| August 22/23, 2009 |
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Racing into shape twice in one weekend :-)
After a little break after IM Coeur d’Alene, and a couple hard weekends training with everybody that was peaking for IM Canada (and thus feeling slow and out of shape ;-)!), I finally felt like my old “fitter” ;-) self again in the week leading up to the Provincial ITT and the Xterra Alberta. The ITT was held on Saturday in Calgary on a new, still closed Highway. The course promised to be fast, and while at it, it felt that way and also looked promising on my Powermeter….However, as the Highway was still unfinished, and had a couple big bumps (which I DIDN'T jump over), my back tire gave out with a big “bang” at km 32 of the race….just as I was getting excited to push through the last, slightly downward + tailwind section of the race. Well, well…there it went my chances to win another TT-Medal. At least I have a good power-number now to train with.
New day, new luck…at the Xterra Alberta in Canmore the next day: 1km swim, 20km Mountain-biking and 7km trail running – all in the Nordic centre. Since my expectations for this race were quite low (considering my chicken-like behaviour on a mountain bike, and not knowing how much I would feel the 32km TT-effort) I went into this race rather relaxed and with the attitude of “having fun”. The “fun” started in the swim, when after ca. 400m I noticed that I was surprisingly leading the swim. Oh, oh….this won’t happen that soon again I thought, and thus pushed to make sure I maintain in this position – once first out of the water, haha! Felt good. Also, first out on my Mountain bike….I realized that it is pretty hard to push uphill, when you just swam as fast as possible. Shortly after that I missed the right trail, and when coming back onto the course saw Nanci, a really strong athlete and great mountain biker, ahead of me. So, I decided to try and follow her, and to do exactly what she is doing :-)! This strategy worked quite well on the uphill, but as soon as it went down….phhuuuhh, where did they go??? Hmmm….back to me just wanting to have fun today, and to improve my Mountain bike skills (really the main reason for signing up for this was tricking myself into riding faster downhill than I usually would want to :-))….and fun I had, even though I probably hopped off my bike more often than any other top10 finisher. Whatever though…I saw other competitors riding their lungs out, but not moving faster than me running and pushing my bike. Felt kinda bad about that. Will practice more ;-)! In the end, about 5 or 6 women passed me on the bike, not as bad as I had expected. Heading out onto the run I wanted to try to stay optimistic about passing people back..you never know. Managed to do this once only, as the mountain bike chicks had put quite a substantial gap between me and themselves. So, in the end, I was happy to have clocked the fastest run, and finish 5th female. Xterra I am coming back. I liked it because it seems more playful, sometimes harder than a regular tri, sometimes easier ;-)! And, Canmore is always worth a trip. |
Newsflash
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[Oct 25, 2009] Having an A-race Day in Texas Yesterday I raced the Longhorn 70.3 Austin, TX. A weather-wise perfect day (not very hot or humid, a bit of wind) turned out to be great overall. After coming out of the water in 15th spot I managed to bike and run up to 8th place, and with that fulfilled my goal of placing top 10. It was a great experience, still looking at and learning from the big names, and just really enjoying to race with / against them. A more detailed description of the race in my report. |
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