod's nice article about skating in the rain I only learnt one lesson up to now: There is no bad weather, there is only equipment in bad state afterwards ;-)
Well, I had promised to cover hours 23 and 24 and at least it had stopped raining. I also looked forward to meet some other guys from Speedskating Munich and a few Bladeguards of the Munich Bladenight to join me in hour 24.
So I put on my skates at 7:30 and took off to the "Wies'n". The curbs drawn on the day before had been washed away. In the middle of the roads small dry bands appeared. Here you can see them, me and the "Bavaria" - a kind of Munich Statue of Liberty - in the background.


I warmed up and tried to get used to the wet surface, which turned out to be better skateable than I had feared. With the fourth strike of nearby St. Paul's bells I started my race against the clock. I had calculated the lap time necessary to stay above the 30km/h threshold and it turned out that the first ten rounds I could stay some seconds below the target lap time. This made me quite lucky. The slowly but steadily drying ground additionally helped me to keep this pace and with the next strike of the big bells I had skated slightly more than 30 kilometers. Hour #23 was over, but no one of my announced fellow skaters for hour #24 had shown up.
I changed to a little bit slower gear, turning the race into an endurance training, because I knew that Dominic was skating now near London. I enjoyed the steady rhythm and focussed on a as clean as possible technique, a kind of skating meditation, enjoying the privilege to exert this wonderful sport. St. Paul's bells almost caught me by surprise and ended 24skate #2.
I put on my 24skate T-Shirt and took a final picture, with the tower of St. Paul in the background:



History of this page:
15th of June 2005: First version
15th of June 2005: Almost empty page