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Adam Craig, TEAM Giant, Check in From Marathon World Cup #2
This place is spectacular. Emerald blue lake backed up by fairly impressive limestone mountains and cliffs. Sunny and 75 everyday (so far). Pizza
is cheap and to die for. What more could I ask for. I guess I could ask for less than 9000 feet of fireroad climbing and fewer ten minute long paved descents in the Marathon contested today. But when
in Rome…. I’ve never done a Marathon race before, and I’ve also never been to Riva, but I’ve heard both a! re a good time, so I figured I’d combine a couple firsts for the
weekend off between Cross Country World Cups. It was a good choice.
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This place is spectacular. Emerald blue lake backed up by fairly impressive limestone mountains and cliffs. Sunny and 75 everyday (so far). Pizza is
cheap and to die for. What more could I ask for. I guess I could ask for less than 9000 feet of fireroad climbing and fewer ten minute long paved descents in the Marathon contested today. But when in
Rome…. I’ve never done a Marathon race before, and I’ve also never been to Riva, but I’ve heard both a! re a good time, so I figured I’d combine a couple firsts for the
weekend off between Cross Country World Cups. It was a good choice.
Kelli Emmett and I arrived here on Thursday after learning a bit about the ins and outs of the Italian Airport Shuttle service. Lessons learned: Just
because there is a van in the picture on the website doesn’t mean that a van will pick you, and you’re bikes, up. Maybe a lady in a Mercedes sedan will show up, not keen on tying the bikes
to the roof… Also, it is possible that in a Region called “Lake Garda” it IS possible that there are more than one town that use the root “Garda” in their name, these towns
could be on opposite ends of the lake, it is possible. Aft! er that it was smooth sailing, above average size euro hotel room right in town, close to aforementioned pizza, things shaping up well for
a week spent training, relaxing and taking in the culture. And doing a little race….
Moving on to the little race, which was “only” eighty kilometers long (marathon standard is 100k) and contained 2900 meters of climbing. Talking
to Bart Brentjens before the race he put the winner’s time at 3:15 to 3:30. He was right, since he won in 3:29. (Paola Pezzo won the women’s race in 4:20 or so, Kelli was thirteenth). I
thought this would be pretty reasonable, I feel pretty good after 2:30 in a fast paced XC, so this seemed workable. Yeah, what a difference an hour makes. I learned today that I’m a creature of
! habit, and my habits (eating and drinking mostly) are built around two hourish Cross Country races. When faced with longer races, you need to consume A LOT more. But I’m getting ahead of
myself, I don’t want to ruin the surprise.
The race started at 9:00am, a good test for the jet lag progression, which is coming along nicely. I ended up with a callup, which was nice, although with
5k of flat pavement to start, it didn’t really matter. We started out with a 1k “neutral” through town, which was about as neutral as anything involved with racing in Europe. I
didn’t even notice when the “neutral” ended. I stayed at the front of the swarm and made it to the first climb in good position. Totally unsure of what to expect, which was the theme
for the day, I was stoked to settle into a fairly reasonable pace just behind the leaders for the next 45 minutes of climbing gravel roads. Over the top I had finished off a bottle of Cytomax and
settled into somewhere around tenth place, in a group containing the current Marathon World Champ, Massimo Bertoli and a couple other guys I’ve never seen, which was another theme of the day. I
spent the next hour turning a corners, quickly noticing the stunning backdrops, then focusing on figuring out if I’d be climbing for twenty minutes over the ridge, or just up the hill to get
around the next alpine farmhouse. Somewhere in this hour I distanced myself from the group, feeling damn good in eigth place I think, hoping to catch the next duo just up the road. This turned out to
not be the call. After a long fi! reroad and paved descent, they caught me. This was just before what I thought was the last climb, about 45k and 2:30 into the race. (turns out there was another
one). I figured I’d sit on and climb with the group, as everyone must be getting tired and dehydrated by now and riding fairly reasonably. Turns out everyone else has done one of these things
before and plans ahead. Instead of riding reasonably, they attacked each other. Proud. I settled into reality and damage control mode, riding fast, but within my meager reserves, trying to hold off
the next wave of guys who were smarter than me. Didn’t work out so good. We finished the “last” climb and did about fifteen minutes of paved road descending, losing ALL the elevation
we’d gained in the last three hours on freakin’ pavement. Amazing. That climb I didn’t know about started with me cramping and doing my best eight year old girl impression, spinning
along at about 2k/hr. I’ve never really cramped before, it’s not sweet, totally unable to pedal for a while, which gave me opportunity to catch up on eating and drinking. I got passed by
those guys I was holding off, and the guys they were holding off. When people stopped passing me I settled into riding slowly and hoping the rest of the race had gotten lost. After another paved
desc! ent (which I know for a fact has a perfectly sweet singletrack running parallel with it because Kelli and I found it yesterday after we got bored with preriding on pavement) I was feeling
better and hoping a couple guys hadn’t gotten lost so I had someone to work with for the last ten kilometers of headwind down the valley to the lake. I got my wish and we drove it in, holding
off another group. In the depths of despair it seemed like I had passed by about forty guys, but it was really only about ten, as I ended up finishing 20th, 14:00 down on Bart. I was pretty happy
with that, considering how incapacitated I was for the last third of the race.
Definitely some good lessons learned today, namely, eat and drink as much as your stomach can handle, both before and during, and that better be a lot.
Overall it was a great experience and an amazing day of “training” in a perfect setting. I’m feeling strong and am definitely fired up to do a “short” race in Madrid next
weekend with some thirty second climbs and actual singletrack. It’s going to be a good time.
Someone eat a Burrito for me, I could have eaten ten today, and should have yesterday. Hope all is well in the States.
Adam (of Adam and Carl’s fun Giant Team) |
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