The following information comes from Week Five of the Skating Technique Two-Hour Marathoner program of MarathonSkating.com.

Lesson Five: Drafting: Reduce your skating effort by almost 30% by learning to draft properly in a pace line.

Drafting is critical to your success in achieving a sub-two hour skating marathon. While it is not impossible to skate the marathon without drafting, it is certainly harder! Some people do not like to draft. Others even think it is, in some way, “cheating” to draft behind other skaters. However, skating is a pack sport and drafting is part of the game.

Some estimates put the effort saved while drafting at 30% or even more. The reason drafting saves so much effort, of course, is that while skating you experience wind resistance. The faster you skate, the higher wind resistance, and thus the greater benefit from drafting.

The key to drafting is to get close enough to the skater in front of you to get the benefit of being in his or her windblock. Of course, the closer you get the more you are nervous you might click skates together and fall! If drafting is new to you, the best way to start is to skate with only one other skater, someone whom you trust. Skate behind this person, matching exactly his or her stroke rate. As you get comfortable, reduce the distance between you until you are no more than an arm’s distance away. As you get comfortable, increase the number of skaters in your pace line.

Remember these drafting hints as you watch the attached video:

• In a pace line, keep up the pace! Always try to maintain the same stroke as the person in front of you. Rather than stopping your stroke if you are getting too close, continue stroking but with little effort. If you are falling behind, keep your stroke rate but push a little harder.
  
• If you get too close to the person in front of you, simply place the BACK of your hand on their lower backs so that you keep your distance.
  
• Remember to push to the side rather than backwards. This reduces the chance of clicking skates.
  
• Remember that, just like driving, it is the person in back who is responsible for keeping the proper distance. This rule is enforced, in part, because if two skaters click skates it is almost always the rear skater who will fall. So, don’t worry too much about the person behind you.
  
• If you are leading a pace line, be nice to your fellow skaters and call out obstacles in the path. Use hand signals.
  
• Remember that you need to get much closer than most people think to get the benefit of the draft!