Swedenis a long country and the Swedish MTB Marathon Champoionship was this weekend held in the southern part of the country, 585km away from where I stay, it was a long journey in the car on my own!
The course is known to be very technical and fun and I really wanted to get some experience on that kind of course but I was very nervous before the start. All the other girls were very experienced MTB riders, both on cross country and marathons.
We first had a start loop of5 km then 2 laps on a 35km loop and we started in 28 degrees. I knew that it would be very important to drink a lot and spend the energy in the right way. We started together with the elite men and I tried to get a good position in the start, came in on the first single track section as the third girl but was quickly passed by 2 other. I stayed on the wheel of Åsa, she is mostly doing XC world cups so it was fun to see if I could stay with her and I could, sort of...:-)
I was now laying 5th and on a gravel road I could leave Åsa behind and after a while I saw Emmy, we were then riding together for 30 km before I could ride away from her, now being in 3rd position. People along the route started to tell me that I was getting closer to Kajsa and that made me going harder and with 15km to go I could pass her, so now the silver could be mine. So I thought…
With 1km to go I start to climb the last hill and hear someone behind me, Emmy is coming! I had over a minute on her with 6km to go but my legs are cramping! She passes me on the top of the hill and goes very fast downhill, I do everything I can to stick with her and down on the last piece of gravel road I can get on her wheel and once again I had to use my road skills in a sprint. So in the end I got the silver that I wanted.
Alexandra Engen won comfortably, she was 6th at the Olympics last weekend, so not much to do about her:-)
To race was just under 4 hours in that heat so after that I struggled to pee for the doping test, I had to sit drinking water for so long that my car was the last one on the field when I was done…
Yes, the silver is mine:-)
Exhausted after!
Doping test again... last one was last weekend
Happy girls on the podium: Emmy 3rd, Alexandra 1st and me 2nd