Reprinted from NWTC TIMES RECORD NEWSPAPER,
July 10, 2008
Saginaw-area resident to vie for national inline speed skating crowns
By Worth Wren Jr.
When Saginaw-area resident Mike Johnston zooms around an inline skating track, the "woooosssshhh"
descriptive is more than apropos.
This computer geek and information technologist
will be competing for three national crowns next week, July 13-19, at USA Roller Sports' 2008 National Indoor Speed Skating
Championships in Lincoln, Neb. He'll be skating for the DFW Speed club in individual races and two-man and fourman relays.
At age 32, Johnston is still able to "woooossshh"
with some of the fastest athletes in the sport - 15- and 16-year olds. Indeed, all three of his Senior
4-Man Relay Division teammates are in that 15-16 bracket, and they'll be sharing their national quest in the 4,000-meter
relay event against numerous teenage opponents next week.
"I
feel old when the kids I'm skating against are 15, 16, 17, 18," Johnston said last week, adding that speed skaters
are fiercely competitive athletes with true sportsmanship behavior.
Sure,
there is the goodnatured teasing from the younger set as Johnston heads for the starting line: " 'Oh my! The old
man is on the line again,' " he said, mimicking his opponents. Then he noted he
returns the favor by saying “This old man is going to beat your b…!”
Apparently, this long, lean 6-foot-2, 170-pound athlete, a former Olympic swimming and speed
ice-skating prospect , was built for speed and stamina and comebacks. Even as a Novice inline speed skater
in 1994, he placed in national competition. “It’s the speed of the sport,” Johnston said when asked what
he derives from the sport primed by his intensive afterwork skating, weightlifting, stationary-bike, running workouts.
Over Memorial Day weekend In May, DFW Speed’s
senior 4-man relay division team qualified for nationals by winning the 4,000 meter regional event in Waco.
Johnston’s teammates were and are Brandon Esianor, 16, of Haslet, Michael Machalicek, 15, of Sachse, and Joseph
Burns, soon to be 16, of Mesquite.
Also in Waco, Johnston
and teammate Craig Preston, 26, of Haltom City qualified for Nationals in the Classic 2-man relay by winning that regional
division event.
At the same meet, Johnston qualified
for nationals as an individual by winning the Grand Classic Men’s Division (for ages 30-35) with its 500-, 1,000- and
2,000-meter races.
3 Comebacks Then Team USA
Johnston overcame two injuries and viral
meningitis to pursue his skating passion, and last fall he was named to the 36-member Team USA World Speed Skating Tour. He
competed on a Paris outdoor track and two others in the South of France around Easter.
He's especially fond of 5,000- and 10,000-meter events, but found himself accelerating in
the 500-meter and other sprints since last summer.
"It's
not just so much going around in circles," he said. "It's the tactics. It's competition, the people. It's
a great time."
Johnston, also apparently, was built for
high-energy multitasking.
Concrete
Job
Always
on 24-hour call in his full-time job, he has been a computer geek for Redi Mix Concrete for nearly five years.
As Redi-Mix’s I.T. supervisor based in Euless, Johnston said, he’s routinely in
motion to maintain, program, upgrade, and protect 17 computer servers plus terminals with desk-tops and the phone
system at 24 area supply locations and three district offices – all to support
staff plus dozens of concrete-mixer trucks rolling to construction sites.
His blackberry has become critical to the job, serving as cellphone,
e-mail server and otherwise computer link to the Redi Mix sites. It also keeps him on his workout and competition schedule,
and helps in his more crucial roles – as husband to Christine Johnston and dad to their 7-year-old daughter Kylee. They
both work out with him, running or otherwise; they also share other pastimes: such as showing his customized cars. He likes
to race cars, too.
Why Skating?
Ironically, Johnston's skating career began
when he was 18 and only because an injury took him out of his chosen high school sport: swimming.
At Irving MacArthur High and a local swim club, Johnston swam his way toward
“a good chance” to qualify for the U.S. world swimming team. But at the
crucial high school district finals, Johnston slipped off the starting platform and fell to the concrete. His
dislocated shoulder took him out of swimming.
About the same time,
he said, a buddy was training for the Olympic speed skating trials.
The shoulder didn’t hinder his skating. In 1994, his first year in the sport,
Johnston qualified for nationals in the novice Junior Olympics/Senior Men Division. He set new national 500-meter and 1,000-meter
sprint records, "broken later that same day," he noted. "It's gone from there," Johnston said.
On the Ice
But not smoothly - and for a time, not even on indoor acrylic-coated
wood or outdoor asphalt/concrete tracks.
Johnston at age 20-21
took up speed ice-skating while living in Canada. He became an all-around skater in 500-to 10,000-meter events. "I loved
it," he said.
In 1997, during a break en route to the
Olympic trials for speed ice skating, Johnston was playing roller hockey for fun. He injured a knee.
The blow took him out of the trials and out of skating altogether until 2005. Despite his busy
work and family life, Johnston said it was painful to watch Olympic ice or inline skating.
So, with his wife's encouragement, Johnston returned to inline skating in 2005, and in spring
2007, he was headed to the South Central Regional Championships.
That's
when Johnston was struck by viral meningitis."I don't wish that on anybody," he said, noting that his 6-2 frame
fell from 170 pounds to 115 during a three-month span with the illness.
By
September last year he was skating again. Last fall he competed in an international
marathon (about 28 miles) in Houston, where 50 U.S. and internationally ranked skaters competed in the Pro-Elite Division.
A 17-year old from Houston won the hot, humid race, but Johnston finished 11th, not bad
on a rebound from meningitis.
Then, with his speed
returning for DFW Speed, Johnston attended skating clinics at the Olympics Training Center in Colorado Springs. He was invited
to join Team USA, which reforms annually with 36 skaters in all age ranges and 14 coaches. In France, he was able to compete
in the Easter-season outdoor relay and individual races despite having to use skates partially broken on the first race. "We
ended up racing in the rain and cold," Johnston said.
Now to Nationals
He's
headed to the indoor nationals, yes. He also qualified for but didn't compete in the recent outdoor nationals in the same
events. Johnston said he could not take off work for both that weeklong event and the coming indoor nationals. "It is
an expensive sport" at the higher competitive levels, he said, noting that a pair of lightweight, streamlined, tough
carbon-fiber boots runs about $1,200-$1,700; wheel sets, $100 per pair; and aerodynamic helmet with proper air-flow cooling,
$200-plus, Johnston said. "I want to stay as cool as I can," he said.
Come next week, Johnston figures he and Preston have an excellent chance of winning the national
Classic 2-Man crown: In the relay requiring a push-tag instead of a baton pass, each will skate five times, going two laps
per outing.
Johnston said he and Preston, in practices,
have been skating in a new national record ballpark - close to 3 minutes - for the 2,000-meter race.
Unfortunately, Johnston said, his wife and daughter won't be able to attend the, nationals.
But they, as anyone can, plan to watch the skating events on the USA Roller Sports Web site:
www.usarollersports.org,
he said.
