Start of the speed skating season 🤩

Yesterday was the long awaited start of the national marathon speed skating competition. For the first time I am part of the national first division (second level), so this will be another exciting year for me.
The first competition was in the capital Amsterdam on a lovely outdoor track. It was interesting to see al the well known people from the top division and be part of the same "circus".
After a longer than normal warming up, we started for 100 laps of 400 meters. It went pretty fast straightaway and I was able to stay in the tail of the bunch well. After about 35 laps however, it got tougher and after 40 I missed the connection. 5 laps later I quit the race, just before getting lapped. I knew it was going to be a next level of competition, so wasn't surprised. In fact, it could have been much worse, so I'm looking back positively on the evening. Let's grow from here!

The stats of the race are shown here: