Kitzbuhel Austria, the 4th WTS race on the circuit. Hands down one of the most spectacular courses for scenery. Based around the pretty Schwarzsee lake, backdropped by the Alps, it's not hard to get a little caught up in the breathtaking scenery that surrounds. This is then topped off by the brand new BMW's, Mercs, and Porsche's that also "idle" around the town, giving the feel that there is as much money as there is scenery floating around!

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...

So after having some  fond memories at Banyoles last year, after winnng  the European cup here last year, I was stoked to hear it was back on the calendar and raised itself up a notch to become a World Cup event. Banyoles is based beside a beautiful lake, with rolling green lush mountains surrounding it, and has been home to numerous world championship rowing events as well. It's visiting places like this that really make me question why I do what I do? .... Seriously you look around and to get the opportunity to not only see, but go riding through places like this, you can't help but think yourself one of the luckiest people around, just doing what you do and enjoying it.

Just before I left France to drive to this race from St Raphael, where I was training, I had my old man pop over, who was working in the same hemisphere at the time, and a mate from home come and visit. So full car load down we trekked to Banyoles, and treated ourselves to some tappas at a basically deserted bar, assuming siesta went on overtime today, we were accompanied by some "charming" arabic music soiling our tappas by some of the only other spanyards awake at the ungodly hour of 6pm.

Come race day, weather was ace, and I was feeling great with the very solid 2 weeks of training I had put together in St Raph, the body was feeling as good as it had in a long time, though a grumpy bum in the morning because I didn't sleep fantastic, it's ok I just took it out on dad :) Aussies took up the main contingent of top ten start spots, so with the gang starting close together the pristine blue lake water was churning with the thrashing of arms trying to nuzzle their way into a good position. I unfortunately sucked at this "nuzzling" and swam like a crab. Exiting at the back at much further back than I should have, and where current form should have me. Witth an all o familiar scenario played out in front of me I knew what had to be done from then on, go hard chase and don't stop until you hit the front. So this is what  I did.

This plan would also work a lot better when there is others of the same mentality surrounding you to help chase, but with only really one other young spanish girl willing to put in her part, it was a another bout of long solo time trialing on the bike, cursing for not having my TT bars, dueto them being legal thanks to my midget sized hands Holding ground to the  front pack and picking up 3 other spanish chicks, I felt like I was riding for team Spain! With 5 of them and myself and a token Austrian that was lurking at the back somewhere. We dismounted around 1.30 down.

The Brook flats on I was back in my favourite territory on two feet and just set about catching as many people as I could between now and the finish line. WIth temps starting to rise it was hot and dry heat, my favourite and what I am accustomed to, I could only hope that all those torturous runs in 40deg heat in Perth over Summer would make this race seem like a mild winter avo;). That they did, with no dramas at all with the warming surroundings I felt great on the run from start to finish and ran myself back into 8th. Happy to get back up the pointy end of the field, but disappointed I could not have exited the run with leaders, or at least some fresher legs after to see if some real damage could have been done. At least the green and golds stole 2 of the podiums spots with Densham and Gentle finishing 2 and 3 respectively. Gwen Jorgenson from USA took out the win for the day with a stellar run.

Again after some excepitional hospitality from the Catalonians I would happily come back to race this event again. For now though it's a 6 day turn around to race Kitzbuhel WTS race in Austria on Saturday. Lets go recovery!

Flick :)

Madrid WTS race. The third on the world stage of this years circuit. There's no doubt about it, It's one of the hardest courses, namely due to the bike, an 8 lap course up a 12 % gradient hill at one point I believe, then just when you are up and over that it rounds a corner flattens out a bit but up up up you go, and with the curtisy of a nice head wind too.
The Spanish are great supporters of this race, with what seems like endless age group races of all sorts around the race too, a great expo and more often than not ace weather, which is just like home for me, hot and dry. I like it!
The race is smack bang in the heart of Madrid, in Casa de Campo, A safari looking park with km's and km's of mountain bike trails and runs. Its pretty sweet, and also home to numerous spanish prostitutes!!! Not a year has gone by yet where I havn't seen the native park species. Word of advice don't venture into the bush if you see a handbag growing off the tree, you may be in for a surprise! However come race day they disappear and it was all about the triathlon, and so important was this triathlon indeed. It was the last race in the Olympic qualification period, so ultimately this race would decide the fate of many athletes either shattering their dreams or bringing life long dreams to a reality. No pressure!

However before I give you a little insight into the race, I have to mention the exciting night that precursered the race! It just so happens that the day before the race was a massive football match between Barcelona and Bilbao! Now the spanish like to party and party they did! The eager arrivals started milling about, about 9 am for the 8.30 pm start!! Just below our hotel was set up like a massive music festival, stage speakers, and a HUGE beer table with cups equally as large to go with. Made a pint glass look pretty lame! Throughout the day the sea of red and white multipied, (we had the Bilbao suporters) so by the time evening came it was chockers with boozed up mad footy fans, one massive fiesta outside the window, and an absolute nightmare for us triathletes to try and go for  run or get access to the park, though just quietly I would have loved to be amongst it too! looked fun! Luckily for us they lost, and shut up fiesta early, so they only partied to 5 am instead! haha. But wow, race day, the entrance to the park was an absolute shemozzle! There was shit and broken glass everywhere which made for all athletes to go for a bike hike, bike on shoulder to get to the race, it was a death wish for any innocent tyre!

So typical spanish timing, girls race the sat eve first, with a race start at 5.45pm! what a day to kill, talk about drag it out, especially with fate of the Olympic games spots on the line! A non wetty swim in the murky lake, sweet for spectating as it's probably the only swim you can get right in on on the action almost the entire way around! 2 laps. Going in with a good ranking number 12 my "lucky" number I started off on a great note breaking my swim cap. Thats two from two I might add! I broke it in Sydney too! What a Fat Head!
So I at least got a choice on the pontoon spot. For all the good it did...I ffound myself at the back of the pack by the first buoy, realy not a good start for me. I had a reasonably clean start too without the usual fist fight, apparently called swimming! and without going into detail, my swim just went back from there, just falling off the main bunch before exiting the first lap. From there it always just gets harder for you when you lose the drag, and it was a slog out to the end to exit the water as clost to the people ahead as I could.

Out onto the bike you hit the hill straight away, and it's an absolute burner on the legs with little blood flow and no warm up on the pins yet, this hill can usually seperate people pretty quickly first lap. Up and over the first hill I started to catch up some of  the panting struggling girls ahead, (thankg god I was not the only one feeling like I wanted to die), and from there we managed to grow our pack to around 15 or 20, catching a small group ahead and the occasional straggler who legs just couldn't hang on to the pack ahead anymore, after feeling the bite of the hill.

However, I have a love hate relationship with this course (mostly a hate whilst out there, love comes later on) and no it has nothing to do with the prostitutes lurking around...For as tough as this course is, it's the same for everyone, and for those riders who like to hide away and sneak off doing no work on the bike , this course keeps everyone honest. Even the sneakiest of hideaway stealth pack riders have to do at least some fair share of work grinding up the hill which always leads into a slightly fairer playing field by the time you hit the run. And the taxing bike course is so evident in run times, always slower than pb's, except for maybe the occasional freak athlete who woke up on the right side of the bed that morning!

Personally, when I started the run this year I thought holy cow I'm ginna be lucky to run a 40min ten km today. My legs were ruuuubbisshh. After grinding up that hill and certainly doing my share of work into the wind, the old quadriceps did not want to play. Thats as flat as Ive got out onto a run in a long time! However not trying to kill myself immediately I let them work out the crap, and they luckily came good as I went through the motions, and evntually I felt good out on the run, just managing to pick off a couple of the back markers off the group ahead, ( unfortunately we were not cohesive enough as a bunch and lost too much time on the bike to run into many placings from the pack ahead) I finished a disappointing 37th, but some positive with a top ten run.

So as always Madrid did not deliver what I would have expected, Im beginning to think as it's always first race after my travel from Aus that I'm never quite recovered as much as I think from the marathon journey from down under. Still it's a great race, and praise the spanish for hating early mornings as much as I do! haha

On a more solem note, though I did not mention it already, the hardest part of this race for me, was being behind the eight ball out of the water and pretty much knowing from then on, before the race was even over, that  that, was my the end of any Olympic dreams I had hoped for, and although I decided ot on the course, that I would not go out without a fight at least, even though I realised the damage had already been done so early into my race, it was certainly a menatally challenging day. I raced it to the finish, but the finish unfortunately also brings the let down, of how much a lttle bit of error exponentially explodes, into one of the biggest and critical stuff ups.

Thats the cut throat of racing.

Results 1. Nicola Spirig SUI      Boys 1. Johnathn Brownlee    GBR
2. Aileen Morrison IRE                       2. Alexander Brukankov RUS
3. Barbara Riveros CHI                     3. Dimitri Polyanski