Training Log Archive: Torino

Had a much better race today, though was tired from yesterday and felt like the muscles didn't give the strength anymore.
Starting to #1 was bad and slow, could not even get up the hill and walked for 50 m. To #2 I made a mistake with the small trails and actually took the wrong one about 30 degrees off. Realised my mistake but didn't go back but kept going and went back to my control on a small trail back. Afterwards, no bigger mistakes, maybe some route choices as some were quite tricky and still don't know which option would be better.
Coming down towards the last control, I had to navigate a 180 degree right-hand turn and went either too slow or too fast or was braking at the wrong moment, but the back wheel slipped from down under me and fell with my right leg under the bike into the gravel and dry dirt. Ouch. I had injured my right knee 3 weeks ago with a strong hit on the knee cap and a bruised capsule. It was still somewhat tender and slightly discolored.
But now, I added to this poor knee several open skin wounds (it bled quite a bit, but was full of dirt) and a huge bump to the inside bursa (probably) and lots of pain to the knee overall. Eventually, got onto the bike again and rode into the finish (another slip and fall on a narrow short single trail, but this was grassy). Headed back to the school immediately and trying to keep the knee moving before it swelled up too much. Cleaned it out under the shower to examine the damage and got it desinfected. A few days rest will do the trick probably and clean the wounds.

PS: the course was much more tricky today and required constant attention . Ah, btw, I also won which was a relief after yesterday's disappointment.

C • Glad you won, but ... 3

Swiss Long Champs Bike-O: this was not an inspiring course, pretty much figuring out how to navigate to the next control chosing the correct parallel forest road and check on climb. Had a bad beginning and never really caught this deficit. The two other women were always stronger and faster on these simple courses where one had to ride with strength. I still lose 1-2 min/km on a simple fast forest road, it has been that way for many years now. I will probably never overcome this lack of strength.

Intervalltraining first running along while Lena was riding her bike, on and off fast; then helping with CO discovery for kids (6-10 yr olds), teaching and following along on courses, sometimes explaining then again a full sprint (for me! ;-)) then checking out where we were and how to proceed. Fun day and not what I'm usually doing but still challenging, 8yr old girls can already be very fast for a while. With the boys I have no longer any chance when they're 6+ and somewhat running on a regular basis.