Racing News

Flying Fossils Beat Back Time in 24 Hour Relay
They're so fast they get booted from fitness division

Oct. 9, 2008

(In 2007, I had the idea of founding a team for the Montreal 24-hour inline relay race with the catch that the skaters had to be at least 55 years old. Using email and the Internet, I assembled a team of 10 guys from across North America with an average age of 58.

We named ourselves the Flying Fossils and set a goal of winning the relay event's sportif (fitness) division, which is for teams with average speeds below 28 km/hour (17.4 mph). Amazingly, we exceeded the 28-kph limit. But nonetheless, we were allowed to remain in the fitness division, in which we took the silver medal. Things turned out a little different this year ... Here is a race report by Cale Carvell, Fossil member and founder of Team Rainbo. - Stephen Fisher, Fossil founder)

By Cale Carvell

When the first call came about getting the fabulous, phenomenal Flying Fossils back together again for the Montreal 24hr Inline, my first instinct was, "Are you kidding me!"

I remembered the continuous rains, winds, and suffering of last year's event. I told the guys I didn't want to risk messing up my body for Duluth.

But a I could also feel a small flame of enthusiam growing, especially when I remembered back to the jokes, bonding, sense of accomplishment, and camaraderie of last year.

After some encouragement, I gave in and made the commitment to go. Upon hearing about this, my darling wife, Margo, decided that she would once again participate on the Skate Log team and join me up north for another great skating adventure.

Of course, getting all ten of us Flying Fossils together, uninjured, and ready to commit, was no easy effort. After many emails, we had eight of the original ten lined up (the other two were injured) and two new first-time Fossils. Aside from me, there was Alan Marcosson, Bob Harwell, Ken Huss, Peter Moynahan, John Atwater, Rob Stroud, Stephen Fisher, and the "newbies" — John Garret, and Stan (I'm sorry I can't remember his last name.......memory is not the Flying Fossils best attribute). [It was Dowicyan]

The new guys had no idea what they were getting into. We had a Friday night pre-race dinner together where many stories were told and laughs were had. The new guys must have really wondered if they made the right decision.

Saturday arrived, the race was to begin at 1 p.m. and would continue for 24 hours. The more laps you finished, the higher you placed. There were three divisions for teams: elite, fitness and rec; and also a division for those really demented souls doing the entire 24 hours ALONE. There was even one guy who skated alone for 24 hours continuously BACKWARD. ... It made what we were doing seem sane. But I digress ... another "Fossil" trait.

Anyway, we set up our spot in our paddock (think: garage), which we shared with two other teams. Last year, we had one-half of the paddock; this year we were really packed in. Oh well, the better for bonding and REALLY getting to know each other. Believe me, after about 10 to 12 hours of skating, it smelled like a hockey locker room, except you didn't get to leave.

Never mind all that, we were excited, full of energy, looking forward to the start, and ready to give it our all.

We even had a Fossil statistician: Ed Duncan, one of the original Fossils who got his skate run over by a car (with his foot still in it!) two weeks before the event. He came to lend moral support and keep track of times, laps, etc. (When you have a bunch of old guys our ages, this REALLY helps).

Before the event, some of the more analytical members came up with a plan that would hopefully help lower our overall time. Instead of skating in a simple 1-through-10 order, we would have our three fastest guys skate laps for two hours and then take a rest while the next group of guys did two hours, followed by the next group and then back to the first group. The idea was that in this way, the fastest guys would end up getting in more laps. Other teams use this strategy, and in theory, it's great. So off we went.

Alan Marcossan put in an unbelievable first lap of 7.00 minutes flat. He was able to draft the pro group at his top speed and maintain it for the entire 2.7-mile lap. I was able to jump on to some other pros after Alan handed off to me and do a 7.37 lap. These would be the two fastest laps of the 24 hours. Only Peter ever broke the 8-minute barrier when he hooked up with one of the pros late in the race. The problem was that you need to recover quickly in order to keep your lap times at a consistent speed. Once again, the Fossil factor did us in because we could not recover fast enough. (It's hell getting old!) So we went back skating in a 1-through-10 progression. That way we would have more than an hour to recover between laps.

The hours began to pass. After about four hours of skating, the inevitable rain began to fall. We got about 3-4 hours of a good steady rain, which made things even more uncomfortable. Lots of wheel changing and skate substituting ensued. High humidity, wet clothes, sweaty skaters, grinding bearings, wheel maintenance, wind ... God, it was great!

Eventually, the rain stopped and the wind died down, and we just kept skating, skating, skating. The course dried, the music played, and everyone settled into the challenge.

We battled back and forth for first place in the fitness division ... not bad for a bunch of old guys. Then it happened: The race official informed us that we were being bumped up to the elite division because our times were too fast for fitness. We tried to explain that the word "elite" and a bunch of guys over 55 should not be used in the same sentence; however, they weren't impressed with our logic, and moved us up. We took it as a compliment that we were too "good" for fitness, but now we were battling to stay out of last place in the elite division.

During the night, we split up into two 5-man teams so that each guy could get four hours of sleep. But I couldn't sleep. I stayed up all night and kept on skating. I will never understand why everyone else can sleep when I can't. ... I guess it might have had something to do with the four liters of Coke, Snickers, Hershey Kisses, power gel, and potato chips.

Through the night, we managed to close the gap on the team ahead of us, Skaters Quest, and actually got 15 seconds ahead of them. But they took the lead again after their top guys woke up and put the hurt on us. ... Oh, well. I loved it all.

Morning came and we were holding our own. The last half-mile of the course was straight as an arrow and had a nice 15 mph wind pushing us the the finish line. It felt like you were going 60 miles an hour on that section.

With the end of the race approaching, all 750 participants — except those skating — began to gather around the start/finish line. The guys let me have the last lap. It was an exhilarating experience with all the participants lining the finish line, cheering and giving high fives.

After 24 hours, we had completed 168 laps, which equaled 453 miles. And we did not finish last in the elite division. ... Of course the one team that we did beat was an all-girls team, the Poulettes sur Roulettes (hens on wheels).

Yee ha! Although I was completely exhausted, sleep deprived, wobbly legged, stinky, sweaty, weak from exhaustion, and thinking I would never do this again, I couldn't have had a much better time.

Thank you, Flying Fossils for making this another great challenge that we finished together. ... See ya next year ... same time ... same place.

Cale Carvell

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