WOW! What a beautiful course!

September 12th 2003 was the second year for the inline marathon "Great Lake Escape" held lakeside in Marblehead, Ohio. This was brought together by Jeff Glaze at www.premierraces.com and Fat Rabbit Racing at www.fatrabbitracing.com along with an Olympic Triathlon and Duathlon.

It took place on the scenic area of Port Clinton near Cedar Point and Kelly's Island.

The start/finish took place East Harbor State Park. The roads were, as Bob Harwell said, �as smooth as a baby�s behind� for the most part not one sewer cap, railroad track or pothole to dodge.  The view of the Lake Erie and Sandusky Bay with long stretches of road with blue water on each side was equipped with scenes ranked up there with the North Shore Inline Marathon. The course was fast with a few hills and significant wind just enough to make things interesting. See the course map below.

The race start was slow initially but at about one half mile Gary Bowman, brother of Randy Bowman of team PyroApparel, went on a flyer and was not chased but the pack of skaters caught up after about a mile and regrouped. Gary Bowman, normally an indoor skater and state qualifying cross country runner found it hard to stay in the pack being used to continuously pounding at his max repetitively went out on a flyers.  Not until the favored skater, Randy Bowman, his brother went out to join him did the chase start. Keith Ellsworth, from Newark Speed lead chase fracturing the pack leaving seven in the chase pack.  The pack reeled in the two and after about a mile Gary went out stayed out and at about the 4 mile point Randy broke out, bridged the gap and joined his brother. Randy helped his brother stay out for the next fifteen miles but his brother not accustomed to fighting the wind, hills and road conditions  struggled to stay ahead of the chase pack which was rapidly gaining on them. When the chase pack was within 100 yards Randy realized he had to let his brother go and picked up his pace and stayed away for the rest of the race taking 1^st place uncontested with a time of 1:13:49.   Gary, now spent, was not able to keep up with the chase pack which was going at this point over 21 miles per hour was quickly dropped.

It was obvious that Randy was not to be caught and it was going to be a race for 2^nd. Just after the turn onto 269 with about 2 miles to go Alan Marcosson of team PyroApparel went through a series of attacks. Sprint out and immediately attacking without break once caught to weaken any hidden sprinters before the stretch and at this point I finally dropped. He purposely waited until that stretch of road since it was the only rough stretch of road and he had a secrete weapon � 125 mm wheels  and Twincam bearings. These special Arco frames where obtained through WorldSkates.com. And the wheels were 78A which were great for rougher surfaces.

The race for second ended after a tremendous lead-out and block for his teammate Larry Griffin but the veteran dual was bested at the finish line by the 20 year old Keith Ellsworth.

Alan Marcosson

Unfortunately again there was not as good a turnout as expected since the River Role was on the same day two hours away in Cleveland where 60-70 skaters had already committed to that race, some of them from the  Neo/PyroApparel team. Also our friends from Canada were skating in Montreal along with many of the pro-skaters from the New York area.

By Miguel A Jordan, M.D.

Miguel at finish                              Photo by Holly Moore                                                          Holly Moore

Top 10 finisher were:

PLACE NAME               TOWN             SEX/TOT  AGE   TIME  PACE

===== ================== ================ ======== === ======= =====

    1 Randy Bowman       Cuyahoga Falls     1/25    21 1:13:49  2:59

    2 Keith Ellsworth    Atwater            2/25    20 1:14:25  3:01

    3 Larry Griffin      Wadsworth          3/25    55 1:14:26  3:01

    4 Alan Marcosson     Cleveland          4/25    54 1:14:39  3:01

    5 Bob Harwell        Indianapolis       5/25    59 1:14:59  3:02

    6 Gianna Guerino     Farrell            1/10    24 1:15:19  3:03

    7 Miguel Jordan      Findlay            6/25    44 1:15:36  3:03

    8 Gary Bowman        Cuyahoga Falls     7/25    19 1:17:14  3:07

    9 William Sullivan   Alliance           8/25    31 1:20:34  3:15

   10 Joe Smith          Hermitage          9/25    34 1:20:36  3:15

Complete results at: http://www.fatrabbitracing.com/results/2004GLE.asp

Course Map