The Hot Europeans

Photo: Eyal Dolin

A very hot week in Israel finally ended. The whole week I was feeling tired like a zombie, but managed a 15th spot at the womens race friday. Maybe I’m just more used to the scandinavian temperatures, than I thought…It’s no secret, that I wanted to do better in the race. With many good results this spring, I aimed for at top 10. Well, one thing is the result, another thing is the feeling about the race. I’ll make it short, because there’s not much to say and I’ll spare you the bad vibes.. 

I started my warm up the way I usually do. Already after 1 minute, I was soaking wet from sweating – which is not a bad thing! In the shadow and with a little breeze it helps you cool down. I mostly felt like hot tomato soup – you know; the kind with lots of chili peppers that really burns! ( I like chili very much, which sometimes is a disadvantage, when I cook for my roomate) In this case, I think the burning sensation came from a too high level of lactate in my legs. I pushed my body a few times under the encouragement of Christian Poulsen. Usually this awakes my body and raises the level of tension to race level, but in this case I could just feel, that my body didn’t respond the way it used to. I couldn’t spare myself the frustration..

5 minutes to the start (Photo: Eyal Dolin)

When the gun went off, I found myself missing power an loosing my great spot at the frontline, messing around somewhere behind the whole bunch of riders. The zombie-mode once again dominated my body. I didn’t feel any eager to work my way back to the front. This is one of the first times, that I experience a scenary like that. 

The start (Photo: Eyal Dolin)

In the second of five laps something slowly started to be swicthed on inside my head. With the blessed shouting of Christian Poulsen I pushed the pedals harder and felt the inner warrior being encouraged by the fact, that I was overtaking more and more riders. At the finishline I had worked my way back to 15th position – a good result for the day!

The good thing from this race is, that I kept on trying the whole race. When you’re in the front of a race, it’s rarely that difficult to keep the speed high. When you’re way behind the front it’s much more difficult keeping the pace only having yourself to battle with.

That was the story of Israel. Besides the heat, I’ll mention the poeple of Israel, who are all exceptionally friendly. On our way to the course the first day, we were stopped by a shouting policeman just before entering the race area. My first thought was, “oh no, did we do anything wrong??”.. But he simply just wanted to hear, if anybody had given us water and was very upset by the fact, that that wasn’t the case!..

In a week, I’ll be racing at the National Championships in Varde. I’m looking forward to that 🙂

Enjoy summer!…