Sunday fun!

Just returned from a Sunday ride in Kozienice & surroundings!

Actually not just a cruise, but another stage of the PolandBike MTB Maratohn series. Despite my fear of a boring Sunday in the saddle, it turned out to be a "Great" race!

The 64 km track was sandy, muddy & flat*, just as expected & therefore would normally go in category "Boring" 
* there ARE no hills around Warsaw, must drive 200+km if u want hills!

But we managed to make a real good bike race out of it:
Result:
Ended up in 2nd group (4guys) fighting for 4th-7th place a rough 5min after the winning trio, so had to settle with a 6th place overall after a chain jam destroyed my changes to fight with two youngsters for 4th! Time 2.16min for the 64km....yes it's fast & flat in the sand!

Start:
After having dragged up a few guys from 2nd start grp (I sneaked into this grp as I was supposed to start down in the luggage box at grp 5!) we caught the leading peloton approx halfway out, a muddy section and a hill (read sand dune) separated 6 of us in a new 2nd front group and we pushed on to keep the gap.

The attempt to brake away:
As I'm not a sprinter I tried to split the small group on a slight descending sandy track 18-16km out, but nobody could go with me & I decided to fall back to the guys. Ending up in front of a 4-man chasing grp with 14km home is not smart, when it's flat & windy...the drag effect one benefit from lying in cover are simply to great & it would have been suicide to lye out there as bate for the hunters!
So I fell back & spend some energy complaining to the lazy guys in the back not taking their turn in front instead...got some Polish verbals back & quickly found me self in front again!


The finish:
I'm still amassed over the poor bike handling skills of the Waw MTB bikers, but the grp was cut from 5 to 4 on a simple ditch crossing a few KM out, he simply couldn't turn! left the rest of us powering on in towards the city & fighting for positions to the final battle. Would have been in a great position to take the 4th place, win in the small grp fight, but my front rings are close to worn out & they choose to remind me as we entered the last km park single track = big time chain jam & 15sec lost....I picked up one guy, but have to see the two "kids" fight out the battle 50m in front of me.....F*ck!

Anyway a great Sunday race, another trophy to the collection & some great race training before Italy....& oh yeah....as there was a category for "Semi-old men, not yet pensioners" I even got a new trophy to the collection....and what a beautiful one....

Waited a long time to collect this one, but biy was it worth the wait;-)

after that we rushed to the car as more than semi black clouds had be gathering above the nice stadium & 2 sec before we hit the parking it's started poring down...speak abt timing!

When organizers get dry I guess you can see more here: results & pic

Paying the price of a tired body.....

recovery is normally something I manage quite well & fast, but it can take longer time if it's been too long since last time one made a proper recovery & THAT seems to be the case here!
At least I have now been struggling since beginning of last week to recover from & get fresh for another attack!

Monday-Monday I have felt a bit sick & constantly tired...what is maybe worse, not hungry(as usual since MTB TRophy!), this dosen't help one to aviod getting sick, so you try trick ur self with some "nice" food u know will glide down by itself (under normal circumstances!) & then u end up with stomach probs:-(

Training has been at minimum level with 100% rest days mon-tue & thu last week & very easy training fri-sat-sun & today. Today I punished my self for not being in the gym 2weeks & made the usual 5x3 double sets...can already feel the arms hanging writeing these lines, tmrw & Wed gonna be fun...!

Hope this is the turn point & expect to wake up tmrw fully recovered & ready to start last 5weeks training plan-> Worlds!
Now time for tea with honney & some vitamin rich fruits as well deserved dessert;-)
Good night
*Mike*

Pilzen 5-days,,,,no it's not a beer race!

After 4days hardcore MTB riding at the Trophy(see previous post) & 4 days hardcore recovery back in Warsaw, I left for Pilzen 5-days quite optimistic in terms of possibility to make a good overall result.
Off course not 100% recovered & therefore not super fast, but with strenght to easily handle the shorter distances & climbs at the famous MTBO stage race of Pilzen.
The 5-days of Pilzen is the biggest MTBO stage race in the world!
Many of the best Elite riders use it as great warm up for the coming World Champs, so guarantee for good competitions, also as 2 stages of this yrs race was World Ranking Event!
Could write loong description of each stage which was 3 x middle distance (#1, #4 & #5), the ultra short park Sprint(#3) + the long (#2), but again pictures says it all:

Stage 1:

Dragged the back derailleur around the cassette on way to control#16 After taking half around with the chain the hanger broke & the chain dragged the lowest polywheel out of the carbon arm!
Race over!!!Not only stage 1 race over, but also the change of a good overall result!!!
Those of you who know me a bit better can imagine there was a bit unusual noise in the forest the following seconds after I realized this happened, as in the action packed moment I felt it like "just" a chain suck and a fallen chain!
A lot of mud & 3 stages later this happened on last stage...a interesting mix of a middle distance & free order:

 A stage win on last stage!!!
Great mix of late start(not so many bikers in the forest), the absolute best route choice executed with only 2 x 20sec mistakes & a mind set to make a good result on the stage despite the lack of overall ranking..47min10sec & I punched in at finish line...hrs after overall winner Martin S from Tesla Brno, but as a "surprising" stage winner!
what started out shitty, ended up ok after all.....left tired, muddy & happy for 2 days touristic biking in Sumava before BikeAdventure 11, unfortunate not to participate, but organizing with my CZ club USK Praha

MTB Trophy

Well, got re-started with first post & loads of good intention......and then it slipped another month before next post! Time is just too limited & time eating temptations too many....

What was MTB Trophy:
4days
290km's hardcore tracks & loads of mud & roots!
10.000m ascent
20hr35min48sec in the saddle
# 83 out of 335 finishers(450 started!)

In other words it was awesome, fun, hard, hilly & hardcore!
But hey pictures says it all & the photographers from Sportograph was quite good at capturing some great moments. Here one of the better, rest to be seen on my picasso album found here
I will be back!