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Xterra Greece Race Report

8th Jul 2014

A little belated but finally getting chance to write my blog on Xterra Greece...

Fun singletrack on the Xterra Greece bike course!

My first impression was what an awesome location to race in! Lake Plastiras and the village where we stayed were beautiful, the hotel rooms were amazing, and the whole place was just so quiet!! Don’t think I’ve ever slept so well before a race :-)

I was lucky to be put in a room share with fellow Pro Nienke Oostra- although we had never met before, we realised we were arriving in Athens on the same dates so arranged to car hire together. This is the great thing about Xterra- you always end up meeting like-minded people and having an adventure! We discovered you *can* fit 2 girls, 2 bike boxes and all their luggage into a Nissan Micra… And we whiled away the hours (it was quite a long drive!) chatting about all things Xterra, balancing full time work and training, and how we got into the sport.

2 bike boxes in the Micra

Greece was my first Xterra in Europe and I've been told to expect strong competition on this circuit. Indeed- having been given the lowdown by Nienke we realised we were in the minority that had never competed in the Olympics! I hardly had chance to worry about the other girls though- after all you can only control your own performance.

My main concern is usually the bike course and how technical will it be? I needn’t have worried too much though- as there was a lot of fun and technical singletrack on the climbs, but nothing unridable on the descents- always a bonus for me! The most difficult obstacle to ride past was actually the local dogs guarding their sheep- who were not too keen on all our bikes threatening their territory. They certainly made me do some sprint intervals while coach Sam and I were recce-ing the course! Although happily I didn’t see any on race day…

In fact the only creature that threatened to derail my race was a bee (this is a honey producing region)- annoyingly I managed to stand on one as I walked barefoot to the swim start! Of course it promptly stung my foot, but what could I do now? Nothing- just hope that I wasn’t allergic, and hope it wasn’t in a place where my bike or run shoes would rub! Try and concentrate on the swim instead- as I managed to miss the start last time in Malaysia by being in the wrong part of the lake when the gun went off!

Recce-ing the lake with Sam & Nienke

This time I had a much better swim, and on the Australian exit (where you have to run 50m or so between the 2 laps) I managed to get on the feet of Will Kelsay and get a nice draft for the second lap :-) I was 3rd lady out of the water but I knew there were some awesome bikers behind me (Helena Erbenová) and ahead (Kathrin Mueller) as well as top Greek runner Deniz Dimaki whom I needed to stay ahead of!

Helena soon came storming past on the bike, but other than that I never saw any of the other ladies throughout the race- it’s just you against the elements. I enjoyed the bike course, although definitely haven’t done enough training in this discipline. I’m also looking forward to upgrading my bike soon to bigger wheels and a lighter frame! I didn’t enjoy the ‘push-up’ part which is too steep to ride and hard to even climb up in bike shoes with no grip and dragging the heavy bike (it certainly seemed heavy by the 2nd lap!) but I’m learning they always put these challenges in Xterra!

Onto the run, my favourite part, and Greece looked like a great course for fast runners! I did enjoy the first 5k, but then the bee sting really started to kick in- yep it was right on the part where my shoe decides to rub. And with it swelling up, made the friction 10x worse than usual. On lap 2 I was alternating phases of hopping/limping with just running as hard as I could to make it end sooner… I was pretty sure I could feel blood running out of my shoe, as my foot was wet but the course was totally dry…

The end could not come soon enough - I was so relieved not to be overtaken by any other ladies! I finished in 4th place- one better than Malaysia so very happy with my result!

Congrats to Kathrin, Helena and Brigitta Poór who made up the podium- all great athletes- and more importantly such nice ladies who I look forward to race again soon :-) Also my roommate Nienke who battled well to finish 6th.

Lou 4th, Helena 2nd, Kathrin 1st, Konstantinos, Brigitta 3rd, Deniz 5th, Nienke 6th

Ladies podium top 6- with race director Konstantinos. Thanks for a brilliantly organised event!