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Industry News:

USA Fit Rolls Out Its First Inline Marathon Training Program

12 Week San Francisco Program Will Prepare Skaters for the Napa Valley Inline Marathon

By Robert "Just the Factoids" Burnson

Media ads will start appearing in the next two weeks urging people to sign up for a first-of-a-kind training program intended to prepare both experienced and new skaters for the Napa Valley Inline Marathon.

"Are you ready to change your life?" the ads will ask potential skaters.

Those who answer "yes" will be advised to join San Francisco Inline Fit, a new organization formed by USA Fit and its offshoot, USA Inline Fit.

Those who join will meet weekly in San Francisco to train and attend seminars intended to teach them all they need to successfully compete in the nearby Napa marathon on Aug. 7th.

San Francisco Inline Fit is not the first inline marathon training program. But it is the first to provide face-to-face, rather than online, training; it is also the first to attempt to reach out to non-skaters through an advertising campaign.

USA Fit has named ultra-distance champ Kim Perkins to organize the San Francisco program. Perkins has won the Athens to Atlanta Road Skate for the last three years. She is a member of the staff of Wenzel Coaching.

Marathon School

Skaters will pay $115 to join the 12-week San Francisco program. They will meet on Saturday mornings at Crissy Field in the city.

Perkins will split the skaters into two groups, beginner and intermediate skaters. Each group will have a coach. (Perkins will be one of them.)

The groups will skate with their coaches and attend seminars on various aspects of marathon training and technique. Among the topics will be nutrition, hydration, skating technique and equipment.

San Francisco Inline Fit is the first of three inline training programs that USA Fit hopes to start this year, said USA Fit national program director Christina Mintner.

Talks are underway to start programs in Long Beach, California, and Raleigh, North Carolina.

"We hope to keep growing and growing until our inline program is as big as our running program," she said.

USA Fit has running programs in more than 50 cities in the United States and Canada and plans to expand into Europe this year. It estimates that since it was founded 16 years ago, it has trained more than 100,000 runners and walkers for marathons.

(Continued)

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