After a brief 5 day stint at home after Des Moines I did some laundry and a few workouts and headed to Europe for my three week trip. After arriving into Munich Monday morning and driving 2hrs to Kitzbuhel I was thoroughly tired and stiff after the trip.
The stiffness and tiredness from racing three times in 7 days I guess had finally caught up but I was optimistic I could still find good form and run fast again.
I had a better swim then previous races which is a step in the right direction but I still have work to do. But the top of the first climb on the bike 1.5km down the road I was comfortably at the front of the race and settled in for a wet, cold and slippery ride. There were numerous crashes and several points of the course and I narrowly missed two of them and slid my front wheel cornering on two occasions. I stayed near the front and out of trouble heading into transition and was right where I wanted to be. Unfortunately my cold arms and hands struggled to get my shoes on and I lost a few places heading onto the run. Once I got going my partially frozen legs struggled to find any sort of speed and cadence and I lost the front two groups quickly. By 5km I had worked my way up into 16th spot but well behind the leaders and where I wanted to be running. I kept the effort high and challenged myself but the speed just wasn’t there and I managed to hold off a challenge in the last 800m and finished in the 16th I had worked up to. Unfortunately this is the first spot without a paycheck for your efforts which sucks but that is how it goes.
My focus now is to recover and have my stiffness and fatigue gone in the next week so I can have a solid week of prep heading into the Hamburg WCS event on the 26th.
Currently we are training here in beautiful Kitzbuhel and will enjoy the riding and running in the awesome valley.
