I may no longer be alone

Some good news for me is that Andrew, a friend of mine from Germany, has been dreaming about a USA coast to coast skate and might be interested in doing it with me if I go in 2012. The year for doing it wasn't fixed yet anyway. This will mean abandoning any chance of the solo record. However, there may be some news on that front too.

The advantages of having someone there the whole way, who is about the same pace as me, are that I will have company on the road the whole way. We can draft each other which will make the skating less tiring and we might be able to achieve much greater average daily distances. We can also look out for each other. It reduces the individual expenses as we would be splitting them between us. This makes the whole task a lot easier to achieve and, as there will be no record attempt, we will be allowed to draft any other skaters who may wish join us for any part of the route. Suddenly this seems like less of a mental challenge and more of a holiday with friends, both old and hopefully, many new ones. It is certainly less daunting, though the physical task of doing it is still immense.

The solo record attempt news is quite interesting for me too. While away for the 24 hour race last weekend I chatted about the challenge with George, a speed skating team mate from my club, and the fact that there was a solo record. At the time he seemed quite interested in giving it a crack the following year. George is an incredible endurance skater who has done a 24 hour solo event where he skated over 470km (almost 300 miles) in a 24 hour period. Doing it once didn't put him off and he is planning on doing more 24 hour races. He is the sort of endurance skater that might be able to get the record below 40 days and now he has 3 years to plan for it. Andrew and I will get him as much detailed information as possible on the route we are intending to take to help him achieve that goal should he commit himself to take it on. I hope he does because then I will still have played some part in making an attempt happen.