It's done! Las chicas superpoderosas completed the girls' relay successfully!

Dominik and I arrived Saturday morning in Aschau at our friends Daniela's and Tom's place. Sun was shining, temperatures comfortable... The weather forecast for Sunday seemed completely wrong as it predicted heavy rains and temperatures of max 15 degree. 

Around midday we went to Walchsee, about 20 minutes from Aschau, to meet with my teammates Carla and Lilian and attend the athletes' briefing. It was a huge Hallo as I hadn't seen Carla since 2010 when she moved from Mexico to Chile. And once again my respects on making the trip over to Europe to participate!  

We picked up our starter bags and numbers, and Dominik and I went to have a look at the bike track as during the briefing they had already warned the cyclists of two curvy descents that could cause problems especially when roads are wet. The track seemed very nice to me, meandering on back roads without much traffic and with quite some ascents which is what I had trained for. Although, I have to admit, I was slowly becoming quite nervous about the race and my fitness. 90km are a long distance! 

I finally checked in my bike and made it rainproof as much as I could:

Sunday morning then we realized the weather forecast had been absolutely right with its predictions. Heavy clouds, rain and temperatures that called for arm sleeves. When I went into the transition zone to unpack my bike I saw several others throwing the towel and walking out with the bike last minute. For us not an option... Carla would get wet anyway, Lilian as the runner wouldn't suffer as much either and I thought I coped with the rain around Lake Constance in May so this is peanuts. 

Before the start...to know when I finish :-)

Carla came out of the water as 3rd of the ladies' relay, with a superb time of 33 minutes for the 1.9km. And then I was on the bike...once out of town I found my rythm and managed the first ascent to Gschwindt pretty well, and the way back into town was much less of an effort than I had thought. This loop is about 30km, the smaller loop to the other side is 15km, and that twice. 

Right at the dangerous and steep curves downwards I saw on both loops an accident... and some fellow ladies that got off their bikes and walked downhill. I was just thankful that I had trained up- and downhill although my fingers did feel numb after all the breaking!

The 90km went by much quicker than I had though... If the rain stopped in between I didn't really notice, I was wet all over when I finally was at the transition again but extremely happy to have made it. Moreover, with a better time than expected, 3h 18m. And I had reached the second goal I had set (inspired by Dominik): smiling on every official image!

 

 

Lilian, our runner, finished her part in 1h 50min, exactly what she had predicted and Carla and I sprinted with her across the finish line. FINISHERS 2013!! 

 

 

My summary:

• We finished 7th of 14, not bad for a first I'd say. Click for results.
• All the Gempen training units paid off... the best motivation during the race was overtaking some of the big boys with aero helmets and the carbon disc wheels uphill :-)
• I knew I could do it but finishing more than 10 minutes below the time I had thought I would need is the icing on the cake.
• Weather is a condition you can't influence, so complaining about it just takes the fun out of the race and makes you negative
• No, I will not do a triathlon of this distance by myself.... but maybe, just maybe, a short one :-)

For more images click here:

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