BMX in Denmark - Sarah Walker
21 May 2010
Arrived into Denmark on Monday to cold weather. We had one rental car between 11 of us (as the track was a 5minute ride away from the hotel) so everyone jumped into a couple of taxi's and the car and headed to the hotel. When we arrived, we just got settled in and headed down to dinner.
The following day, we got our bikes all put together, wrapped up in layers of warm clothing and went out for some sprints by a river on the way to the track. The injured from Italy the week before had a go at sprints but unfortunately Mikey Williams was still in a bit much pain so it looked then, like his weekend racing at the Copenhagen SX was over.
Thursday was the first day of practice and I woke up feeling a little under the weather. I headed to the bathroom feeling a little bit sick and within a few minutes, I was hugging a towel, curled up in the fetal position on the bathroom floor. My alarm to say it was "time to head down to breakfast" was going off next to my bed so I gathered what energy I had and went to turn it off, leaving a sweat mark of my body on the tiled floor. By the time I had walked a few steps to turn the alarm off, I was freezing cold so I put on some layers then lay on the foot of my bed wondering how I was going to make it down for breakfast.
I put some shoes on then headed down and started feeling a lot better. When I arrived at breakfast, I was starting to get really hot again but after a few more minutes, I was fine. Just a little bit less than 100%. Got some food into me for some energy then went to bed till it was time for an early lunch. The guys then headed down to the track for their practice while I stayed back to get some more rest before heading down to the track myself.
Headed out onto the track for practice and as usual, didn't want the other girls to beat me to be the first one to do the jumps (as usual) so I went and did a lap to get used to riding on the track, then went round a little bit faster, then jumped the second straight on the third time - leading the way for everyone else. Since my energy wasn't quite up to usual standard, I spent less time than usual working everything out. After a short time getting the second straight sorted, I went to the third straight for a few runs through, felt like it was alright, then headed up to the start hill to be the first girl down the start hill and over the first jump. Did that once then called it a day.
Practice was meant to be an hour and a half long but I was off the track and cooling down on the bike 40 minutes into it. Not the usual practice day but I wanted to save as much energy as possible for another hour of practice the following day plus Time Trials. I felt good about the short practice I had done and felt confident it was going to be enough.
Went back to the hotel for some rest, dinner and more rest.
The following day was race day. Was feeling a lot better than the day before, had a good breakfast then headed to the track for practice. After practice (which went well), I went back to the hotel to have another lie down then went back to the track ready to race.
As I had the fastest time trial, I got to have first pick of lanes and stuck with lane 1 all day. In the first race, I was a bit nervous as it had been 8 months since my last SX race but I got out of the gate alright, down the first straight and into the first corner in front. From there, I extended my lead as the track went on and felt comfortable on the track. I did this for the following 2 motos and qualified for the semi with the fastest time.
In the semi, I got another good gate, and led from start to finish, staying smooth and posting the fastest lap of the whole weekend by about half a second!
This gave me first pick for the final. I went back into lane 1 as I had been all day and was ready to do battle. Got out of the gate good and so did Laetitia (French girl - Silver Medalist at Beijing). We were bar to bar heading down the first straight and had some good elbow contact going into the jump into the first corner. I didn't get as much out of the jump as she managed and she went into the corner in front of me. I managed to catch back up but didn't get around her so finished in second.
I was really happy with how my performance was over the weekend and I know that training is definitely on track. We're still yet to cover some more explosive work so it's exciting to know I was right up there with more improvements to come!
For now, I am in New Zealand for another couple weeks before heading to USA to do the last phase of training heading into the World Championships in South Africa at the end of July.
Thanks,
Sarah
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