Tuesday, July 14, 2009

3rd Kitzbuhel World Championship Series

I had a great run in Kitzbuhel to finish on the podium in 3rd place which moves me up to 2nd in the World Championship series rankings. The 4th round of the World Championship series turned into a run race as over 40 girls entered transition 2 together.
I exited the water in 13th and from the beginning of the bike I was comfortably in the front group. The bike was a leisurely pace which was nice as I managed to save my legs for the 10km run. I didn´t have a good transition as I was right in the middle. I saw a horrific incident where the danish girl flew off her bike into the barrier. I ran my own pace for the first 1km in about 6th position. Unlike my last race, I ran a pace I felt I could hold and when I needed to I could react to surges and continue to run up the field. I never saw the front of the race as Emma Moffatt ran amazingly again away from the rest of us. With 1km to go I was running with Kathy, Nicola and Helen for the 2nd to 5th positions. With 500m to go Nicola increased her pace and opened up a 10m gap. My legs couldn´t go any faster but I ran as fast as I could to keep close and managed to run into 3rd place with a run time of 35.16.
1 Emma Moffatt AUS
2 Nicola Spirig SUI
3 Andrea Hewitt NZL
4 Kathy Tremblay CAN
5 Helen Tucker GBR

Also, Mr Celeste Milani drove from Milan to Kitzbuhel to personally give me a custom handmade Italian Milani bicycle, a black and red N107. Milani is a family business since 1927. The entire production of Milani bicycles is in Italy where they make their own carbon, their own design, build and paint the bicycles with a 15 person team. They also have a range of bikes - Milani for Maserati , so they really are the Formula 1 of bikes!
Yesterday, the day after the race, I went up the Hahnenkamm by Gondola and saw the famous downhill ski race course. The crazy decent takes less than 2 minutes to race down where they pick up speeds of over 100kmh after 6 seconds of leaving the top. I took the most scenic way down, by parapont. We flew over the small town of Kitzbuhel and had a safe landing in a field. He let me steer a bit but then he decided to spin round and round, not as relaxing as the nice floating feeling the rest of the way down.
Now I fly back to France, where I can't wait to start riding my new bike. Although, I have a week of recovery now before friday when I will head up to the French Pyrenees for 1 month of altitude training. I will be preparing for the London World Championship series in Font Romeu with Laurent Vidal.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Congratulations Laurent + thanks for the podium dance!


An awesome race today for my boyfriend, Laurent Vidal, 3rd in the Kitzbuhel which moves him up to 3rd in the World Championship series rankings. My race is tomorrow, and after seeing the wet conditions today and all those nasty crashes, I am happy to be racing on a different day. My form is good and I'm in good shape, so we'll see tomorrow...