Olympic Distance in Retie

When I finally woke up at around 10am I really didn’t feel like racing at all. Still sore from a hard run training on thursday and another swim and bike on saturday made me wanna stay in bed all day. 

I made myself and Reiny a nice and big breakfast and packed my stuff. On the way to Retie it started pissing down which made me feel even better. 

Got my number at Den Dries and put my running shoes in T2. I ran into Steven Dujardin and had a little chat to him. I wasn’t the only one NOT looking forward to racing today. Jess and Dillie decided both not to start because of injuries, which was a very wise decision! And I was so jealous when I saw them at the side of the road when I was struggling to ride my bike in strong headwinds. Damn!

So, got my bike out of the car. Told Reiny not to come to the swim start because it was too far away anyways and rode to T1 with Steven. Got my bike ready, started the usual wetsuit struggle and noticed there wasn’t that much time left until the start and it was still a long walk.. better start heading out there. First couple of 100 meters on the path were ok but then we got all these little rocks and shit again like in Geel and I wasn’t making a good time! Then over this slippery bridge, noticed there were a lot of people in the water a bit further, and started running. as I got close I heard it was 30sec until the start. OW SHIT! ‘can someone please zip up my wetsuit??”  bang.. oops missed the start. Jumped in the water, put my goggles on, lost maybe 30 secs.. and started swimming. I moved to the left side of the canal straight away, ready to pass people. My swim was going really well from the start on and I passed a lot of people. I felt so fast haha! I saw some blue swimmingcaps so that ment there were some girls around me. Good! I’m not in last position anymore. We had to turn around a buoy with about 100 meters to go and got into a bit of a fight with some guys. One of them was so bad he tried to pull me under!! So i totally cut him off at the steps. If you see a blue swimming cap next to you, and you’re a ‘veteran’ man, then you should be the gentleman and be nice to us girls. If you get me on  a bad day like today, I might look innocent, and you might be twice my size, but i’ll get back at you! HA. A bit shaken from this fight I got into T1, and almost jumped on the the wrong Moozes! there was one just like mine. I tried to get my wetsuit off but I was still a bit shocked that this guy was such an idiot, that it took me a bit longer than it should. oh well. 

out of T1, onto the bike, with one girl 200m in front of me, I was hoping to find my legs. But I didn’t. my hamstrings were so sore still from training, I just couldn’t push it today. after 1 lap I lost sight of the girl and just kept going at my own pace, trying to get the legs going. I noticed Reiny, Jess and Dillie along the course, yelling out at me and being silly :-)

At the end of the bike leg I felt terrible, I didn’t want to run and took my time in T2. Even got lost there for a brief moment, but thanks to the volunteers I finally did find my running shoes and started the run. My calfs felt like they were gonna explode and my hamstrings were so lactated, I told Reiny straight away: I feel crap! ‘just keep going sweety’ he yelled out :-S 

After about 1 km I started feeling better. then this guy, Rudi, passed me but sort of ran the same pace. And he really helped me getting through the run. when I got to km 2 i checked my stopwatch, and saw I was running for about 8min20 after leaving T2 ????? No, i’m not running that fast am I?? But apparently I was going allright because at the turn around point I noticed 4 girls quite close together in front of me. ‘how is this possible’ I thought. I’ll try and catch one so I’ll move to 5th position and get some price money. And I did! The first lap I was making time up quickly and got a lot closer, at the 2nd lap I passed a girl! ‘got ya’ I tried to keep the pace up but after about 8km I started to go flat so I just tried to keep going at a decent speed.  unfortunately I couldn’t catch anyone anymore but I was very happy with my run and swim after I crossed the finish line. The guy on the mic was saying that I won the first race of the year in Herderen and I couldn’t believe even anyone would of remembered :-S 

So not so sure of my swim and bike times yet but I got a pb on the 10k run! 43:36 and I think that might be including T2. that would be awesome. I think this is the best race I’ve done so far this year. It’s funny how things like that go sometimes. You miss your start, you feel like shit, but you go well. And my legs feel a lot better after racing haha :-)

Thanks Jess and Dillie for the great photo :-) 

Ironman 70.3 Rapperswill-Jona: a beautiful race!!

A 9am start in a beautiful lake in Rapperswill. Great, because I hate early morning starts and I had the worst sleep the night before.. Nice hotel but why do they have to have a band playing every first saturday of the month until late?

We got to the race with plenty of time to check my bike and get ready to rock and roll. unfortunately the whole ‘rock and roll’ feeling was far gone. When the gun went for the swimstart it took me forever to find a good pace. With about 500m to go I finally started passing some people and felt better. Got out of the water after 33min so I was a bit disappointed  with that. Sort of hoped to do 31-32 min swim. 

It was heating up nicely and I was more then happy to take my wetsuit off and get on the bike. Legs felt crap but they usually do for the first 10km so not too worried. There were several hills on the bike course and they seemed so steep that I was afraid I couldn’t ride up them with my 39x23.. I know, very stupid that I didn’t bring my 25 and 28 I usually do but of course the one time you actually need them.. So, not taking any risks, right at the bottom of Witches hill(first one of the day) 39x23 it was and I was relieved when I got up it. I kept thinking I should of ridden my Moozes here, with tt bars on. 

After a short downhill followed by a head wind section we got to the bottom of the second hill. The Beast, ow yeah it sounds awful. I started really steep so straight back onto the 39x23 and passing people. yeeeeeeeey. After a couple of 100 mtrs it sort of went slightly downhill again so had a little recovery moment and then back up. This one was a bit longer than witches hill but nothing too hard. Nina Zoller, the girl that I thought was gonna win the race in my age group passed me already by then. In T1 in noticed there was at least 1 bike missing so I knew it was gonna be hard to win. 

After I got over the Beast there was a long downhill so time to get the pace going. Then another short uphill, downhill and back to Rapperswill for lap nr 2. During this race I really tried to get enough food in me. Usually I have 2 bottles max on the bike with just iso drink in it, not quite enough for a 90k bike leg though. I’m not sure if it was the extra food but I felt a lot better on the 2nd lap than the 1st one. Before I knew it I was ready for T2. a 2:53 bike leg was 3 min’s slower than I hoped but still ok. 

The run started good. really good, except for that my stomach didn’t seem to take in all the food I had before on the bike and started to bother me. every step I took it felt like a liter of water was jumping around in it :-S hmmm, this could be a problem. km 1-10 were ok, we had to got uphill and up some steps between km 7-8 but it was doable. going at 5min a km for the first bit and feeling like I could keep up the pace. Slowed down km 7-8 but then got it back together straight after the steps. 

At the end of lap 1 my body was screaming for some food but I still couldn’t get anything in. Of course my pace dropped dramaticly again and my legs started cramping up. Damn it! I was going so well. so km 10-15 I suffered big time but at least I could have some coke and take some of my isogel that I carried with me. Started feeling a little bit better again untill I got to the uphill bit. Last couple of steps I had to walk up.. dizziness!! Tried to find my rhytm again and I got to the finish. In 5th position.. aaaargh. Lost 2 spots on the run. So a shocking run time of 2:01, 5:33:15 in the race, and not sure if I was happy or not with this result I crossed the finish. And I just wanted to sleep ...

During the race I made a decision. It’s been playing my mind for  a while now and I’m sure. I don’t want to go to Las Vegas this year. It will be too hot, too hilly run course and will be too slow to do this how I want it. I rather go back in 10 years time when I’m ready and I can get a good result there. For now, I need to work on my running and cycling and swimming. 

Tomorrow I got my next race lined up. OD in Retie. Not riding on the TT-bike but my superfast Moozes. I’ve made that decision too: getting rid of the bike that i’ve never been comfortable on. I’ve never had the idea it was right for me, I couldn’t find the right position even after changing a million things. So i’m getting rid of it. It’s too small anyways! Never get too attached to a bike :-S 

Got some changes in my training scedule as well, and I don’t think we’ll see the results of that by tomorrow but i’m confident things will change over the next couple of weeks... Exciting times!! :-)