Trip to St.Petersburg inline marathon

I'll start this post by saying that I'm sorry for the delay in my weekly post, I'm having some issue with the blogger photo update page.
I was told that St.Petersburg is a lovely city, but now I can say that it's very true.
I must start by saying thanks to the great and awesome Ludmila from the marathon organizers that did such a great job with helping me to travel and join the event, without her there was no Chance I could of done something or getting to the marathon and back so safely and with a great feeling.
Since I took more than 200 photos, the full album can be viewed on my Facebook page in this link :

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.194720873910006.44158.100001162846282&l=e759466211

At the last Friday night evening I started a very long trip (800+km) to St.Petersburg, the trip started with a 3 hours train from my city Kolomna to Moscow.
The train was old and dirty, and on the night train there were a few drunk people and some bbeggars, asking for money.

The train is really clean eh ?

Once I reached Moscow, I ran to the other station to St.Petersburg way,
This time the train was way more normal and Moscow train station was full with police officers so I felt a lot more safe.
After a 12 hours ride on this train + 3 more on the Kolomna one, I FINALLY reached St.Petersburg.
A local speedskater was waiting to pick me up, and she was so lovely for all her help :)

Entry of St.Petersburg from the train

After that I went into the underground metro trains, to reach my destiny, the marathon reg place.

The underground tunnel of the metro

Than it started - the beauty of St.Petersburg ! and damn it's pretty !

I reached the marathon expo, it was only with runners stuff, so that was a little disappointing.

"Ergo White-Night" Expo

I got my number "128" for the marathon, and than I had few hours to travel the city.

I was guested and joined by 4 Moscow skaters, wonderful people who did this trip a lot more than what it was planed, together we ate the official pasta and traveled the city together.

 

Traveling the city, I love this photo



Our sleeping room at the Hostel

 

Eating breakfast in our Hostel

 

After a good sleep we woke up to a lovely day for the marathon, with a little risk for rain (that came after the marathon).
I will finish the work on my marathon photos, and than I'll post in the coming days the marathon story with photos, and a video later on.

Getting ready to St.petersburg marathon

The last days have been pretty busy with all the work on getting to my 2nd competition in Russia for the summer/inline season.

2 weeks ago,I have been informed about a local big Russian marathon in St.petersburg, so I decided I'll go there and take a part of on the event, every event I'll join here would be good for my experience.

The Russians are happy that I come and consider me as a strong skater that can take the pack to high speeds.

St.petersburg inline start at 2010

After some check out about how to get to St.petersburg, I understood it's hard but possible :)

The marathon route is pretty hard, with a crappy road and strong skaters....But I hope my Israeli experience will help me on this roads.

St.petersburg marathon 2011 route



Obstacle no.1 - Electricity inner city trains



Obstacle no.2 - Cracks on the roads



Obstacle no.3 - holes in the roads

I got in contact with one of the organizers that speaks English and I got a warm welcome and huge help on all the steps, since I'm Israeli skater who will travel alone a huge distance (800+ km) I got people to meet up in each stooping point to make sure I got there and show me the next point, this was a very big operation that will get underway tomorrow evening.

I love watching my name in no.1 - too bad it's only the Reg page :)

I really didn't know if to choose 2nd or 3rd class on the train, I been told that 3rd class is not good but its a real experience, so 1 way will be 3rd class, if it's a nightmare than I'll get 2nd class on the way back.

3rd class sleeping train wagon

This is how it will look full with people sleeping on a 3rd class train

This is the plan :

Part 1 - At the late evening of 24/6, I will get on a train from my city (Kolomna) to Moscow, this will be 2 hour ride on the train.

Part 2 - In Moscow, I'll meet someone to take me from my train station to the train station to St.petersburg way.

Part 3 - At the early morning I'll get on a train to St.petersburg, a 12 hours ride until St.petersburg. (I got no idea how the hell to pass 12 hours on a train....)

Part 4 - When I get to St.petersburg, I'll contact some local skater to take me to the Reg place of the marathon.

Part 5 - After the reg process, I'll have to get to my hostel, 20 min in metro train.

 All this 5 steps, are just the way to get there, I'll have to do it all over again after the marathon, I just hope to finish with a nice result in the marathon.

I really hope that all my efforts will be worth it, I want to enjoy the marathon and the city.
And of course , I WANT TO WIN !! :)

Slideshow clip made from inline event photos

I found the PowerDirector 9 video editing software, And tried to make some new slideshow with it.
Here is the result :

Kolomna inline event photos

As much as I didn't like my results and I was unhappy for a few days since I didn't get to top 3 on the 10km race,it all changed yesterday, when I got the pictures from the event.
The pictures are telling a story of how I lost the 10km race, and how improved my cross turn technique has improved, those are 2 Bright points on my final goal to improve technique and join the ice in September.

It all started with Russia national song, I think my David star fits the sceen

Starting my 300m sprint

Crossover when I head to finish my sprint, finally upper body looking better

And ofcourse the ass is going much lower than what I used to

A little rest after the 300m sprint

Leading the 10km race pack for 12 laps out of the 16

Losing the last 3 skaters on the last corner

Mad & angry about the bad tactics

<>

Someone got to make some angry Facebook updates for friends & family :)

A short clip for Kolomna inline event

As promised, I finished my clip of the inline event I took part of.
It was a nice event, I had fun, as much as I don't like my results.
But as they say, with more and more event, the exp is getting bigger and better, got to learn from tactic mistakes.

Money Money Money....This will be funny

I'll start with a small update about the inline event.
The 1st inline competion was held in Kolomna,Russia at the 11/6/2011.
I think I failed on the event and I finished with very bad result, I'm working on editing the photos/video and I will make a full post about it later on this week.
This was my ranking :
300m sprint - 6th place (only 5 places go to final)
10k mass race - finished 4th, I had all the options to finish 1st, just had bad tactics.

But this post is about other issue, I have no idea what is going in Russia with small money.
I have been in Germany, Romania, Israel and some other places, never found my self with so many coins, one of my Russian friends calls it "Itay's Casino".....
I'll let you guess how much money it's worth.... :)

The casino after 3 week in Russia - 20.5.2011

The casino after 5 week in Russia

The casino today - 14.6.2011

It looks like there is a lot of money here, but really all this coins are worth about 30$ ......

2 more days until the Kolomna open inline chamionchip

2 days left until the 1st inline event for me at Russia, but sadly it has began raining hard on the last hours.
According to the weather forecast it should be raining here on the inline competition as well...I got 4 rain wheel ready for the challenge, but I believe they will cancel the event if it will keep raining....

This is a video from Kolomna event at 2009 :


The training level has went up, since we're getting closer to the ice season, in 3 months.
The training plan is now full with gym (power) work and a lot of dry land workout to build strong legs.
The coach said I'll go for the long distances on the ice, he think I have the endurance and strong heart to do the 3,000/5,000/10,000 meters.
We been training so hard this days, 5-6 hours each day, morning + evening training.

This is how my training plan looks like : (p.s, I have no idea what it means as well)



Weekly training plan

What annoying me this days, is the huge number of flies and bees,  attacking every time I open the window to get some air inside. 
Every time it's a new war vs nature, and here is a proof I won one of my battles :)

Add caption



Training in Kolomna - Part 2

I found a nice video editing soft, and when I was starting to play with it, this is the result :

Hope you will like it :)

Dry land training (Clip.no2) - promo

The promo for my 2nd video clip, which I'm working on editing....
Enjoy :)