out to sea

this morning i woke up to a gray sky and a stiff wind. after an hour and 20 minutes of mt. biking i preped the sail boat for an adventure.

i took it down to park point (big sand beach), and met up with jason and one of his friends. we set up my 14 foot racing sailboat against 25 mph winds. it was crazy windy, a perfect east wind bringing in nice waves. there were guys surfing, and some kite surfing i saw one guy get like 20 feet of air. it was sweet. once the boat was set up it was time to see what would happen. we put on some wet suits since the air was about 65 and water at cold. then we had to get through the surf. that was the part. we had to push out a bit because the daggerboard doesnt work in shallow water. then i jumped in pulled in the sail and pulled jason on board. we still had a bunch of surf to get through and it was crazy. the best way to describe it would be those storm stories you see on the weather channel and such. but in real life. the water just crashed over us. somehow we kept her upright and got out past the breakers. then the wave stopped breaking, but got huge. the weather man said 5-7 feet. but that is only half the wave since waves are measured from normal water level, and a wave goes up and down. so 10-14 foot swells. it was insane. we had wrapped the sail around the mast to decrease sail area, as not to die. and with that and two people in the boat we still were able to plane (like a speed boat) down in the trough of the wave it was fairly calm, and up on top it was 25 mph wind. the waves were just mountains of water. it was just insane to experience. i had to look almost straight up to see the tops. just crazy. after a bit we came in to see if jasons friend wanted to try, but she is not a very experinced sailor so she passed. jason and i tried to get out again, but the surf defeated us and we flipped and broke a piece of metal that holds the rudder in place. so we had to call it a day.
but man it was just so much fun. jasons friend got some pictures so thats what you see below. enjoy!

inital launch

about to clear the breakers

The open sea

the top half of the 16 foot mast

surfin

wheres jason? (beginning of the end)

jason just chillin

the frontier

well since last time i updated not a whole lot has happened. allthough my family had a garage sale, my mom had some stuff priced ridicoulusly low, i marked it up and kept the profits. i made $43 wahoo.

yesterday i planned on going on a 3 hour ride, i wanted to ride some rds that i dont often. i went out aways but then was feeling great and i just kept going. and missed my turn. so i just kept going because eventually i would find a turn to take, so i basically went 2 hours north of home. i was way the heck out there. the frontier basically. no cell phone service for at least 50% of the ride. there were long
stretchs of 20 minutes or a bit more when i saw no cars. only a house or two every few miles. no side roads no nothing. the frontier i tell ya. but the road was really really nice. ill have to do it again someday. eventually i found out where i was. 24 miles straight inland from the lake. so i road to it and then it was another 20 back home. so all in all it was a 132 km ride. and i felt good almost the whole time. i just got really thirsty for a bit.

today my dad made me go try out the new bike path that is up the shore a bit. it was actually not bad. i think it was one of the few bike paths i need to use brakes on. it was a nice change from the usual rails to trails kinda thing.

tomorrow it is supposed to be windy. 2 to 4 foots waves on the lake. im going to go sailing.

oh i forgot. i have some nice wave pictures. there were decent size the other day.

the rock in the center is a good 7 or 8 feet abover the water

big spray

for reference, this guy was standing on the rock picture above this one.

smaller but at night!

more ruled out

today i had some tests done on my legs to see if something wrong could be found. the first test involved a lady sticking electrodes on my legs. then taking a tazer type thing and zapping the nerves in my lower leg. some hurt some did not. she was having trouble finding one of the nerves so she zapped me about 1000 times. that was a bit much, but finally she found it. my nerves are all normal.
next the doc. came in to test my muscles. he stuck a small needle into certain muscles which i said usually cramp when its happening. then once the needle was in i would tense the muscle and on the computer screen (which the needle was hooked up too) a whole bunch of lines would come. it was kinda like an electronic ricter scale. he did not have to poke me many times. he ruled out muscle diesese almost right away. my dad was really happy about that, i did not even know that is what i was being tested for.
so the mystery continues. in the mean time i guess i just have to ride my bike.

speaking of riding the bike. my plans have changed a bit. after doing lactate testing and talking about important training stuff, he who was doing the testing has reason to believe my glycogen is low. too much hard training without rest. perhaps this is the source of the cramping. very well could be since it seems nothing else is. so i will not be racing this weekend. i am going to take about 3 weeks nice and easy. he says that i will actually get faster from that, because ill have more energy stores. so instead of doing the race and not getting faster, ill save up for cross season. i will be attending state fair instead.

also i stacked 3 chords of wood. thats a lot of wood.

well, at least i can remember

this morning i was not sure if i was going to do the mtn bike race up at spirit but somehow sean convinced me to spend the 32 dollars. so sean and i decided to ride the 9 mile course an hour before the start. we did most of it. but then ran out of time and rushed back up to the start and made it 3 minutes before sean started. i had a bit of 5 minutes or so. got in the front row somehow and the race was off up the hill. the first lap went pretty well. i was a bit tired from the super long hour warm up, which i think i did way to hard. but still i was only tired on the really long climb (bottom of the ski hill to top) i felt i was riding decent lines and all. about a mile or maybe a bit farther after the start i passed sean who was laying on his back on some rocks, it looked pretty uncomfortable. the second lap started well the only problem were my hands cramping up, that made the super skinny rocky single track hard. right before the trail got to a nice open road area there was a steep rocky downhill section. i screwed up and went flying over my bars and smashed my legs into some rocks. it really hurt. it made me yell a while it hurt so much. the next 3 guys who were pretty far behind me stopped to help me out. so thanks for them. after 5 minutes or so the pain had receded and i was able to get back on the bike. i rode the rest of the downhill pretty carefully. then caught 4 guys who passed me while i was down. 2 had stopped to help me and were very impressed i was still moving. so ive still finished every race ive started, that makes me happy. i have no idea where i finished, but i think i was near the top ten before crashing.

i was told not to put this up, but pictures are so fun.

but overall i think this was a good experience. second mtn bike race ever, and first one that i remember. so things are improving!

marquette

this past week i was in marquette michigan visiting ingrid and family. it was a good time. to start it off it was a 5 hour drive and to my surprise and delight i only used half a tank of gas on the subaru. so that is fun. but yeah the week just kept getting better from there. went biking. went swimming, a nice sand beach is a two minute walk from ingrids. so that was very nice. i did both road and mt biking. the mt biking there was amazing. tons of trails. single track, downhill, places wide enough for four wheelers, technical, non technical, and so on. just amazing mt biking. (the ore to shore is in that area). since ingrids dad is the coach of nmu running and skiing he has got all kinds of fancy training tools. he was nice and decided to help me out by doing a lactate test. the purpose is to find out where my body starts making a lot of lactic acid and is unable to keep clearing it. also known as the lactate threshold (i think). also it is used to find the point where just lots of lactic acid starts to be created. to recover right, do intervals right, do OD workouts right this is important stuff. so we set my bike up on a trainer and all i had to do was (for round 1) put my HR at 125ish and keep it there for 3 or so minutes. then a finger prick and blood tested on a cool little gadget for finding lactate. then the next set was at 135ish HR then blood then 145 then blood, up to 163 is where my threshold is. so above that i will fatigue fast. and i should be under 143 for long distance stuff. hopefully this will help the training.
but even without that fun test the week with ingrid was great fun.
tomorrow sean comes for a race up at spirit and some bike riding.

still a mystery

today i went to the doctor to see if he could figure out what the heck is wrong with my legs. I got a whole ton of x-rays taken, absoulutley nothing wrong with the bones in my legs. then i got some, no actually a ton, of blood drawn for blood tests. 5 tubes of it in fact. no rest in between the tubes either, one right after another. after getting the blood drawn i stood up, and with the mix of less blood, nothing yet to eat (fasting for the cholesterol test) and no liquid i was really dizzy. but it passed and i made it out of the lab. after that i went and talked with the doc. again. and as the title suggests he has no idea what is wrong with me either. if the blood tests come back normal he said maybe try and mri to see what shows up.

the past few days have been decent biking. wednesday i rode with the local racers. they remembered me from last year, so that was cool. that was a nice 4 hour ride. i was not feeling very strong so i just chilled out. yesterday the weather changed to 60 degrees and a strong east wind, i think it was 20 mph or so gusting to 33. i still felt like riding bike and did not want to get muddy (rain and dirt on trails= mud) so i went for an easy 2 hour rd. ride. i made it down to the lake at one point and just watched the wave bash the rocks. it was the second highest surf ive watched at that particular beach that i can remember. oh i love the lake...
today i went into the woods for riding. a nice 2 hour mtn bike. this whole week my heart rate was kinda high, but today it was back down to its pre-week-off low. that made me happy.

back at it

well ive been home for a week and a day now. its been great despite a few leg problems.
this batch of cramps started when i got off the plane in chicago. my legs cramped just walking from the back of the plane to the front and kept getting worse until i stood in line. but got really bad again when i started moving after. as planned i took off a week from biking and so for a few days i did not do much at all. so no leg trouble there. on that wednesday it was off to the Boundary Waters with some buddies. the first and thankfully only portage (carrying canoes and all over land) i was carrying a canoe and pack. a bit after starting my legs cramped and by the end i was really really struggling to walk. not only to my legs cramp, but they loose all strength. it was awful. for the rest of that day i could hardly move. sleeping helped a bit, but they still cramped when i walked a bit. i made it out of the BW without to bad of cramps although they still showed up.
yesterday i tried going for a mountain bike. i made it 10 minutes before the cramps hit. at 16 minutes into the ride i had to stop because i could not take that much pain. after a bit i tried again, then stopped. and so on for nearly 2 hours. i managed to do a super shortened loop, it should take me under 45 minutes. it took me 2 hours. i got passed by a runner. i was both physical and mentally drained after getting home. dad thinks that i may have a herniated disk which pinches a nerve, obviously one that goes to my legs. tomorrow i get a doctor appt.
today i went down to milltown cycles to get my madONE all fixed up. it was good to see ben again. after getting some new parts ingrid drove the car back to northfield and i rode my bike. no cramps at all. nothin. so confusing.i think riding the road bike de-herniates my disk or something. because as soon as i got off and walked my leg cramped a bit. weird....hopefully i can get fixed soon.


the bw

one last time

well folks the end is here. all that i have left to do is pack my bike and im leavin on a jet plane and dont know when ill be back again.
this will be my last post from here, after my week or two off from the internet i will resume, however probably not withthe same frequency. so feel free to keep checking back.
this has been a good experience for me. the cooking for myself, not spending to much money on everything (not that i do that anyways...), going to a bigger school, speaking german, and most importantly riding my bike. without my bike i would have had nothing to do, without her i dont think i would have survived. plus it gave me the oppurtunity to meet some cool people that i would not have otherwise. and of course the racing and all, and so on...
but since i have gotten good at elaborating on things on this blog i decided photos are better, so i have below 13 of my over 500 photos. they either are my favorite ones, or show somehthing that is important.
enjoy!

paderborn

dear france, i love your food...

a visitor

my faithful friend and i

this represents dads trip as well. just a cool picture

oh switzerland.

rollin out

i like downtown konstanz

world cup

king of the mountain

i do love a good baugette

thanks for all guys (especially sascha, chris, alex whos not pictured)

a good end

this morning i went around town and cashed in on some free stuff from some coupons i had. i also am no longer a resident in germany.
after just sitting around for a long time it was finally time to go to my last european race. hopefully just for now.
we got there quite early cause we had a younger guy with us. and he started before. this was good. i got a chance to get a really good warm up in. a really solid half hour. i decided since this was my last race i would attack whenever i got a chance, and when my legs were able.
at 7:15 we were off, intstead of the usual full blast start it was pretty slow. only 30 or 35 km/h. so at about 200 meters into the race i thought hey why wait, and attacked to get the pace up. i was away for almost a whole lap when the peleton finally picked it up. then for the next 13 laps i sat near the front, or pulled in attackers, or attacked a bit myself. every 5 laps (of 30) there was points on the line. on the start of lap 18 the pace slowed a lot for some reason, so i blasted off. i soloed the next 2.75 laps and took the sprint points. that was pretty fun. then i chilled out and recovered for the next 4 laps. with 11 or so to go some guy attacked, i went as well and tried to bridge up to him but couldnt quite make it. two other came after me and caught me right before the line. the initial attacker slowed up just a little and me and one other caught up to him and i said lets go. and thats exactly what we did. so for the last 10 laps we had a 3 man break. we worked really quite well together. the guys from my team said they were doing some work to help us out too. so thanks to them we got a 30 second gap pretty early in the break and held it the whole time. the last lap i pulled through on the back stretch and the others decided that they should not come through anymore. figures...so i tried attacking off the front and got a little gap but got caught again on the final stretch and passed by both in the sprint. crossed the line in third. ive decided my final lap tactics suck. i need to work on that. but in the end i pulled a second place. and for how many times i attacked and spent energy i am fairly please with that. this was a much better end to racing here then the race on sunday. apparently i found my legs again, so thats always fun.

a few of the boys. left to right, rinus, sascha, me, chris, chris

tomorrow is packing day...

a little bit of this, and a bit of that

my time here is quickly coming to and end. this morning i rode my pre-race loop for the last time. my legs were weird. i would have energy for a sprint or two, then nothing for another. then something again. this trend continued while riding around town.

after the bike ride i went and picked up the money that i lent out for gas for the team car the other day. saw the prez. of the bike club for the last time.
after that i went to the grocery store for what i think is the last time. i have a ton of food still, so no need to buy more of that.
then i came home and exchanged bikes (crap for good) and took off to the chocolate factory. its just to much work to haul the P.O.S. up the hill to it...
i got a lot of chocolate.

after doing that i came home. ate some lunch thought about what to do. ate some watermelon, then decided i was tired of sweating so i went down to go swim in the rhein.
i did what is very popular and jumped of the bike bridge. its was great. it was high enough to get the weightless feeling, but not so high to hurt when hitting the water without shoes. i approve. the water was also really nice. while i was there some girl sliced open her foot on something, it bleed quite a bit. no worries shes fine.

splash

a ways down

i was notified that the german national champ was not actually at the race, just the junior national team. and also the guy who won was the MTB worldchamp in 2004. out of the 206 that were on the start list only 102 finished. there was no peleton finish, all small groups or solo...


final tour haul

we have lift-off

disco

toasted

well today was harder than i ever imagined it would be. first of all the course was almost the exact same as the german national championship course from 2 years ago, in fact you could still read the names painted on the road. i saw zable, voigt, jan... the hill was hard. really hard. it was only a bit over 2 km, but really steep. then once at the top intead of a nice decent it went slightly down, then up a bit more, before finally going down a decent descent. after two smaller hills and the start finish it went gernerally down with a few short uphills for quite some time, but no rest since there was a strong headwind that whole time. after that it was rolling hills for another 7 or 8 km, then back up the big hill.
there was no rabobank or milram team today, but the german junior national team was there. and i heard a rumor that last years national champion was there racing too, but it could be the junior national champ. then some super fast french guy. someone said mtb world champ, but again i might have misunderstood. regaurdless some fast guys.
during the first 10 min of warm up my legs felt pretty good, but after that they got heavy really qickly.
at 12 we were off. i was able to sit in the 206 man peleton until the bottom of the hill. then the climbing legs i needed were simply not there. i think it was because of riding in the mountains hard. i managed to stay with the pack up the hill the first time. and the rest of the lap and the second lap until the bottom of the hill again. there i and lots of others got dropped and passed by the caravan of team cars present. the third lap was spent chasing the peleton with the smaller group, and we caught it right before the bottom of the hill. then of course i got launched of the back for the final time. the next 2 laps or so i either was alone (during and after hill) or with small groups that caught me on the downhill/rolling sections. on the 5th of 6 laps i was just on the verge of cramping really bad, but somehow i held it off. and a got with a few guys for most of the last lap. and again just barely avoiding catastrophic cramps made it home.
so that was my first experience racing with people who are basically pros, and all i have to say is they are really fast.
in the end it was 120 km raced in 3 hrs 25 or something like that. i think i was 20 minutes back at the end. some crazy amount of time. i ate plenty today. but i went to easy on the drinks. i had 5 bottles, but with the heat was not nearly enough.
and now my excusses for not doing better... ha.
legs tired from going hard in the mountains.
just plain tired from not sleeping well because of the heat.
the heat.
i think something is wrong with my back wheel, on the downhills when with people i would coast in drafts and loose ground. thats not right.

but despite my excusses i also just have to say im not that fast. haha. maybe someday ill be able to keep that pace. but not yet.

this was my last race in germany, for now. but wednesday i am going to try and race in switzerland again. hopefully that works out.

now it is time to sleep.

oh yeah, well done floyd.

Col de Joux-Plane

the tour is always more fun to see in the mountains. just really fun. i think part of it is being able to see what happens to yourself when riding up the mountain. so after a 6 hour train ride, an hour. 5 of biking up a mountain i did not know exsited and a good nights sleep in the cool mountain air. Lars and i took off to get to the base of the Col de Joux-Plane. as expected it was pretty busy, after weaving around the village at the base trying to find the right road to go up (was basically an alley at the start). eventually the polka-dot sign was found and off i sped. up i went past the devil, past all the walkers, past all the other bikers, out of the big trees to the top i went, watering the hot ground the whole way up. it was great. i felt good pretty much the whole time. even the steep parts just flew by. i hit the summit at 48:50 with quite a lot of energy left. but my goal for this HC category climb (11.7 km @ 8.7%) was under an hour. i did that without problem. and unlike last time i climbed a french alp hard i did not get passed, it was great. at times people would try to hold my wheel but would never last to long. one guy that did saw me at the top a bit later and said well done. hahaha
after that it was time to wait for the big boys to come. we set up camp about 50 meteres after 1km to go, in a space that stayed nice and deviod of other people, then waited and waited while the road began to melt. it was crazy. some of the rubbery heel on my shoes actually melted. when people rode by on a bike (expecially mtn) it sounded like they were riding on glue.
eventually floyd came, and went. haha. it was cool to see how far he was ahead. he just smoked everyone else. this time i decided to watch the tour without the aid of an LCD screen, so i did not get many pictures. good for me, bad for you! ha. it was great to just not really worry about pictures, just cheer. there were some basque guys by us, they pushed a bunch of guys then got stopped by the police. they even did a relay for one guy. haha. life without barriers is sweet.
quite a bit after floyd the peleton went by and that means i can get on the bike again. after a bunch of waiting at the top it was finally time to cruise down to morzine. people were sure dumb on the way down, i almost hit multiple people that decided to step out in front of me because they were to lazy to look. but i made it.
then it was dinner, then watched the fireworks that were shot off from the mtn.
this morning the start line was quite near to the hotel. we (lars and I) walked around a bit to see what there was to see, then he wanted to stand near the line. i did not want to stand in the sun, so i walked around a bunch more looking for team buses and that kinda thing. i wanted to get a picture of the mechanics working on all the bikes. but never got a chance. i however did meet the chalk board guy. so that was pretty cool. he gets more t.v. time then anyone! ha
eventually i made my way back to the start line. found a nice open spot. waited about 45 min, and the riders started lining up. i did not get to talk to any though. oh well.
now pictures.

i conquered it, not the other way around.

a heavy haul

back in the dots

a bit of help, also notice the road looks wet. thats melting tar.

peleton

i ate lots of baguettes

team beat at Le Tour

mr. chalk board

bike and leg of mccewen

happy hincapie

maillot jaune

everyones ready to go

tomorrow

well soc. class is over, kinda. the prof. did not like my paper or at least how it was organized and parts of it. so i have to reorganize it which is not to hard, and the write a bit on social capital theory and/or social network theory, so if anyone want to do that for me. that would be wonderful! ha.

after that i sat around a bit avoiding the sun cause it was so hot. then at 3 30 i left to go really early to get a good spot to talk to the witch hunting prof. i was 5 in line. but it went fairly fast and i got that paper all turned in and told him no more class for me. so that was that.

then i quick came home, caught the last 5 km of alp du huez. and then went on my own bike. it was absolutley gorgeous out. a bit cooler due to it being 6. no wind clear skies and horizons. i met the norwegian and he rode with me for a bit. made me push it more than i wanted up a hill, and i found my legs were not quite ready yet. he had to cut off early and i continued on. up the nice hill and it was really really nice. mountains in perfect view with a few hot air ballons floating here and there, birds singing, a bit of cool air here and there. ahhh. a nice relaxing ride.

tomorrow its off to france! tour time! should be fun. no internet, oh shucks. haha. im sick of the internet, i will take a break when i get home.

i was requested to put this picture up.

apparently my dogs learned how to write while i was gone!

easy

today was my last test for grammar. the prof. made it up just for me, she must have been lazy. it was not very long at all. just a paragraph on one page, then 10 sentances on the next. the first part was easy. the second part i had to think a bit, but i think i did well. i have one grammar class left, next monday. to pick up my credit certificate, nothing requiring me to do any more work.
after that it was to the grocery store. it was really crowded for a monday morning, and people were really really grumpy. and there were a TON of people muttering, it was crazy. not very pleasant either. so i got what i needed and got out. then i went for a really really easy 60 min bike ride, just enough to stretch the legs and loosen up.
after that the only thing left to do was laundry, so did that. then after a bit of sitting i ate watermelon, it is good.
my entertainment a while (youll see why) after eating was to take some pictures of the lovely compost.
only one good one came out, so enjoy! (Hope you didnt just eat).

whatever you dont eat, these guys will...

by the way, my email is being weird. i can send messages, and recieve from big companies. but personal mail is not coming in. so if you sent an urgent email or plan on sending one, call instead.

a hard weekend

saturday: i love breakaways
we got up to the race area about an hour before the start. it took a while to get the numbers picked up and put on, so after that i had 20 minutes to warm up, 10 of which i adjusted my handelbars since they were not straight. i suck at making them straight. but i got to ride the course a few times which is always good.
Course was basically flat only rise of any significance was the bridges of the river. it was pretty curvy, 6 main corners with not straight straightaways. the finishing straight and the section after an s-turn was into a decent wind. 45 laps totaling 80 km. (a long crit).
at 12:30 the race was off and the pace hot just like the weather. the first 30 minutes or so i was not warmed up and was feeling it a bit, but after the magic 30 min mark i felt wonderful. so around the loop the group went, nobody successful at getting away. it was like this for a good 20 laps or so. everything being determined by sprints. sometime, i think with either 23 laps to go or 21. i heard the bell which means this lap is worth something. i had been slowing moving up for a while, and studying the group the whole time. i found that after the s-turn it was usually a bit strung out, plenty of road space to work with, so at this point i attacked, it was the best attack ive ever had. coming from about 30 people back i got everyone to start screaming and a good gap. it was the perfect place to attack since after 1 sweeping and one sharp corner i had a tailwind till about 300 meters from the line. only 2 others were able to respond enough to be near me, but i kept myself out front and got the preme (15€) the other two who came with and i stayed away for another 3/4 lap or so before being caught. for the next 8 or so laps i recovered, and then around then i responded to an attack which did not go anywhere except to the front. so i sat up about 6 back for 2 laps or so. someone did a weak (i thought), a few of us at the front responded. i thought the field was there and did not bother looking back, a few minutes later i did look back, nothing there. cool. 7 of us had gotten a decent gap. after a few laps of not working together at all we got it kinda down. it just so happened that everyone in front of me was good to go, but the two or 3 behind me were not so strong. everytime i got to the front id be pulling at least twice as long as the others. i was feeling great despite this. eventually it was the last lap and now no one wanted to lead so i tried an attack but because of all the other leading it failed miserably. and i ended up leading everyone out for the sprint and came across in 6th or so. in the end we had over a min. on the field. which was pretty good for that course. during the break i got third in another preme, getting me another 10€. so 25€ total. apparently i did not get any points though, crits anger me sometimes.
Race time: around 1 hr 50
distance: 81
avg: 43.4
after the race, to the youth hostel. did not eat a good dinner (chinese food, chicken fried noodles, i wanted rice.) then there was a fest in the city. i found 20€ on the ground. daily income of 45€. paid for room, race fee, dinner, and a bit of todays fee.

sunday: lesson learned
woke up not feeling really rested as the street below was loud and the matress uncomfortable. then it was bread and that type of thing for breakfast. with last nights dinner my fuel tank was pretty low.
got to the race expect a small hill. nope. crit course of death. a 1.5 km loop that went down, then up. pretty steep too. 45 times. oh shit, was my first reaction. standing on the start line my stomach was very unhappy. the field started at around 90 or so. and immediately it was single file. the first 3 laps i was really struggling. on the 3rd i threw up a little (just a little) and after that i felt much better. except my legs were not feeling super strong. after 10 laps or so 1/4 of the field was gone, another 10, 1/2 field was gone, another 10 3/4 the field pulled. it was insane. i was really struggling to hold on at this point and a bit after that i cracked and slowed. some other guy cracked at the same time. since we could still finish the race we kept a mild pace. i got lapped by the leaders twice. and what was left of the field once. but because i finished i did decently. ha. but it was a hard day. and i have learned my lesson about eating properly before a race, hopefully i dont make that mistake again. i was not to mad about the race, because i knew what was wrong. and i still finished. luckily my teammates all dropped out so i had water boys. instead of 2 water bottles like i drank yesterday, i drank 5...
in the end i did 72.2 km in 2 hrs 8 min. that shows how much harder this course was.

the top bit of the hill.

looking down from the same spot.

sweaty day.