Austria World Cup - Bevan
22 July 2008
A month out from the biggest race of my life, I was desperate to find a race to have one last hit out. Unfortunately, there was a lack of quality races in North America so I was forced to head over to Europe to race in the Austrian ITU world cup. I wasn’t too concerned about the travel as I managed to find a direct flight from Denver to Austria, and I had a whole bunch of air points so could upgrade and put the feet up in Business Class.
Once again I decided to turn up fashionably late and didn’t arrive until the day before the race. This was to shock the body and not give it a chance to think about the time zone change, also to reap the benefits of coming down from altitude.
The race itself was in Kitzbuhel, a small town in the Alps. It could possibly be one of the most beautiful places in Europe and has some serious money and history there! Unfortunately this was just an in and out trip, so really didn’t get to explore too much, however I have bigger things to focus on!
Into the race and I had a flying start to position myself well and sit comfortably in 4th the whole way round the 2 lap, non wetsuit swim. My swimming has been going really well lately and I wasn't surprised to be right up there. More often than not its easier to swim at the front than it is in the middle of the pack, as you don’t get hammered by the others, and try to fight for room.
Onto the bike and the pace was on. We had a good group of about 10 athletes away, and we rode really hard, however the chase pack had some great cyclists determined on catching up, so they pushed all the way until they were with us. Once they had caught, the pace died and it was a “Cat and Mouse” game of attack and chase. This meant the 3rd chase group could catch and it was down to the run. It was unfortunate as there are a lot of great climbs around Kitzbuhel and they could have incorporated these into the bike, however it wasn’t to be.
Onto the run, and immediately I knew it wasn’t going to be my day. I felt fit, but quite heavy, which wasn’t too much of a surprise with the amount of training I had done leading into the race, and also I guess the travel played a small part. Ivan Rana surged away immediately out of transition, I tried to go with him however the legs had no fire. So had to settle into the chase pack of 6 which included my mate Kris Gemmell. The pace was very hot and cold, so I just let people surge and come back, and tried to run just a steady pace. I felt stronger and stronger each lap, so by the last lap I was setting the pace.
In the last lap it was 3 of us racing for the minor placing, however I just didn’t have the speed or the desire to push it and ended up in 4th.
I was still pretty happy with this result, for me to feel like this and still end up in 4th only 10 seconds from the win is bloody good. It’s a month out from our race and the last thing I wanted was to be firing right now, so with a little more training and a few weeks taper I should be good to go....
Right now I’m heading back to Boulder for 2 weeks (only 1 week hard training) then it off to Korea for out pre Olympic camp, to get in the time zone and in the zone!!!
Thanks for all your support, everything is on track and really excited.
Bevan
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