Europe update

London Triathlon 2-8-09

This was to be my third race in three weeks, so fatigue from all the travelling and racing was going to be a factor that I had to manage in order to race well. I had a good prerace warm up the day before, just 20 minutes swimming with some descending 100′s and some sprints, then a 20 minute ride with some pick ups and a nice 20 minute jog with a few run throughs.

Race morning arrived again, I had quick swim warm up then the race started. I had a good position in the swim, right behind Helen Jenkins and Liz Blatchford. I was actually surprised at the pace of their swimming, not as fast as I thought it would be, I stayed with them for about 500m then got cut off by a few girls who thought they could hold their feet..this wasn’t so as they dropped off, I was left on their feet and had to try to bridge the gap which had gotten big quickly. I ended up back in the 2nd pack. My coach pointed out that it’s not always a given that I’ll make the front pack every race, although I am fast enough to, a lot of tactics and skills come into play in ITU style racing where drafting is legal on the bikes. It means if you fail to make the front pack swimming, you won’t likely be in the front bunch riding, which usually means you end up chasing down the leaders for the whole race, so between now and the next few races I need to work on my open water tactics, basically just being more aggressive and not giving in to be pushed around while trying to remain calm and efficient. Transition was very long, we had to get our wetsuits off and put them in a plastic bag which we carried up a lot of stairs to our bikes, then ran another 300m or so before we could mount. I was definitely too cautious up the stairs to the transition and lost the pack I was with. I ended up having people to ride with, including Maxine Seears and a few other girls. The bike was tough, windy and fairly undulating, but I did get a quick glimpse of Big Ben at the turn around. At 30km’s on the bike…BOOM… there goes my tyre. Oh well…there wasn’t much I could do about a flat in this type of short and fast race so my day was over. I went and watched Pete finish his race. He was unfortunately back in the third pack. He had gotten off the plane two days earlier arriving from Sydney having just recovered from illness so he was no doubt not feeling too sharp. He found his legs later in the run and finished strong about half way in the field, it was good for him to get the cobwebs out in this race. For me even though I didn’t finish the race I learnt a lot and found some areas of weakness to work on before the last couple of races.

Germany, Tuebingen 3-8-09 – 10-8- 09

Tuebingen river

Pete and I arrived in Germany, Stuttgart the day after the London Triathlon and travelled down to a small university town called Tuebingen. Here we met Mignon Vatlach and Felix Schumann, two triathletes whom we met and trained with in Sydney last summer.  Tuebingen is a lovely small town with a river running through it that we would get to know quite well. Mignon and Felix, along with Scarlet Vatlach, her boyfriend Tim as well as some other athletes took Pete and I out on some great training rides around their area through the small towns andover some nice climbs. There really is no better way to get to know a place than riding around it. The swimming pools in Tuebingen are rather cold so the first swim session was in a wetsuit, this was good practice for me, as wetsuit swimming is an area I need to work on. The pools did warm up later on so we could get out of the wetsuit and punch out some good solid swim sets. I even managed 16 x 100′s on 2 minutes long course holding 1.12-1.10′s so my swimming form is really starting to come together. Tuebingen also has a few tartan running tracks so we took advantage of then and also did a good track session. I hadn’t been on the track for about 6 weeks so to run fast felt good. Pete, Felix, myself, another Pete and Tim did 5 x 1000m at race pace holding around 3.30-3.40, then 400m fast holding 76-78′s. So it turns out my running form is still going strong. It was great to be here in Germany withother athletes to train with before I head into the next couple of races. While in Tuebingen we also ate at a German restaurants on the river, we had afternoon tea on a stocherkahn( a long skinny wooden boat) around an island. Of course though while on the stocherkahn ride, it passed through mine, Pete andFelix’s heads that maybe we should swim aroundthe long skinny island for our next swim session. That we did. The next morning we put the wetties on and jumped into the river, little did we realise how strong the current was that we were swimming against for at least 30-40 minutes. We got to the turn aroundof the island, did some sprints then practiced some open water tactics on the fast down stream swim back into town.

Mignon and her family yearly make a camping trip to small town called Deutschlandsberg in Austria for a week of bike racing. Pete and I decided to travel with Mignon and her mother and father (who knows everything and anything about bikes and cycling and was a great help to us on the trip) to Deutshlandsberg for the next 9 days before my race in Czech.

Deutschlandsberg, Austria 11-8-09 – 20-8-09 

We travelled in Peter Vatlach’s camper van form Germany to Deutschlandsberg, it was a 9 hour trip where we were able to see some beautiful country side. We arrived in Deutschlandsberg which is a small town surrounded by big mountains and very pretty houses and gardens. We had 4 days of training before the bike races were to begin. The swimming pool was a cute little 25m pool, which sat at the bottom of the mountains and had a view up to a castle, the pool manager, a solid baywatch T-shirt wearing man was also very friendly and gave us room to train in the pool when we needed it.

The first race of the week program was a criterium, my favourite! It was a tight 10 x 1km loop course with lots of hard left hand turns over cobblestones.There was about 30 girls on the start line, as it was only a short race we started out hard and fast, anyone that couldn’t hang on or wasn’t used to lots of accelerations was sure to be dropped. Back in Sydney I am used to racing the criteriums with men at the Northern Sydney Cycling Club races at Mt Kuring Gai, so I was feeling well prepared to be able to respond to some descent attacks. The first 2 laps I spent making my way to the front 1/3 of the bunch so I could be in a position to respond to any accelerations. Being at the back is also a lot harder in a criterium, there’s a sling shot effect which makes it harder to stay with the bunch and you constantly are working harder to try and stay in contact with the other riders. Some how I ended up on the front for a lap, which suited me as I could take the corners over the cobblestones a bit slower, rather than having to keep a faster pace through them. Pete and Mr Vatlach were quick to tell me that was enough on the front…get off! So I sat in the draft then responded to the first attack. It didn’t take to much out of me so I counter attacked, It was a good one where I made a nice gap, however it was too close to the quickly approaching cobblestone corner! I had too much speed and couldn’t make the turn. Some how I jumped the gutter up onto the sidewalk for the next 100m, then off and onto the back of the front bunch again, phew… that was close! I sat in for the next few laps until the finish where the pace really heated up again, by this stage we had lapped a few girls and I was in a good position to sprint for a place at the finish line. But on the last left hand turn over the bumpy stones, but my mind was at the finish line before I had even turned the last corner. Once again my pace was too fast coming into the corner andI didn’t have enough room to make the turn, my back wheel slid out from underneath me as I had to brake too hard and over the handle bars I went. Luckily I landed in some wrapped up hay bails, so no damage done, I jumped on and sprinted to the finish still managing to come 12th…not too bad considering all the excitement! I haven’t had so much fun on a bike in such a short amount of time. The lesson I think I can take away from that is to ride tight courses like this crit at speed during the warm up, as corners are a lot different at 40km\hr as opposed to 30!

The second race was the mixed team time trial. Pete and I teamed up and had some fun on the TT course. This event also taught us both about pacing over an undulating course as a team. The course profile was slightly uphill for about 10mins then down hill before finishing off through some technical sections with a sprint finish. I managed to hang on on the up hill section, here we pushed it hard as this is where we thought we’d save most of our time, however we neglected to work the down hill just as hard. Looking back Pete really needed to go all out on the down hill as I was finding the pace to easy and this is where we lost some time. But once again a good training session and some lessons learnt. The last race for me before the taper begins for Czech was the 36km road race.We had ridden the course a few times in training and there was only one real hill to break away on, so I knew I’d have to be ready for it. The pace started out slow, once again I stayed towards the front. These Europeans are good descenders, so when the down hills came I stayed either on the front or close to it so I could dictate the pace down the hill. Like the criterium, if you’re on the back of the pack during hilly sections andnota good descender you get left behind having to chase your way back into position, so I stayed at the front. The short steep hill came upand it was hard! My hamstrings burned up it, but if you don’t hammer yourself up it you get dropped so I made sure I put in a good effort, unfortunately it was not good enough, I was in a small break with three other girls at the top, but they didn’t ride over the top of the climb properly and we got caught. Riding “over the top” of a climb is important and is a place where a lot of time can be saved. Even though it feels nice to have a breather at the top of a climb and slow down, you’re better off finding a good rhythm, cadence and breathing pattern and riding away from your opponents rather than loosing all the time you just made up by climbing hard! A few more attacks were made before the finish line but it didn’t break up the bunch. Before I knew it we were going around the last corner to the finish line  he sprint was on! But I was at the back! With 400m to go I jumped from wheel to wheel and got in a better position to sprint for the finish. I found a wheel with a rider that looked strong, jumped on it and with 100m to go sprinted to finish 3rd in my category. These bike races were lots of fun and really sharpened up my legs for the coming races. I have now left Deutshlandsberg andI am on the train to Karlovy Vary in Czech where my next ITU race will be held on the 23rd of August. 3 hrs down…9 to go! Meanwhile the men’s race in Czech is full and a lot of people missed out including Pete, so he has travelled to Luxembourg for an ITU style olympic distance race. I hope he does well.

Deutschlandsberg, 3rd place in road race