• What: 2003 National Speedskating Marathon
• When: 8:45 a.m. Saturday and Sunday
• Where: Lake of the Isles, Minneapolis
• Directions: Interstate 94 west to the Hennepin/Franklin exit; take left fork. Turn right at the first light on Franklin and proceed about a mile. At the stop sign with a lake on your left and a church on your right, go straight and take an immediate left toward the lake to another stop sign. Turn right onto one-way Lake of the Isles Parkway. Follow about a mile to Newton Avenue.
• Online: Greater Minnesota Speedskating Association: gmsa.wrandco.com

There's skating. Then there's speedskating. Then there's long-distance speedskating.

And then there's marathon speedskating.

The nation's finest practitioners of the marathon-on-blades will be in action Saturday and Sunday on a frozen lake in Minneapolis.

The National Speedskating Marathon will be this weekend at Lake of the Isles, on a 1,000-meter circular track that is four times longer than the track at the John Rose Minnesota Oval in Roseville.

"These are the people for whom doing 15 to 30 miles on skates is not a big deal," says Mary O'Donnell, race director and a member of both the Powderhorn Speedskating Club and the Greater Minnesota Speedskating Association. "It's an extremely small number."

To be more precise, 40 to 50 skaters are expected to compete in Saturday's 25K and Sunday's 50K, according to GMSA member Joe Van Drasek, who will participate in Saturday's race.

"A lot of people will be doing it both days," Von Drasek said. "There are medals in each division. With all the age groups for men and women, there will be about 12 champions."

There will also be races after the official marathons each day for beginners, pleasure skaters, interested bystanders and the purely masochistic. O'Donnell is hoping that the race — which is held annually in some northern U.S. city but was last held in Minnesota a decade ago in Duluth — will spark local interest in speedskating that can be sustained beyond this year.

"I hope it starts a tradition of getting skating events down there," said O'Donnell. "It's ridiculous there's not more of them. It doesn't have to be marathons. We could certainly sponsor some shorter races to keep skating alive in general."

Both O'Donnell and Von Drasek are highly complimentary of the condition of the ice at Lake of the Isles, which attracts 1,000 skaters on a typical weekend day.

"It's been absolutely gorgeous," O'Donnell said. "Perfect conditions."

Lake of the Isles has a maximum depth of only 10 feet, so it freezes quickly, and it stays in shade most of the day. The cold weather this winter — punctuated only by last week's brief warmup — and the lack of snow have allowed the track to develop "black ice," which is the preferred condition, according to Von Drasek.

"The ice is excellent now," says Ann Fleischhacher, the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation crew leader who, in most years, maintains a track only half this size at Lake of the Isles. "We have to keep it swept every day. Otherwise, you won't get a good track. Once this race is over, we'll go back to our normal length.

"Since Jan. 2, we've been watering it. We water every day, but we can never get it all done because of the extended amount of track. We end up splitting the job in half because we don't have the people."

Local distance skaters have been taking advantage of the opportunity to use a longer track, practicing at Lake of the Isles almost every day for the past month.

"Some people have their own little secret lakes [for training]," O'Donnell says. "I know some people skate on a lake in Golden Valley, and there's a little pond up in Plymouth. But they're usually restricted to the [Roseville] oval. It keeps their legs working, but they have to make a lot of turns. A 25K on Lake of the Isles is 25 times 1,000 meters. At Roseville, they'd have to make 65 trips around the 400-meter track. This makes for a more pleasant skating opportunity."

Marathon skating is much like bike racing, according to Von Drasek. Skaters take turns leading the pack, particularly if it's windy.

"If you have a real windy day, you kill yourself going into it, but you have the benefit of it later," Von Drasek says. "[Staying with the pack] can drop 5 or 10 minutes off your 25K time, rather than just going it alone into the wind on every lap. With the pack style, it doesn't get to be Roller Derby, but if it is really windy, they pack up tight, and it will be that type of race. Any kind of breakaway will be at the end.

"Depending on the air temperature and humidity, you can have fast or slow ice. The sloppier it is, the slower the race."