Atomatrix, aka Julie Glass, is off this weekend. The star jammer for the Oly Rollers of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association returns to action in one week for the league's opening playoff round.
Julie Glass, however, is in Duluth for Saturday's 17th NorthShore Inline Marathon. The two-time former elite women's champion has returned for the first time since 2007, trading in roller derby skates for inline skates.
"I was going to be at the (NorthShore race) expo representing our company, Atom Wheels, and I thought 'Why not skate?'" Glass said earlier this week from home in Fountain Hills, Ariz. "I haven't trained a lot, I don't have a lot of miles in, but I have a strong foundation. I've been competing on skates since I was 10."
Adapting is one of her attributes. When roller derby caught her attention in 2009, while living in Olympia, Wash., she gave it a try and helped the Rollers win the flat track national title. She was named league MVP as a rookie.
Glass, 33, learned correct body positioning and other nuances of a new sport and has remained with the team despite relocating in February. She's spent four years in a sport that allows full body checks, shoulder checks and hip checks. She faces opponents nicknamed Bloody Mary, Raggedy Animal and Eleanor Bruisevelt.
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She's never been injured.
"Roller derby has been revived over the last decade and has become a booming sport, and I just fell in love with it," said Glass, who grew up in Jenison, Mich., and owns Atom Wheels with her husband, Doug. "There is such an energy in the sport and there are crazy fans."
As an inline skater, starting as Julie Brandt, she's won 17 world speedskating championships. She's been in the X Games, the Pan American Games, and was as successful as any woman in the world a decade ago.
In 2003 she won nearly every event she entered, including earning seven medals at the Inline Speedskating World Championships in Venezuela, marathon titles in Berlin and Duluth, and a victory in the New York 100-Kilometer Championships.
The 5-foot-6 Glass won the 2003 NorthShore Inline title in 1 hour, 19 minutes, 28.2 seconds. She won in 1999 in 1:23:06. She hasn't competed in an outdoor event since placing fourth in the 2007 NorthShore Inline, racing just four months after giving birth to twin daughters, Valentina and Victoria.
Elite men's entrant Jay Jackson, a Minnesota Duluth graduate living in Fountain Hills, has skated with Glass and said she looks ready to compete despite limited training.
"If she can hang on until the final sprint in the marathon, she'll be tough to beat," said Jackson.
Returning Saturday is two-time defending women's champion Brianna Kramer of Orlando, Fla., who won last year in 1:21:42.1.
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However, some of the better American and international skaters, who may have considered entering, are competing in the World Championships, which end Saturday in San Benedetto Del Tronto. Italy.
The NorthShore Inline Marathon, the largest in the United States, is designated as the 2012 U.S. Championships with $1,100 going to the winners in the elite races.
