Kitzbuhel for me is also a little special as it was my first race where I had my debut into World Cup racing in 2009. That particular race was quite horrid actually, and as fond memories I had of the place was also as many rather crap memories I had of the race, haha. Nonetheless I had come back to where it all started for another crack.
Come to think of it... last years race was almost as bad as my first attempt! haha coming off sickness and in hindsight a mistake to actually front up to the start line last year, I had returned to this race with new confidence to finally take charge of this race third time lucky.
Kitbuhel as it's based around the mountains, means the weather can change in an instant from sunny skies and sunshine, to blistering storm the next, as was evident last year when weather went from thermals and arm warmers under wetsuits, to 25 deg the next, to hailing on us in the middle of the race....race briefing started out stating the water temp was 24.5 deg, (it must be sub 20 for a wetsuit) I joked turning to Fliss Abram beside me asking God to unleash the classic Kitz weather and let it hail 4.5 deg to make it a wetsuit. I swear it could not have been more than 5 mins, ...he listened the skies turned a freak storm blew over dropping hailstones at the window!! ha crazy!...Unfortunately not quite enough iciles dropped and race day dished up almost 25 deg in the water anyhow. ha he tried at least!;)
So with some very lucky Kitz weather sunshine was allowed to stay for the entire girls race. Lining up ranked number 12 ( my lucky number) I had a decided to menatlly attck this race very differently from the start. After having a few pretty shitty swims as of late, I decided I had to change something a lot to break this cycle, wether it would work or not I wouldn't know, but something had to change. Although still exiting towards the back of the field, there was a change, and fighting my way to the end to hang on I managed to keep touch with the 3rd pack. After a hectic transition and knowing that every vital second counts, especially on this course, and heart rate rather elevated post swim, I was red lining on teh bike to catch on to teh pack ahead. It took me about half a lap to close the gap, a very painful half a lap, but the relief apon jumping on, and the automatic drop in heart rate once you catch onto a wheel is huge. I was also happy to have my team mate fellow aussie, Ash Gentle in the group, as I know she is no slouch on the bike, and we would be able to work together to try and peg back time. With her help and a couple of others we rode time into the gropu ahead, and on the final lap had also got the bike down to 1.20 gap off the leaders.
The run I knew would be fast, with some of the quickest runners around, it would a push for us to try and peg back some of those girls in the lead pack. That it was! Caught between two of the best, one in front one just behind, I had to decide if I wanted to go out hard and stick, or relax a little and neg split, I mustn't have been able to decide as I stayed in between the two doing my own thang! haha. This almost workd perfect, probably just needing to switch on lap 3 a bit more. Catching a few of the lead pack and feeling smooth, under tiring legs, until the final km where I was hunted down By Jorgensons lethal kick (the one behind), my midget legs were unable to match her stride length to hold on to the finish, where I came in 12th....Lucky number ;)
This being my best WTS result so far. and was wrapped to clock the second fastest run split of the day, nice reward and confirmation to how my training was going.
Spirig continued her domination winning Kitz, followed by Lisa Norden, and Andrea Hewitt.
After a day of travel, arriving back in Agay, smelling like a yetti, nothing a dip in the ocean couldn't fix, its back to hard training again starting tomorrow all over again...