2010 Marathon World Championships - St. Wendel

It took a while to get the post up (I have been 'life' busy). But finally a bit of a report from the World Marathon Championships.

I took this video just after the race which says it all.

Basically:

Started at the back of the grid, race was super fast and split early into large groups. I was in a group too far back. After almost an hour of racing I was 4 minutes off the race leaders – but the race was effectively over.

Course was the most boring course (in the dry) I have ridden – I have had much more technical road races. I felt reasonable in the race though. Race organization was great.


Next years Worlds are on in Montebulluna where I raced a few weeks ago - much more interesting. Followed by Ornan where I finished 25th in a Marathon World Cup in 2008. Ornan was a great course.

2009 Marathon World Championships

Every time that I have pulled on the green (and this year, really really green) jersey to represent Ireland it has been something special. In my short cycling career I have not done this many times (yet) but each time it means a lot to me. To top all that, heading to a World Championship, with all the big name riders sporting their countries flags is something to cherish. With all that in mind, Mel and I headed to Graz in Austria for the 2009 Marathon World Championships.

Course Profile

With 3810 meters of climb spread over 104 kilometers of fireroads, single track, river beds, grass and tarmac, the course for the 2009 Marathon World Championships looked to be the toughest race of the year. Upon arriving, two days before the big event, the idea that it was a difficult course was backed up by every competitor we met that had ridden the course. An easy way to grasp the course is it think of it as a very technical XC course stretched in both distance and elevation – everything was to the extreme. Even 2007 Marathon World Champion, Christoph Sauser claimed it to be the most difficult marathon course ever – sweet :)

Mel and I arrived at the race venue Friday afternoon (race was Sunday) hoping to get a little easy riding in to help relax our tired bodies from all the travelling. After building the bikes, we decided to ride the first few kilometers of the course. After a couple of kilometers of gentle tarmac climbing we hit the first obstacle, a 1.5 kilometer road climb that averaged 21% and had stretches at 28%. Not exactly easy riding – with the granny gear in use, we tootled up it. After that, we rode the final 2 kilometers of singletrack back to the start/finish – a really fun section of pointy rocks and slippery roots – a section where good balance and the ability to stay away from using the brakes would be key. It was at this point that I knew my S-Works Epic was the perfect bike for the race – indeed, almost all the top riders, male and female rode full suspension bikes for the race.

A flag for every nation there - I was the only Irish

The following day, a Gondola ride (who wants to climb for an hour the day before a marathon race?) took Melanie, Elisabeth Brandau and myself to the highest point in the course, Schockl-Bergstation. From there it was an hour of fun technical riding back to the start.

Mel preps bottles, I prep bikes

Race morning arrived and my legs felt pretty good. A 15 minute warmup had me down for gridding just in time. Unlike last year (dead last), my grid position was amazing – called up 16th. I knew that I would not be beating my number plate (this year) – but to start from the front, rather than the back was nice – especially going into the steep initial climb. The race started at an easy tempo as we rode over to the base of the steep climb and at that point, everyone switched into top gear. Looking around, you would think you were in a 1 hour cyclocross race, not a 5 hour marathon. My heart rate was sky high and I knew that if I pushed too hard, for too long, I would really pay later in the day so I allowed myself to slip back (mistake?). Soon, we were on virgin trails (to me at least) – with the rain the night before some of the sections turned pretty slick and I was having a great time slipping by riders less accustomed to riding in the wet.

One of the really stressful things about racing abroad for Mel and I, especially marathons, is race/feed support – we have none! Mel and I are privateer racers and all expenses are out of our own pocket – getting to these races costs a lot and the support we get from other racers and their supporters means a huge amount to us. At the worlds, thanks to Andy at SportAmed for taking us under his wing. He (obviously) had to support his own team riders first but even taking the bottles to the various locations was a huge help. Andy was helping us, but, as I say, he had his riders to account for which meant that I was either getting a handup from Andy (thanks!) or he left the bottles at the side of the feed zone for us to stop and grab. Now, in a lot of races, the feed zones are pretty civil affairs – not here – it was a chaotic jungle of screams, shouts and bottles flying. It was really amazing but not exactly conducive to finding a bottle at the side of the feed zone! Anyway, during the race, I missed a few bottles, lost contract with riders while I searched for bottles and had to deal with the stress of trying to sort all this out before the start. I said it last year, I'll say it again – WE NEED SUPPORT AT THESE THINGS. A few minutes difference in my race time was quite a few positions. Just having support would have given me this. Anyway...

More big climbs and more super fun descents were on the cards. I had heard a lot about some extreme descents but I didn't find anything too nuts. Sections of off-camber rooty goodness followed by 500 meter long rock gardens straight down the side of a mountain – great fun.


The long climb up to Schockl seemed to take forever but as the climb went on, I actually felt better and better (maybe it was the Guava TorQ gels?). I passed a lot of riders that looked to be paying for their earlier efforts. At the neutral feed at the top I grabbed a Redbull and started the long steep descent. As with all the riding in the day, I cleared all the descents cleanly but there was many a sketchy moment when the front and rear suspension saved me. In training, I would never hit some of the sections so fast, but when you are in a race, especially wearing your countrie's colours, a little go faster bulb seems to go off in my head and I imagine myself riding a downhill bike with full armour (rather than a 9 kilo wippet bike with me in lycra!).


As I entered the final kilometer of the course, I saw a German jersey, a white Specialized Helmet and another Epic – I had caught Mel. She started 15 minutes after me but had a shorter route. I nipped past her on a bend (I had been passing men on the way down the descent and I wasn't finished yet) and told her to hang on to me. A couple of minutes later I crossed the line happy to be finished with Mel following a few seconds later – it was really nice for us to be both over the line at the same time.



My race time was 5:23 which placed be 64th - a little over half way up the field. I had a pretty good race but have a top 40 as a goal for next year (15 minutes faster would have had me there this year).

Many many thanks to our main sponsors, KCNC, Schwalbe, TorQ, Crankbrothers but especially to Cycleways and Specialized for helping us ride the best bikes available.

Results:
Mens Results
1 Roel Paulissen (Belgium) 4:34:37
2 Alban Lakata (Austria)
3 Christoph Sauser (Switzerland)
4 Christoph Soukup (Austria)
5 Wolfram Kurschat (Germany)
6 Alexey Medvedev (Russian Federation)

23 Oli Beckingsale (Great Britain)
64 Ryan Sherlock (Ireland)
72 Paul Oldham (Great Britain)

2008 Marathon World Championships

Last weekend Mel and I headed off to what was for both of us going to be the “first time” for a lot of things. The first time racing in heat (and it wasn't even that hot), first time racing at altitude, first time racing on the continent and more importantly, the first time taking part in a World Championship. I would be the sole representative from Ireland while Mel was part of a much bigger group from Germany.

Birds eye view

After a few additional excursions (wrong turns) Mel and I arrived around 2pm in Villabassa, Italy after our flight and drive from the airport. The scenery was amazing and the temperature was perfect - I really miss these conditions. The storms they had during the week had gone and the trails had gone back to being dusty dry. Word on the street was that it was a very untechnical course – almost all fireroad, dual-track but with a sprinking of singletrack. I signed myself in (last on the grid due to mistakes made when I was signed up – grrrr), built up my bike and headed out to ride the first 10km of the course. Sure enough, the first 10km was a mix of stoney single track and tarred bike path. About 2km in there was a steep 500m long climb – I knew that this was going to hurt the next day!

Our hotel's view

The next morning Mel and I woke up to glorious sunshine. We ate breakfast and my legs felt pretty good. As I was going into this as a purely learning/reconosince experience (for next year) I was not very nervous and remained pretty relaxed – I think Mel was a little more nervous. We arrived at the start area with plenty of time to soak up the atmosphere – a real buzz in the air, a certain pent up nervousness – I guess this is what World Champs feels like :) Mel headed off to start her race and I relaxed at the car getting a few more calories on board and watching the TV helicopters fly around. With 40 minutes to go I headed out on a quick 15 minute warm up which had my following Cristoph Sauser – I think this will be the only time I'll be hanging on his wheel for the day.

With 20 minutes to go we were all setup in our pens and were called up to the grid for the start – as I mentioned earlier, some external mistakes meant that I ended up been gridded a further back then my UCI points should allow – it is a really long race (120km, 3800m climb) so there is lots of time to move up but the various groups in the race form so early that this was going to be an issue. I really didn't want to burn myself too much trying to make positions up at the start when I would have to ride for 5:30 in the heat and at altitude.

Exactly on time, the race started at a frantic pace – there was no tootle off, it was 100% from the gun. 3 minutes in and we hit the tarmac kicker that I knew would cause pain – sure enough, my highest HR from a race this season was hit at the top (I was pretty well rested so my HR could get up pretty high). A short downhill and a flat tarmac section brought us to the base of the first major climb. We would climb 900 meters up mostly stony fireroad (loose enough that it had to be done mostly seated) – towards the top, it was stony and loose enough that I actually used the granny ring! The first time I used it on the bike. And it wasn't just for a minute or two, it was about 10 minutes! Mad... The climb topped out at about 2000m and I could sense the lack of oxygen efecting the power I was putting out. I'm pretty good at knowing how hard I'm pushing and I felt for most of the climb I was 1 or 2 gears lower (at the same cadence) then I would usually climb. The other thing was the heat – I was really roasting for the first 2 hours. The Irish jersey only has a quarter length zip and I was praying for a full length one. As we crested the top, the nutrel feel had glasses of water I quickly threw over my head. Next was a super fast fireroad descent that dropped us into some amazing singletrack. The singletrack was not technical but super super fast – I wish I could have preridden it just to know if there was anything I should look out for – you really could ride it as fast as your brain would let you! Scary!

I think from this point on most people settled into a rhythm and for the next hour or so I rode in small groups over the mostly (as in, no climbs bigger then 200m) flat section to the next major climb. At that point, I felt my wind shielding buddies and made my way steadily up the climb picking off another few riders. The following descent was similar to the last but with less single track and felt like it went on for ever.

Start/Finish area in Villabassa

The final major climb of the day started out on tarmac for the first 300 vertical meters followed by another 350 meters on fireroad. One thing that I noticed was that I climbed better on fireroad then the people around my in comparison to when the climb was tarmac. Maybe they train a lot more on the road bike. Hammering over the top of the mountain and a further few climbs I picked off about 4 or 5 riders eventually finishing up in 68th position. For the last 4 hours of the race no one passed me and I only passed people – a sure sign that I didn't go hard enough (was too far back?) at the start – well, at least I had pretty good endurance. I finished feeling tired but fine – pretty dehydrated and really looking forward to eating!

I met up with Mel, had my TorQ Recovery and headed to the Pasta Party to fill up on carbs.

Pasta, Pasta, Pasta :)

Two tired bodies in our Irish and German kit

The race was a great learning experience and I really enjoyed riding with so many great riders – it is really what I need to be doing to bring myself on. I need to be really pushed to pull out the best out of myself. There were many things I learned and realized (or some I knew before had but just had to deal with). These are a few of them.

• Next time I arrive at an amazing region of the world – I'm staying longer!
• Preriding the singletrack would have helped – not from a technical point of view, just from a mental knowing if there is anything dangerous to look out for so you can stay off the brakes more.
• We NEED a support person – I'm not doing one of these again without a person at technical/feed stations – this caused a lot of stress before hand and wasted lots of time during the race. (Thanks to William Berjgefelts buddies who dropped off bottles at the various feeds – I really appreciate it!)
• Make sure registration occurs properly – 136 riders ahead of you is a lot! The further back you are the higher the chance of crashes and getting behind someone who lets a gap open up.
• The mess up at last years National Marathon Champs caused me about 50 positions on the grid! Grrrr!
• For the last 4 hours of the race I only passed people, no one passed me - I guess I didn't (couldn't/ was too scared to?) go out hard enough at the start!
  
• I need to get used to racing in the heat.
• I need to get used to racing at altitude.

The view in the morning when we left at 5am for the drive to the airport

Mel has a report up here and results are available here as well as another report here.

More from the Worlds...

Marathon World Championship Report coming

3,800m of climb!