Duos and Solos

Steve Davidson

Since 2002 British skater’s have been making the annual journey to Le Mans, where their teams of 10 have been taking part in and completing the 24 Roller, a 24 hour endurance marathon around the famous circuit. With the overall distance record at around 850km and the UK record just under 750km, it’s easy to see this as a tough event. And it is. But apparently not tough enough for some. No, it seems that for some people sharing that workload with 9 others is just not enough of a challenge. Welcome to the crazy world of the Duos and Solos.

Over the last couple of years the number of entries in the Solos has been around 75 whilst the Duos entries were up from 28 in 2008 to 48 in 2009, so either more people are going mad, or more are up for challenging their skating abilities to the ultimate degree. So what is their motivation? I talked to Hans Brown, the first UK skater to attempt the 24 Roller solo back in 2006 and George Puttner, who, this year, competed in his second Duo.

Hans Brown

Q: First of all, what was it that made you decide to do the 2006 event solo? Was it bravado? The opportunity to challenge yourself and your limits? or was it just because the opportunity to use the best team name, Hans Solo, was too good to miss?

A: The idea to go solo was actually born the first time I went to Le Mans in 2005 when I met Pascal, the solo winner in 2005, and record holder until last year. Up until then I didn’t know anything like that existed and it appealed to my ”dark side”. I like the idea of finding out what my physical and mental limits are and seeing how far past them I could go, so a solo race seemed like something that would allow me to explore my own outer limits and have a bit of a laugh at the same time. I planned the year to be a very intense year and did as many marathons as I could culminating with the Le Mans solo race.

The team name was, I think, suggested by someone on Serpentine Road and the idea just kind went from there.

Q: Having entered, at what point did the enormity of your decision to enter hit home?

A: The first discussion I had with my coach. (then my girlfriend, now my fiancé) She said to focus on getting a good time in the marathons or doing the solo race, but not both. I foolishly said okay, let’s focus on the marathons and then rely on mental strength to get me through the rest of the solo event, when the training ran out. To be fair, she sort of trained me for both and I had possibly my best season skating. I spent some time speaking to XS-Fred in Paris who was pit crew for some of the solo enthusiast the year before to get some hints from him and he warned me that the toll it put on their bodies was rather heavy. Being only slightly competitive, I said “not me”… how foolish.

Q: At least in UK terms, yours was very much a journey into the unknown. What training did you do before hand and when did you start training for the event?

A: My coach, Riz, had me on a structured training plan (she did the same for George and Craig - London Duo 2008) to get my body in the best shape possible. For a solo event though, the real test is not just your fitness, it’s being able to keep going when every fibre in your body is screaming at you to stop. There is nothing natural about being up for 24hrs in a pair of carbon fibre boots with a hole in your foot. I was reasonably fit before hand and so worked quite hard on sticking with the training plan and preparing myself mentally for the event.

Q: Aside from the training, what other preparation did you do? Mental? Recruiting back-up? Nutrition?

A: The hardest bit was finding support crew that were close enough to me for me to pay attention to, but who would not listen to me when I was whining, and would send me back out to complete the event if I still had enough in me. My adopted sister, Natasha, and adopted mum, Helen, volunteered and did an amazing job of keeping me fed and watered and of ignoring me when I complained. For nutrition, after putting the body through that much stress, the stomach shuts down, and blood and nutrients diverted to keep the more valuable real estate of the body (heart, brain, lungs) running, so I found a flavour of liquid food I liked and which processed easily and stuck with that from about 9am on the Sunday to the finish.

Q: What were the toughest points of the race itself? and what were the best points?

A: Before the race I sat down with Natasha and said that the period from 8am to noon on the Sunday would be the critical portion as it would get hot, I would be tired from the night before and I would want to quit. If I made it through that phase, then I would be ‘fine’ for the rest of the race. So I said, unless my leg was hanging off the rest of my body by its sinews, to ignore everything I said and repeat my pre-agreed control phrase back to me…..

Q: I remember seeing the state of your feet after the race, not a pretty sight? What else did the race do to you physically and mentally and how long did it take you to recover?

A: Mentally, the race was really rewarding and would rank as one of the best things I have ever done, it gave me a lot of confidence and the realisation that my mental limits were set by me and not by my environment. Physically, it messed me up. In the run up to the race, I insisted on competing and racing 4 international marathons on four consecutive weekends, giving it my all, and capping it off in the 5th weekend with the Le Mans solo. I had a blister 2 weeks before the event which went bad and became an open sore on the ball of my foot. At the end of the race it was deeper by 3mm and wider in diameter by 5mm. I lost 5kg of weight in the 24 hours and it took me about 4 months to put it all back on.

Q: What are the positive things that you got out of doing the race?

A: Mental strength, the fellowship of the London skate fraternity in keeping me going and above all my sister and coach keeping me going and supporting me.

Q: Is there anything you regret and would have done differently?

A: Had a different race strategy and build up – I think it cost me an additional place on the podium.

Q: And finally, would you ever do it again?

A: Yes, I’m planning to do another one, properly this time, listening to my coach and not having a stupid build up.

Thanks, and good luck with your future attempt.

George Puttner

I interviewed George Puttner before the start of his Duo attempt this year;

Q: This is your second year doing Duo, there seem to be a lot more teams doing it this year?

A: There’s a few more this year, last year there was like 30, this year there’s about 50. I guess the popularity of it has picked up and people have seen that you can do it so more people have registered this year.

Q: OK, and how’s your training gone? How do you think you’ll get on this year?

A: I think we’ll do quite well, we prepared well. My training started at the beginning of December and since then I’ve trained probably 4 times a week on average and I had a coach for the whole period to keep an eye on me. My partner from Paris (Cyrille), he also started training I think back in November or something like that and one time we trained together in Paris so we prepared quite a lot. We think we’re going to finish towards the top hopefully, though it depends on how good the other teams are.

Q: Do you think a podium is a possibility?

A: Again that will depend on who the other teams are. Last year we came third and we’d hope to do the same this year. I think we’ll be a little bit stronger this year but it’s going to be dependent upon the competition whether we can make the podium again this year. If there’s a couple of really strong teams then it might not be possible but if there’s a chance, we’ll certainly go for it.

Q: Excellent, and what would you say the hardest part of doing it as a duo is?

A: Probably just the test of endurance. At the beginning it’s OK, our strategy is different to most of the teams, we will probably do one hour at a time or one and a half to two hours at a time. When it gets to the morning about 10, 11 O’clock your endurance is tested and your mentality is tested too, so I think it’s really just the fact that you’ve skated such a long distance that’s a really hard part. Your muscles start to hurt but you just have to keep going, so that’s the hardest part.

OK, thank you very much and good luck.

In the race itself things didn’t go according to plan. Froggy and Rosbif certainly started well and were on a pace that saw them completing around 7 laps per hour. They were climbing the ladder of Duo places and putting to shame many of the full size teams by being up in the top 60 overall. However, in the early hours of the Sunday, Cyrille developed a problem with his knee and forced to quit on doctor’s orders. No replacements are allowed so George then faced a huge mental test. Should he call it a day, or should he continue just doing his planned shifts and resting when Cyrille would have been on the track, or should he try to finish the event as if he was a solo competitor? In the end he soldiered on for a while before eventually deciding to call it a day shortly after 11am.

I caught up with him a couple of weeks after the event, to talk through his recollections of how things had gone.

Q: You’re obviously a glutton for punishment as that was your second duo. Different partner this year though. How did that come about?

A: Craig, my 2008 partner, had only planned to do the race once. It’s quite hard to find a duo partner. Firstly, they have to be ‘crazy’ enough to sign up. Secondly, you have to trust them enough to follow through with all the preparations even when it gets tough. Thirdly, ideally you want to pick someone that you have a decent relationship with as both the training and the race can be a testing time. Paris-based Cyrille was at Le Mans in 2008 and had seen Craig and I complete the duo. I had mentioned the idea of teaming up for 2009. After working on his fitness for several months he believed he could commit to it, and so in mid-November, we agreed to do it together. Funnily enough, Cyrille and I met marshalling on the London street skates – same way that Craig and I knew each other.

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