Waking up Sunday morning I heard a sound that grasped me with fear. Wind - heavy wind. Now that was something completely lacking from the meteo forecasts. By the sound of it is was about 15km/h with strong gusts. Anyway we packed in the car and had a painfully slow car drive to Michalovce - about 50km but took us more than 1 hour to get there. It was quite hard to find a parking place near the event but after two rounds in town we decided to park the car in a plaza parking place and walk 400m.
We built our small 'camp' on the side of the road, just beneath some big trees, as - in spite of the wind - it was totally sunny and hot.
The race route itself was a 1.010m long triangle-like route around a small park, asphalt was OK, patches marked as usual. On the back-leg we were given 1 closed lane from a 4-6 lane motorway, while the start/finish straight was a 4-lane road totally closed. The most tricky parts were the end of the start straight with a small ascending turn up the motorway and the start of the finish straight where there were numerous surface errors so you had to plan your way ahead.
Race track
The wind was blowing hard when Peter's race started. The field was smaller than in the previous week and he gained a 15m lead by the time they were to turn left to the motorway. Then I lost his sight behind the trees but when I saw him again on the end of the backstraight he was leading with a comfortable 50-60m. Then he zoomed down the next 2 turns and crossed the finish line with 12 seconds' advantage. He was very tired though and complained about the strong winds.
Peter 20m from the finish
photo (C) J. Meriac http://jaminline.rajce.idnes.cz
Then we saw FT racing in the 5km race. He is in base-building period for the shorttrack season so while he could easily skate with the others and had no difficulty with the tempo, he surely lacked sprinting speed and couldn't attack for real in the last lap. Nevertheless he earned 3rd place and said it was a good warm-up for the 21km.
FT in 3rd place
photo (C) J. Meriac http://jaminline.rajce.idnes.cz
Then after the 10k race came the half marathon, 21 laps to cover. FT decided to start there, too. SSz and me positioned ourselves perfectly in the starting field (read: rolled to the last line) and at 14:30 we started.
I was quite happy to find IC from Presov, Slovakia and travel in his draft for the first 7 laps. The 7th lap was for some reason 20 sec faster than the previous ones and I immediately felt tired. So in the finish lane I dropped from IC's draft and from then on it was pure hell. Alone against the strong winds (nice memories from Bratislava...) - and by this time the finish straight was having wind from the side, not from behind. So it meant that you: tempo all along the higway section in headwind, turn left and roll some in the relative wind-free small straight, then you drop onto the finish straight and meet some wind here, too.
By the 12th lap I was seriously considering giving up the race and sit down next to Peter, who was acting as a photographer in the finish straight. But then came lap #14 and I thought "hey only 7 is left which is almost equal to 1 lap on the route where I practice usually..." So I started to convince myself and in the end it paid off.
In the final 4 laps I was able to catch two elder guys and sit in their draft again. This was a real life-saver and I did not think much about the aesthetics of drafting all the way to the finish. I came in in 59:12 which is seriously worse than last week's result but this time I had to fight the winds alone for quite some time, unlike last week. SSz finished some 2 minutes ahead while her son FT skated a 42:44, that is quite a good one if you are in base-building period IMHO.
IR from Tatabanya has won this race! This is his first win in this series and he was obviously very happy with that. He told us the leading group wasn't driving a fast tempo so he could sprint away from them in the last few hundred meters, using his good technique in the last 2 turns. He won by 10 meters ahead of a Czech and a Pole guy.
Travelling home was a quite uneventful 5-hour drive. I had some time to think about and re-live the race. Main mistake was dropping from draft - it would be so much easier to cover the distance if I could just stay there. Lesson learned (again).
Results here.
IR from Tatabanya has won this race! This is his first win in this series and he was obviously very happy with that. He told us the leading group wasn't driving a fast tempo so he could sprint away from them in the last few hundred meters, using his good technique in the last 2 turns. He won by 10 meters ahead of a Czech and a Pole guy.
IR finishing
Results here.
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