ÖTZTALER CYCLING MARATHON
First, the Organizers changed the course and added another 380m elevations. Secondly, I missed my club support food stop on top of Brenner AND the official feed station in Sterzing!!!! Both didn't help with achieving my target time of below 9 hours. Arriving 45 mins before the start at the line-up area was much too late. I guess I was lined up in the rear quarter of the 5,000-strong peloton.
After the gun, down to Ötz and the beginning of the Kühtai climb, was a
frantic catching-up with the front race, trying to make good as many positions
as possible before the first climb. I felt really really strong, also up Kühtai
I felt much stronger than in any of my preceding training efforts, this great
flow actually continued up to the top of Brenner-Pass, just overtaking nonstop
hundreds and hundreds of riders.
Lesson #One: Don't overdo it on Brennero!
But then disaster happened, as I missed our race support at Brennero. It
was entirely my mistake, as firstly I had only met the mother of my team
colleague briefly the night before, to handover my musette, but more
importantly, the next morning I forget to let her know that I wouldn't be
wearing our team jersey but a neutral black rain jersey, instead😏. So, I didn't recognize her by the roadside,
she didn't recognize me because of my neutral jersey.
Lesson #Two: Perfect your communication with your race support!
Following
the disaster, the most stupid happened. There was an official feed stop
following the descent into Sterzing. Unfortunately, I got flushed through
Sterzing within a larger group, all a bit confused by the newly changed route
and an additional climb, suddenly realizing that we had passed a feed-stop
which I had desperately needed. We were going rather fast at the time and
I found it impossible to stop and ride back to the just missed feed stop, which
I hadn't planned for in my race plan.
Lesson #Three: Don't stick to your race plan when your body signals other needs!
This meant
I was going dry and un-fed into the bottom of Jaufenpass. Knowing that it
would mean an hour without drink and food I tried to keep my effort within
highly sustainable margins but still popped 3km before the summit. It felt like
all riders I had overtaken since the start of the race, came back to overtake
and have a laugh at me😂. 1km before the summit I was lucky to
reach an official feed stop, it was like heaven and I didn't want to ever leave
again😁.
Lesson #Four: If you must use a feed-stop, fill your bottles&pockets and move on, rather than wasting too much time there.
15mins
later, totally overdosed on carbs, I felt a bit spaced out on the following
descent into St.Leonhard. Just flying seemed nicer, the descent was so
much fun on closed roads, absolutely mesmerizing (on carbs-overdose), I don't
remember the last time that I descended with so much confidence and speed. Our
next team support just outside St.Leonhard and before entering Timmelsjoch
worked perfectly fine and I got perfectly fuelled up for the final and most
demanding part of the race. But I hadn't recovered from popping on Jaufen,
yet.
Lesson #Five: Have a mid-race active recovery strategy in place
From the
bottom up Timmelsjoch was an ordeal, my legs felt numb and tired, I was fully
focused on keeping my heart rate at sustainable levels, but there was no power
coming out of my legs anymore. Halfway up Timmelsjoch I began cramping again,
quite like during my dress rehearsal during the preceding two training
attempts. More riders overtook me than I was overtaking others, a two hours
stretched game-over experience. Reaching the top was literally elevating, joy
just filled my mind and body, the pain seemed to have ended, for now. But there
were still some challenges to come.
Lesson #Six: If you are completely cooked, break up the effort that's still to come, set yourself mental stepping stones that seem achievable and never think about the whole challenge that's still ahead of you.
Somehow, it
seemed that I felt better at the summit than at the beginning of Timmelsjoch.
This may have been due to the endorphins that also caused such a euphoric
feeling, but possibly also that I managed to recover from my Jaufen disaster up
the climb to Timmelsjoch. For sure my risk awareness was now reduced, as my top
speed down towards Soelden peaked at 113km/h, something I never would have
tolerated in a "sober" mental state.
Lesson #Seven: Be aware that from a certain level of exhaustion, your fight-or-flight center may trigger you to perform dangerous actions
There was
just one last hurdle left, the counter climb after the long and fast descent,
leading up to the toll-station and motorbike museum. It felt weird to be
totally on my own here, no riders to be seen ahead nor behind me. This climb is
totally underrated, but with more than 200km and 5,500m of climbing in the legs
it is a rather nasty final sting, but knowing it would be all over very soon
really activated a lot of final reserves, because from there on it was 15km
practically just downhill into the finish. Yes, various hairpins and fast flats
and also the flat roads of Soelden still made me feel the enormous effort of
the day, but riding these last kilometers with a few riders around, even
returned a bit of competitive race feeling again, like sharing the lead in the
group, keeping the pace to the maximum possible and filly even
"sprinting" for the line. The spectacular finish, ending the ride
almost like in a small stadium, with thousands of people gathering to fetch the
views of totally exhausted faces, filled with sweet relief after a long day of
pain.
I was
extremely happy that I managed to reach the finish line. My official time of
9:04 hrs was 4mins out of my target. Yes, I can say this was due to the changed
course, with 300m more elevation but it was also due to so many other things,
mostly due to lack of experience and due to this having been the very first
time at this event.
Finally,
there is one big lesson to be learned and that counts for many situations in
life:
Lesson
#Eight: You never ever give up (a race), because if you do, you only
give up yourself.
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