So the voyage from St Raph to Geneva went smooth! For those that know my fondness of travel, you can imagine the relief! Ha. The train didn’t break down, I managed to be on time for my train (though a little “scented” with transpiration after an obligatory brisk pace walk from the car, as I didn’t allow for my useless parking skills to add ten minutes onto my voyage! Ha)not really…but maybe…
Ok voyage went smooth, but apon arriving realised I cleverly left my passport at home, lucky everybody country hops and it wasn’t an issue, as I concocted my sob story in my head just in case!
Geneva, well it makes Perth look cheap! Let us just say about 9 bucks for a frappacino from Star bucks!
Weather? Its definately no St Raphael, and I did not pack appropriately, so first day cycling required me to do the old “rubbish bag up your shirt” scenario…without rubbish of course!
Race day, was all smiles as the rain had stayed at bay for the meantime. !6 degree water ensured a wetsuit, and the 6 lap cycle up a very challenging hill, roads were dry.
I basically had a spot all to myself on the pontoon with only one girl beside me, a group far right, a group far left, and us loners in the middle standing at the spot what I thought looked like the shortest route to the first buoy. This was either going to work extremely well or extremely shit for me! Happy to report well was the outcome. Clean start, no cat fight, and was one of the first to round the buoy. A better swim saw me exit in the second pack, with 4 other girls out the road already.
Onto the bike, as I have learnt all but too many times, it was go hard, and go hard now if you want to catch. So that’s what I did, and with the security of a solid climb lurking to slow people down, and the fact there was only four girls instead of a pack of 40, the hard work payed off, catching the lead two girls(as 2 had already fallen victim to the menace of the hill) in the first 5km.
One thing with leading a race is you have to know exactly where you are going. Problematic when there are a whole pile of volunteers standing in front of the sign, with no one waving directions, of course you are logically going to take the open road in front of you. So off I went down the wrong side of the road, with girls riding beside me…separated by metal fence! Lucky for them they had enough time to not make the same mistake. I was crossing fingers there was an opening down the end of my “metal fenced solo”, for me to get back on! Else I was going to have to hurdle the bike over the fence, and myself for that matter, and chase them back down! Not cool. Word had trickled down to the far end of the road though, and a chicane through a gap in the fence to pop back on to the back of the group. Anyhow from here on we worked, to put in time on those chasing, and let the hill eat away at screaming, grumpy, quadriceps!
A quick transition got me out first to the foot race, and from there it was good to see the hill had cooked the legs of opposition behind and I could go on comfortably to run my own race to grab my first ITU win for the year!
Radka Vodikova from Czech Republic came in 2nd, and Bec Kingsford from New Zealand took 3rd.
So a good day at the office, happy to see some of the training block pay off, still got some more work to do but its heading the right way for now!…. Now just to keep the metal fence out of the way!
Now, to chow down on some protein bars to recover for Banyoles European Cup next weekend. J
Ok voyage went smooth, but apon arriving realised I cleverly left my passport at home, lucky everybody country hops and it wasn’t an issue, as I concocted my sob story in my head just in case!
Geneva, well it makes Perth look cheap! Let us just say about 9 bucks for a frappacino from Star bucks!
Weather? Its definately no St Raphael, and I did not pack appropriately, so first day cycling required me to do the old “rubbish bag up your shirt” scenario…without rubbish of course!
Race day, was all smiles as the rain had stayed at bay for the meantime. !6 degree water ensured a wetsuit, and the 6 lap cycle up a very challenging hill, roads were dry.
I basically had a spot all to myself on the pontoon with only one girl beside me, a group far right, a group far left, and us loners in the middle standing at the spot what I thought looked like the shortest route to the first buoy. This was either going to work extremely well or extremely shit for me! Happy to report well was the outcome. Clean start, no cat fight, and was one of the first to round the buoy. A better swim saw me exit in the second pack, with 4 other girls out the road already.
Onto the bike, as I have learnt all but too many times, it was go hard, and go hard now if you want to catch. So that’s what I did, and with the security of a solid climb lurking to slow people down, and the fact there was only four girls instead of a pack of 40, the hard work payed off, catching the lead two girls(as 2 had already fallen victim to the menace of the hill) in the first 5km.
One thing with leading a race is you have to know exactly where you are going. Problematic when there are a whole pile of volunteers standing in front of the sign, with no one waving directions, of course you are logically going to take the open road in front of you. So off I went down the wrong side of the road, with girls riding beside me…separated by metal fence! Lucky for them they had enough time to not make the same mistake. I was crossing fingers there was an opening down the end of my “metal fenced solo”, for me to get back on! Else I was going to have to hurdle the bike over the fence, and myself for that matter, and chase them back down! Not cool. Word had trickled down to the far end of the road though, and a chicane through a gap in the fence to pop back on to the back of the group. Anyhow from here on we worked, to put in time on those chasing, and let the hill eat away at screaming, grumpy, quadriceps!
A quick transition got me out first to the foot race, and from there it was good to see the hill had cooked the legs of opposition behind and I could go on comfortably to run my own race to grab my first ITU win for the year!
Radka Vodikova from Czech Republic came in 2nd, and Bec Kingsford from New Zealand took 3rd.
So a good day at the office, happy to see some of the training block pay off, still got some more work to do but its heading the right way for now!…. Now just to keep the metal fence out of the way!
Now, to chow down on some protein bars to recover for Banyoles European Cup next weekend. J
RSS Feed
