World Cup Madrid

Hello,

I just finished the Madrid World Cup. The last 2 years it had been a really good race for me and i'd really enjoyed the race but not today -it was freezing cold and wet.
I stuck to my plan, i was in the middle of the bike group, and ran better the second half of the run. I don't know what happened in the swim though, i got smashed around every bouy and came out 30 sec behind. 4 up the front broke away at the top of the first hill, but i didn't catch the group until the 2nd time up the hill on the 2nd lap. Then the bike was absolutely freezing, then i crashed on the 6th of 8 laps. I was right behind Chmet from Italy when she went down and i slid down right into her. I picked myself up and caught the group again on the 7th hill but i didn't feel good at all. The bike wasn't that hard though. Then on the run i was freezing and i couldn't breathe on the first lap, at between 2.5 - 3.5km I walked a bit and breathed then i could run again. But i didn't feel totally free running, i think it was the mostly because of the cold, i had that funny tight chest feeling. I finished 20th-the last of my group. Pretty bad, but i could finish so i did. There were a lot of people who pulled out because of the cold. More so in the mens race, it was crazy to watch, the guys were shaking on their bikes after it started pouring down and thundering, 36 pulled out - 30 finished.

I'm off to the World Championships in 2 weeks time in Vancouver.

Bye for now,
Andrea

Living in Séte

I'm now living in Sète which is in the South of France by the sea.. It's around 25 today, always sunny.
I returned back into some light training a couple of weeks ago. The biggest thing I noticed was it was really hard to swim. I raced in the final of the French Grand Prix series in La Baule 2 weeks ago which is a sprint race. In the 750m swim i exited the water 1min 20 from the lead which is quite a lot. There was a silly boat in the middle of the course which i got confused with but still, I was a long way back. I managed to get into the main group doing a lot of work on the bike, but there were still 7 girls up the road going onto the run. I finished 8th, running ok. So overall, my French club team - Beauvais, finished 2nd overall this season, behind Poissy, the same result for us as last year.
I managed to swim 3 times before heading back up to Brittany for the Lorient World Cup last weekend. It turned into a running race, when 17 girls came together at the front on the bike. I had my best transition, going onto the run 4seconds infront. But quickly Lisa Nordon from Sweden overtook me. Behind her, I was running with 7 others and on the last lap I got tired and couldn't push anymore, so finished 9th. Still ran really well considering I've just done easy and steady running.
This week, I'm still recovering. My chest was really sore after the race, from breathing so hard! Now I have 4 weeks to train for the last World Cup of 2008 in Mexico.

I plan on returning home to Christchurch on 7th November, just in time for a What Now apperance on the 9th :-)