Part 4: Kim Perkins Interview - a2a Champ Talks About How She Came to Inline Racing

Planet Interview: Kim Perkins

Ultra-Distance Champ Talks About Her Life and Career in Inline Skating

Kim Perkins: First Geek, Then Chain-Smoker, Then a2a Champion

By Robert "Just the Factoids" Burnson

(page 4 of 4)

Robert: Were you skating?

Kim: I was, but I was going out of my mind with boredom. So I was looking for something different to do.

And I was dating, for the first time, a jock. And he said, "I'm running in this 10 K run in two months, so why don't you start running and join me? You do the 5 K and I'll the 10 K?"

And I thought, It's not like I have anything better, so I went out for the first time ever and ran a mile. And to this day, it was the hardest thing that I have ever done. But after a while, I got better, and I went to this race. And I loved it. I found there was something magical about racing ... having everyone converging from all over for the single purpose of doing something together. It was like church in a way, except it was fun.

The problem was that I hated running. So that lead me to think, I wonder if anyone does this on skates.

And I did some research and found out about the Savannah 10 K (an inline race). It was 1999, and at the time my mother was very sick, and I was in the process of moving my mother to Hilton Head to live with me.

But after she arrived, she took a turn for the worse, and I was spending all my spare time with her, and the race was coming up, and she said, "You were planning to do this race. What about the race?"

And I said, "I don't need to do the race. This is more important."

And she said, "Promise me that no matter what happens, you will do this race."

The day before the race, I said good-bye to her, and I said, "You remember that race? I am going to go do it tomorrow."

So the next morning instead of driving to the hospital, I drove to the race. And I did it.

I was wearing a T-shirt, and I had my new K2 rec skates. I had no idea what was I doing. I had never heard of drafting. I thought the race was basically a time trial. But it turned out that I did really well in the race. I came in second and beat a bunch of people on five-wheel skates.

I was really proud, and I got my little prize. I think it was a little skate tool or something. And then I drove back to the hospital, and found out that during the race, my mom died.

And that somehow became linked up in all of this for me. My mom had amazing endurance; she lasted about 15 years longer than the doctors said she would. And during the race, I honestly felt her pass that strength down to me.

It gave me a taste for what racing was about, what all sports were about; kind of a way of honoring and using and living inside your own strength.

Part 1|2|3|4

End of first installment.

(Next time, Kim gets left at the starting line and later heads to Berkeley to train with the Master.)

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