Travelling for 8hrs to the Next
world cup race in the Czech Republic seems like a perfect opportunity to write
up an update for everyone.
We arrived in Munich Germany
almost 2weeks ago, and continued on to Sigmaragen, Germany where we based at a
triathlon club building into the first world cup in Albasdt Germany Just over
30minutes drive from our base. The set up was primo, having everything we
needed.
It took us awhile to get used to
Europe, possibly the jet lag or change of diet and had many average days which
also meant for some average training days. Glad to have had that buffer weekend
where we were not racing to get dialled in better.
We found a couple of trails close
to home however spent most our time on the world cup course during training,
each lap was different and the track conditions varied from dry to completely
muddy and very slippery. The track consisted of 3 climbs, a steep one to start
off and then two longer ones to follow. The descents had a bit of everything,
rocks, roots, jumps the dirt here is very different when its wet it is like ice
and when its drying it’s like ice but flicks up on to your bike adding a good
5kg. But over the buildup we got to test all conditions and different tyre
combos.
Katie
It’s awesome to be back lapping
up an XCO race track, it has been over a year since I raced my last XCO race
the 2012 Oceania Champs. The track was fun, technical and brutally hard. During
the week I got a feel for where I was at and also got in my first max efforts.
Training up to date has been around threshold so I found it hard to push to
this level and recover.
In my warm up I felt like
continuing to ride in the opposite direction with the daunting World cup being less
than 1hr away this would have been much easier, instead I followed my routine
and got to the line. The start was hard but not in a physical sense, I made the
mistake to look back and realize after starting back line I had made no ground
I was still at the back, so decided to just look forward from then on this however was
also a bit grim as the top 20 or so ride off with the other 50ish riders in a
bottleneck. My first lap ended up a minute slower than my other laps and during
the other laps I was also getting held up, the same story for everyone. During
the race I was stronger in the descents but passing was not easy in the single
track, so it was pretty frustrating as I definitely struggled climbing, which
is where there are more passing opportunities. I hope as I lift to the higher intensity in
training and become race hardened I will find my climbing legs again to be able
to make use of these opportunities! Used to love a good climbing track so I
know it’s in there somewhere...
Happy to have made some ground on
my start position and hoping this will be a starting platform to build from… Looking
forward to World cup number two.
Carl's race report
The forecast was for thunderstorms and a
high of 8 degrees so and the track was hell in the wet so I was hoping it would
stay dry as it had for the elite woman. As they finished and I was kitted up to
start my warm up the heavens opened and it pist down. So my warm up was more a
freeze my ass off and get soaked to the bone. I had a start plate of 82 out of
135 riders so still where I usually am but a hell of a lot more riders than I’m
used to so I ended up been in the middle of the race instead of the back and I didn't not want to be getting to the back off that 135.
Sitting on the start line in front of 30,000 people with a nervous
heart rate of 125bpm I got positioned behind a Brazilian and a Mexican not
ideal start buddy’s to have in front, sure enough off the start they were slow
but I managed to get around them on the 1st bottle neck of the start
straight. We were all maxed out until the 1st single track climb
where I literally hoped off my bike and stood in 1 spot for 1 minute, then walked
up the track to the top of the hill hoped on my bike rode very slowly down the
hill hit the next climb as hard as I could got to the top of that stood around
for another minute then slowly rode and ran down that hill climbing over people
lying in the mud… then my race started the track was in the worst conditions we
had seen it. I crossed the start line 3 minutes 13 behind the leaders in 83rd.
This is the most time I have ever lost on a
first lap at a world cup so to not let history repeat and get lapped out I had
to go deep, from here I pushed on passing small bunches and chasing the next
each lap taking 5 or 6 riders but been held up a lot on the descents was making
work tough but letting me recover enough to hit the climbs harder than the
other riders. Lap 4 I had a stunner and lapped 37th fastest and went
from 71st up to 64th sitting at the back of a bunch of 5.
After this effort I couldn’t get away from this bunch and in particular in
front of 1 guy every climb he would just out climb me and I had to descend
stuck behind him until the last lap of the 7 lap race where my body just started
to shut down, I was riddled with cramp, my vision was blurring and my hearing
was in and out from pushing harder than ever before, the weather made this so much
harder than it needed to be. So my hopes of maybe slipping into the top 60
faded with my energy and I settled for 66th my best result at a
world cup but still needs work.
Hopefully this week at Nove Mesto, Czech I
get to start 66th (as now points go on world cup ranking and not UCI
ranking) on the grid and continue making inroads into the top 50.
Pretty cool to make the redbull tv highlights real watched by millions
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