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 26th 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 π |
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 HunsrΓΌck 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 4th place overall and 2nd 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 π π π
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 π |
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…
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten