Race Report: Xterra France 2008, Auron
July 13th, 2008 by Dan Hugo
Xterra France Championship 2008
12th.
18min behind winner Nicolas Lebrun.
It’s been a week. I’ve defused and am finding more motivation and humour in my Xterra France outing than the pain and frustration of the three hours up in Alpine Air while going nowhere slowly. It was a day best put down to character building and the final lesson in my European string of ‘corrections’.
No excuses. Just got a few details wrong again, but no mechanical’s at least. But the bio-mechanical. I felt more than anything that form had quite simply dried up, and that the 10hour training weeks (including the 2hours all out each weekend) could not sustain form eternally. An at 1800m elevation with significant altitude gain on both the bike and the run, any crack was bound to show. And it did.
I could hide on the swim, and I assume here my ‘fresh lungs’ from getting to altitude as late as possible may have helped me round the smallest dam I’ve ever swam in for a triathlon. Three and a half laps, two run and dive’s up and down the steepest banks, and finally into a transition that took spectators 20min to walk to - it was so high up.
The alternate option to get there, other than biking up the 20min with much climbing from the town centre, was to catch the ski lift, and ride down to the dam midway back… Far out. But all adding to the uniqueness of this Xterra.
We started swimming in sunshine, and starting biking 10min later in pouring rain. I found myself mounting first and sitting on Stoltz’ wheel not far on heading up the first drag. Short lived excitement as the 10min swim hadnt spread the field at all, and as if at the start of a bike race my average form soon relegated me to 10th wheel in the que up on Stoltz.
It wasnt the best day to ride blind, with much technical track early on. But little indifference. I wasnt there. I fought and tried and dug and spat, and forced and pushed, and nothing came. Empty. My ‘bag’ was empty. I’d not finished a break through session for 6 weeks with an “it’s in the bag” feeling and today it showed. It felt justice and I like the equation - what I put in is what I get out. Reliable on both extremes it seemed over the six week race block…
The run was the worst though, being taken down a ravine before being taken along a zigzag path up the side of some ske slope. I couldnt tick it through and walk much. Just nothing.
(Broken in half)
As long as I can recall, I’ve taken more inspiration and motivation from the really bad days than the particularly good ones, and today would be one such. A day I could count on to edge me beyond in months to come.
(Men’s podium: Stoltz 2nd, Nico Lebrun a third 1st, and Felix Schumann 3rd)
Up front Stoltz had another slow leak, and came into T2 with Lebrun. But another mountain run gave Lebrun huge lead and a very deserved and inspiring third win in three weeks. Good friend Felix, who had raced our Xterra South Africa in Grabouw in April, finished in third.
I’ll arguably be milling over many of the thoughts around the past month, the highs and lows, the mistakes and 20-20 vision after, and I’m afraid you’ll have to journey the unwinding process with me. But I’ll reserve the analysis for a later day.
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April 15th, 2009 at 4:52 am
[...] - an out of the ordinary move for a German med-school student. We connected again in Europe at the Xterra Czech and France events - with a memorable few moments in Nice before flying back to South Africa. Felix has [...]