Like a skating Paul Revere, I rolled with a sense of urgency through the night. My patriotic mission was to alert folks to the fact that the Dutch were coming to engage us on American soil in the Seeley Hills Classic, a marathon test of fortitude in the north woods of Wisconsin - a skirmish that would pit us against some of the biggest guns in in-line racing: Erik Hulzebosch, Haico Bouma, Rene and Henri Ruitenberg, Edward Hagen and Dick Hoeve.

Now, I always relish the opportunity to show my mettle in combat with top skaters. In my mind, the more good skaters that come to a race, the better. Such an attitude may not help my chances for success, but at least it makes for a more interesting battle.

To my Minneapolitan friends, however, the impending advance of the Dutch represented a clear and present danger to their skate security. Since they only considered themselves serious jokers at best, the mere thought of keeping up with athletes of international caliber hurt. The news only troweled more apprehension onto a preexisting layer of dread, evidenced by their pleas that I not go too fast too soon. Now that some foreign skaters had the gall to come compete in their race, the pace would no doubt be blistering, infernal.

Ever the Devil's advocate, I played up the news dramatically. I wanted everybody to hear the guttural sounds of the names of our competitors. My voice wasn't shrill, just sure, as if to say; "Be warned." "Hulzebosch will be skating for K2, with Doug Glass and myself," I gravely intoned.

My declaration was met with great skepticism. It was as if, in embellishing the story a little more on each successive narration, I had cried "Wolf" one too many times. After all, why would so many Dutch skaters want to come to a little-known race in some podunk town, where the only prizes were pieces of pottery?

I wasn't sure myself, but I stood by my story, because the last thing I am is a rumor monger. I only relay juicy information from reliable sources. In a playful manner, I meant to examine the effects of performance-related stress. Since my friends in Minneapolis are practical - as well as serious - jokers, notorious for turning what seem to be lies into truths, I thought that I, too, could suspend their belief about what's normal, and then, boom, expose the grin, naked truth in an ultimately comical way.

Later that week, I received word that Hulzebosch wasn't going to make it, after all. I admitted that it didn't seem probable that the others would show up now that Hulzebosch wasn't coming. That did it - the trap was laid. All I had to do now was stick by my guns and wait.

When the Dutch were finally spotted by my friends, a mere five minutes before the start of the race, they realized the joke was on them. They'd been had and were about to be chewed up and spit out by Edward Hagen. He didn't have to come to America to skate hard by himself, but he did and he won. I managed to take second, Grandpa Henri Ruitenberg (he's 37) grabbed third and Doug Glass outsprinted Rene Ruitenberg and Haico Bouma for fourth. All in all, 'twas an epic battle played out in the north woods of Wisconsin.