"It just doesn't get any better than this--at least, until you heal."

     That was Dennis DeFrancesco's tongue-in-cheek take on his experience participating in an in-line skating event: a 38-mile race through the countryside from Athens, Ga., to Atlanta. DeFrancesco, a Natural Resources Conservation Service soil scientist based in Greenville, S.C., quipped that his training for the Athens-to-Atlanta road skate consisted of "getting pasta'd-out, as part of my carbo-loading preparation."

     According to Perdita Savage Belk, the NRCS communications and marketing manager at the agency's state office in Columbia, S.C., it took DeFrancesco two hours to travel from Greenville to Athens--by car--where he spent the night before the contest. Then at 7 a.m. on the Sunday morning of the event he was practicing his rollerblading, in the dark, in the parking lot of the Athens Federal Building, one block from the starting line.

     "My wife took some pictures of me practicing, then left after the start to drive to the finish line and meet me there," he recounted. "When I asked her how she'd be able to pick me out from among the 800-plus other skaters, she replied that I have what she termed a 'distinctive skating style'."

     "I think," he laughed, "that she meant 'I love you hon, but on skates, you're a real goob'."

     DeFrancesco said he had two goals for his participation: (1) finish the race, and (2) don't get too beat up in the process.

     "It was the downhills that were the real test," he recalled. "Anything past 20 miles per hour was my own personal sound barrier--which meant that it was the point where I couldn't hear my own screaming, so I had to slow down."

     DeFrancesco acknowledged that at the 10-mile mark he was coasting downhill, doing over 20 mph, and was about halfway across a concrete bridge over a small creek when he suddenly felt himself balancing on his toes. "Uh ohhhh, this is not good," he muttered--as he found himself becoming "one with the concrete," skidding on his shoulder with his legs in the air. "The traction grooves in the bridge surface added to the ambience of the moment," he quipped.

     But he was able to untangle himself and concluded that no parts of him were broken in the tumble--but he did tear his lucky shirt.

     DeFrancesco then continued grinding out the miles. Police held traffic back at all intersections throughout the 38-mile course--which was mostly two-lane roads winding through rural Georgia. Because of checkpoints and water stations, he drank over 15 bottles of water and ate bananas along the way.

     DeFrancesco speculated that he hit the rollerblading version of "the wall" at about mile 30. "I thought that, well, I'd done 30 miles and was still a good hour from finishing, and I was kinda hurting," he recounted. "So maybe I'll bail out and jump aboard the support bus that kept making swoops by me, offering assistance."

     But, ironically, at about the time he reached that conclusion, the support bus drove out of sight.

     "I found myself left on the battlefield," he quipped. "So I didn't have a choice; I had to keep grinding out those last miles."

     In fact, he related, the last three miles were the best. DeFrancesco had his own personal police car escort, "a benefit of being the last person to finish the race," he mused.

     "The cars lining up behind that police officer were afraid to pass," he added, "since they were probably thinking that the officer was into one of those slow speed chases with some lunatic--me."

     Finally, 5 hours and 43 minutes after he had begun, DeFrancesco rollerbladed across the finish line in Dacula, outside of Atlanta.

     So, how did he celebrate his accomplishment? "I had a victory drink of--what else?--another bottle of water," he affirmed. "But, at that moment, it tasted like champagne to me."