I caught the train to Innsbruck on Saturday and rode out to Kranebitten where I met Leonie. We drove from there to the Mondsee, grabbed our race packs, and took part in the Kaiserschmarn party. Yes, very important that last bit.
We woke to rain on Sunday morning. I briefly queried whether we really had to ride the race and whether we might be a bit too old for this sort of malarky. It turned out that we weren’t too old and we did in fact need to ride the race. I headed off to brush my teeth and as I opened the door to the bathroom I heard my name. What?? Max and Markus who we met at the Tour de Kaernten in 2013 were there. They had been asking themselves the same question regarding the race.
In the end Leonie and I started the race and Max and Markus went back to bed. We got to the start line only ten minutes before the official start and we found ourselves at the very back of the slowest start block. This wasn’t looking good for a speedy race. I suggested to Leonie we ride together and as the bunch crawled away from the start I decided trying to go for a quick time would be fruitless.
Instead we tried to get a good place for Leonie. I waited for her on the hills and towed her as much as possible on the flat. Reasonably early in the race we could see another bunch off in the distance so she sat on my wheel and I pulled her along, we motored past other people, until Leonie shouted out that I was pulling a whole bunch now. Everyone was sitting on as I we raced along. This continued for most of the race. I would spend along time pulling at the front then take a break in the bunch and then return to the front to pull again. It was a strange feeling being so much stronger than the riders around me. Again early in the race I decided I needed to stop for a pee so I sped up the hill away from Leonie so that I could take a break and then catch up again. One rider exclaimed in disbelief as I rode past.
I decided that none of the riders around us could really climb. You could see it when we got to a hill. They all crawled up them. We also found two other women who hung on as we zoomed by and we dropped them on the hills.
It went well and Leonie got 5th place in her category and 6th woman overall.
Mondsee Radmarathon 2018
Time: 4:12:19.8 Dst: 140km Avg: 33.3 km/h Category Place: 135/289 Overall: 195/578 finishers
Leonie: 4:12:23.5 Category Place: 5/29