Nationals coming up...

After our first set of competitions it's time to get to the second part of the season. Instead of just racing full out every week we scheduled some rest, training and training races. During these races the objective is more the way of riding than the importance of the equal result.

Our legs were into recovery mood after our double racing weekend to get ready for some training.

GOAL: National Championship Marathon

LANDEN - TROIS PONT

In Belgium we have a lot of big road races and since a couple of years you can also ride them as a tourist. It is a bit of a commercial event (read: very expensive to enter),but on the other hand we don’t have to be creative to get a lot of kilometres in the legs and there are some feed stations along the way.

One of the Baloise Belgium tour stages is Landen – Trois Pont, not so far away so that’s where we took it on May 26^th during our training weeks for the Belgium Championship. We didn’t ride the full distance of over 200K, but a shorter edition (107K).

Like a roadie 😜

Foodstations are busy

My favorite wheel and backside  

RHENS JUNE 3rd 

During our training weeks we also race, but these races aren’t a goal. We just like to ride them and usually we don’t race for the full 100 % but more on a strong steady pace. And the Hunsrück Marathon in Rhens is a fun fast race organized by Canyon. So no reason not to go there.

Rhens next to Koblenz is not really far and the region is beautiful. Saturday in the morning we took the camper and arrived around noon, so after a little lunch we took the bikes for a ride. It was sunny and int the park nearby the kids were already racing.

Start them young on the right bike → #mycanyon

Peter loves animals

Drinking in the day before the race #alwayshavefun

At 8:30 AM the start was given so we were off for 75K and 2200AM. In the start climb I was riding right behind Laura Turpijn an ex National Champion from the Netherlands. But after a while I felt stronger and left her. Somewhere half way Peter joined me so we could ride together for the next part. But he got bitten by an insect and felt awkward. The last 20K I speeded up as was planned for the training and I finished in a 4^th place overall and 2^nd in my age class behind Kim Saenen a former Belgium National Champion.

I love CANYON

Postrace chats

1. Kim Saenen  2. Sara Michielsens  3. Laura Turpijn

ROCKALIENNE 

A new BAMS race (a big classification race in Belgium for Marathon races) is Rockalliene that starts on the highest point in Belgium Baraque Fraiture. Fits perfectly in our training schedule and we are always in for some new races.

Oeps forgot my skies

Highest point of Belgium

They have 4 different distances and the longest one is 115K 😊 😊 😊

I really wanted to ride this, but Peter was a bit afraid it would be too long and I wouldn’t be able to recover to do the last trainings week. So I promised I would take it easy and ride it instead of racing it. Peter on the other hand choice 70K. I wasn’t the only crazy women taking on the long challenge… And winning it without racing was not possible. I know Saskia Hessens can ride long and hard races, so I didn’t try to stay with her. In the last 10K I missed a turn and did a little D-tour of 2K but I finished it really well. I didn’t feel empty so ready for the last training week.

Reaching the finish after 7H

Still smilling 😀

Second place, Third one was still on the road...

Peter did also really well, he started on an easy paces and accelerated trough out the race. On the last steep climb right before the finish line he managed to overtake some other riders who died before the finish line.

HAVERSIN

The last weekend before the Nationals we went to Haversin, about an our from our place, so no need to take the camper this weekend.

It’s been really sunny and dry the last weeks so we were up for some nice dry trails. What we didn’t’ know was that they had a some heavy storm and the trails were soaked. So we didn’t have as much fun as we would like. Luckily we decided in the morning that we were not riding the chrono ride, but the tour…

Peter was not having a great day so I finished it as a trainings ride while he turned of on a shorter distance. What didn’t really was a shorter distance as we had only 10K different.

Ready or Not that’s the question…