24.04.07 - Small Lungs, Big Crowds and Steep Hills at Houffalize:
Expectations were low for the first World Cup in Houffalize. A two week pre-OS-season break after Oceanas was one thing, but another 12 days off with illness was a bit much. As soon as I saw people coughing everywhere in the plane I suspected it would happen. People don't like covering their traps when they cough these days. Niki was in the same boat, but with a hamstring strain instead. She'd also been sick even before Oceanas. Last time I was in Freiburg I tore my hamstring and had 6 weeks off, so I was worried it'd be the same for Niki. Luckily in the end she had about one week off.
Seeing all the lush big hills around Freiburg made it hard not to go out and ride, especially with prime weather. But we both could barely walk let alone ride. The hills would have to wait. Most of our time was spent organising for the Belgium world cup and finding somewhere to live in Freiburg. After a week in Germany, we made some last minute accommodation and car hire bookings and we were off north-west to Belgium. We rented a Peugeot 206, comfortably holding 160-170 down the autobahns. After a couple of wrong turns and 5hrs driving, we were there.
We were greeted by typically good patisseries and bars in Houffalize's centre. But it wasn't too warm or sunny. The leg warmers came out and we did one lap of the track to get the legs going again. With lots of steep uphill pinches on the course, even trying to go easy was a shock to the system. The next day we opened up the lungs with some slightly harder efforts, but it was more of a head-spin session than anything - 'bad pain'. It was hard to resist doing last minute training in order to get fit. The race soon came around, so it was time to 'amp up'.
Overall I was expecting little from my race. With a 'fluff' leadup I always expect to feel nice and fresh during warmup, awesome off the start, float along for a while, then... start going backwards. This is exactly what happened. After the half-lap start loop I'd moved into the top 30, had one crash when a guy cut me off the track, held on to top 40 by the end of the first main lap, started to suffer, then punctured anyway. It was a cut in my tyre, but I fixed it, then the next lap the tube came through the same hole again. So I rode the flat for a few Ks and made it to the Shimano neutral spares tent where they gave me a wheel with some massive mud tyre pumped up to about 60psi! The problem was it didn't mesh with my gears, so I spent that whole climb pedalling nowhere, with my gears crunching away. After about a lap I finally adjusted them (sort of), so I could ride normally again. But by this time I was physically and mentally stuffed and back in 90-something place. Judging by my heart rates I think it was just too hard a race for my fitness level. So all in all I just felt unfit and weak. I'm lucky I got healthy just in time to race, but I need to get some solid training in to regain that strength. I averaged 184bpm and got a new max heart rate of 200 (my normal max tillnow was 197).
Niki's race was similar, but she didn't even get to finish. Only on the second lap, while in the top 40, her chain bounced into her spokes on a rough descent and jammed between her spokes and cassette. Good times. So now it's time to head back to the Freiburg base and get fit. Plenty of hills there to get some climbing legs and general strength. Some Bundesiga Cups (German national races) and Taeler Cups (regional races) should help with the race fitness. Five weeks till World Cup 2 in Offenburg... not much time.