4th. Tour de Tisza-tó

57km skate around the Tisza lake again. Last year it was almost fun.

Starting from Szeged at 06:30, we've arrived at Tiszafüred at 09:30. Registration, change to race dress.
This time organizers have provided a bus to transfer us from the finish area to the skaters' startline, about 5 miles away, near Poroszló, and they've even taken our shoes back to the finish so we did not have to paddle around in socks :) This worked great - almost, as it wasn't that great to stand there with skates laced tight from 11:00 to 11:30, feet getting numb. The bikers field stretched very long, we could have started after the first 10 minutes and not wait for all the young kids on bikes, cycling slowly...

We skaters were many more compared to last year, all in all 28 according to the results list. After the start I've started at 90% pace, not too exhausting, leaving time to get warmed up properly. I was surprised to see that Raimo & co. did not get away at all, so I jumped up to them with a little sprint and travelled with them in the following 7km. There was a light rearwind, the 6 'experienced' worked together flawlessly, changing lead from time to time, and we 2 with KP enjoyed the ride at the tail of the queue. I glanced back but there was no-one in sight - uh-oh, SSz, FZ, where did you drop??? At the 50km sign MZ left the queue (she was complaining already at the start about being ill the last few days) and we 3 got dropped a bit consequently. I thought we would group together and work on but this did not work, so I was left alone. The lead group was gone, thinking about it now I should have stayed with them longer :(

Alone

I was skating alone and started to feel warmed up now, then I caught a biker guy and we had a little talk - he told me we were doing 26km/h. This seemed OK, we even had some faster straights here and there. We caught & left a lot of bikers until we got to the dam near Kisköre. The refresh there was a bit quirky, as I did not brake at all passing the mass of cyclists having some water there, but luckily everyone jumped away :) I suffered a bit goind up to the dam, looking back I saw KP about 300m behind me. Going down from the dam the concrete is useless, I had to flounder in the dust on the edge of the concrete.

On the next few kilometres I did not find my tempo at all, so KP caught me with a friend of her on a bike. Then came the horror, Abádszalók. The asphalt there is so awkward that it is almost an art...  by the end of that 1.5km my butts were in a cramp... but then it ended at last, I couldn't even see KP ahead. And what did follow? Turn North, right into the headwind, that got strong enough by then. Although the speaker at the start was quite happy with the weather and the lack of wind, I've checked the meteo after the finish and it showed 22km/h wind from NNE.

The last two experience was too much together - the bad asphalt and the headwind. But as the bike field was huge, I could find a biker easily to travel behind him and have some rest. In fact I had a 12km rest there... Meanwhile I followed a strict diet of glucose every 15mins and cyclist CH gels every 45mins, but during this rest my water got low. So I was eager to reach the 2nd refreshment station where I could drink some water and also fill some in my bottle. I started towards the finish quickly then, this time together with KP and her biker mate.

About 15km to go

The last CH gel however made me feel almost high. At the 5km sign I've almost attacked but kept myself back. But at the 4km post a pair of bikers came in with good tempo so I've launched a small sprint and chased them down, leaving KP behind. We've reached Tiszafüred soon and I stayed with them until the last zig-zag. I've tried to push a bit solo (you know, a good finish photo...) but the bad asphalt shaked my brain like a mixer... I've finished with 2:40:55.

I wasn't as worn off as last year. I've taken off my gear, picked up my finish pack, went down to the podium area, phoned home and then saw SSz finishing. After the podium ceremony and some loiter got in the car and drove home. By 6PM I was already home, we even had time to attend the astronomy day observation night with the fam to check the Moon and the Saturn.

Next day I had some muscle strain in my butt but nothing serious. Thinking hindsight:
- should have travelled with Raimo's group longer
- after the Kisköre dam I should have picked up tempo quicker
- got to do something with the awful asphalt near Abádszalók - either in technique or in my head, dunno
- the K2 belt I wore wasn't really good, it didn't feel comfortable putting my hand on my back
- the new Bont Jet skates worked great, but after 2/3 distance I began to feel the muscles holding my ankle getting tired, causing some form degrade. Got to work on that endurance.

I was expecting a finish time of circa 2:30 but the headwind made it worse. I am a bit frustated for this, the mistakes listed above should be eliminated and then I can make it, for sure. Next year :)

Results

GPX of the route

Spring sum-up

This is to sum up my intensity phase for this spring:
I've spent 34h 43m burning 21024 kCals during 31 sessions. The training included skating 271 km, running 75 km and plyometrics 6 times - this time Bill Begg's 'Offskate Plyo Specific':

-	Plyometric Menu - Offskate Plyo Specific	Time
1.	Jogging slowly for warm up	5 mins
2.	Stretch (static, ballistic)	5 mins
3.	Skipping	2 mins
4.	Vibrations 30 sec with 30 sec rests	4 times
5.	Frog jumps 15 sec recovery	8 times
6.	Crossbacks	1 min
7.	Stride jumps, extend legs to back & side	1 min
8.	Gunthers, dryland skating, looping the leg back in D shape	2 mins
9.	Heal taps	1 min
10.	Control hop 30 sec with 15 sec recovery	4 times
11.	Imitation jump 30 sec with 15 sec recovery	4 times
12.	Sheer power 30 sec with 15 sec recovery	4 times
13.	Swing hop 10 sec with 15 sec recovery	8 times
14.	Pulsing up & down 10 sec, hold 30 sec, then pulse 1 min, 30 sec recovery	2 times
15.	Bounding 15 strides, 1 min recovery	6 times
16.	Sprints 30m, 1 min recovery	6 times
17.	Low walking, with knee to ground	2 mins
18.	Wall sitting, legs at 90 degree, back straight	2 mins
19.	Slow jogging & light static stretching to cool down & check if body is OK	10 mins

In the last 2 occasions the plyo program felt almost easy to complete. That means I advance bit by bit :)

I've raced in the DOM Cup with a less-than-satisfying result and completed the Tour de Tisza-tó, which was more enjoyable.

I have 2 LifeInLine HMs coming up early June, before heading for the beach. I really hope to improve my PB in one of them, though I haven't been able to skate as many interval sessions as I'd planned, so there may be problems with my speed. We will see...

Intersport Tour de Tisza-tó 2010

This "tour" is a 57-km ride around the Tisza lake, which is an artifical lake and also a natural park. It's completely flat around there so you won't need to climb any hills or roll down slopes. And it is called a tour, as - while some bike pros are racing hard - the main aim is to get people moving and make them cover the distance either on bikes or skates. This tour-ness is what greatly describes the friendly attitude of the event.

We have travelled there by 2 cars, 3 bikers and 4 skaters. The drive was rather uneventful as SSz and FT spent most of the time asleep and Feri spent the time fighting the GPS that seemed to decide 3 satellites are too much :) We got to Tiszafüred quite early, registered and drove some more, as the skaters started from near Poroszló, 8km from the start of the cyclists. We parked the car and had some lazy time, then put up our skates and began waiting for the cyclist.
And there they came, all 1000 of them. Young & aged, racers or tourists, on many types of bikes, we saw even a velociped, a handbike and many many kids, too. After they have gone, we had to stop by a line and an organizer started us, syncing the start with the chip timing system via radio comms. We were about 15 at the start line, later it turned out there were yet more who arrived bit late.
So we started and as there was a light breeze from behind we had quite an easy and comfortable ride southwards. Feri has dropped in the first few km, in fact I didn't even notice as I wasn't looking back - it was such an easy ride I did not think he would drop :( So we rolled on with SSz, as FT and the 'more advanced ones' from Budapest has started out so much faster we lost their sight within minutes. We changed lead in about each 4-5 km for the first 20 kms. RT was following us closely, we talked a bit and agreed to stay together as there would be headwind on the way back.
Apart from the ambulance dealing with injured cyclists every 5 km this part was quite uneventful - nice clean and smooth asphalt on the top of the dike, lake to the left, trees to the right. I kept on eating some glucose every 15 minutes and swallowed a magic energy gel after 1 hour. Then we arrived to the dam near Kisköre where there was a refreshing station (water only) and some concrete surface. SSz and myself eased up a bit, stretching our backs but RT kept on skating the same speed and disappeared quickly. We thought we would catch up with him later but that never happened...
Then we had to climb up the dam, cross it (no big problem, but had to care for the dilating elements) and then came about 2-300m of really bad surface rolling down from the dam, where the safest method was to skate right at the edge of the concrete, almost in the dust. Well that did not do any good to my knees and the left one began to hurt a bit. After that it was a nice ride again eastwards but we knew something bad was still ahead.
And there it was, after 31 km, near Abádszalók. There were 3 kinds of cracked asphalt (bad, worse and even more worse), patched on each other in random order so you had to take every step with caution. I couldn't push a normal push sideways, I was 'tiptoeing' for the next 2 km. This part of the route was tough, mainly for the brain, exhaustive with constant awareness.
From km 35 it was smooth again, but turning North we met some headwind now. Luckily we could use a cyclist to rest behind him for some time, and according to his meter we were travelling by 25 km/h. Both SSz and me were happy with that as we knew this was a really big plus for us. Sadly enough I forgot to eat properly during the rough part and following the cyclist, so all of a sudden, right after 2 hours, all my power was lost, I couldn't even rest there. So I told SSz to go on with the cyclist and I pulled out.
There was about 15 km left - I ate some glucose, consumed another energy gel and tried to get in some rhythm, but I wasn't feeling good. Then I saw OB sitting in the grass (he was travelling with the 'pros' from the beginning), asked him what was wrong but he told me to go on, as he was only waiting for his support cyclist to get him some water. Murphy hit again: after only a few kilometers there was the next watering station (at km 48 or so) where I stopped for a glass of water but then continued without rest. Then came the 'low hit', there were some gravel on the road after about 500m, and I did not notice it in time, caught a stone and couldn't avoid falling. It was no big deal but there was blood on my right knee and my left hip also hurt, though I did not see anything on it from a quick glimpse.
2 cyclists came past me just then, one of them asked if I was OK and I managed to get in their draft. I was suffering badly and didn't have power to skate properly, so I rested there for a bit. I tired to speed up and left them 3 times but failed and slowed down again. Then OB came past me in the draft of his support cyclist, yelled at me to jump over there but I simply couldn't :(
No problem, there were only 5 km left - but what a 5 km. I thought they would go down fast but it was horribly slow how they passed. I've managed to get away from the bikers and skated alone the last 5 but it felt incredibly slow. However I arrived to Tiszafüred at last and crossed the finish line after some zig-zag, in 2:48:05.
I felt completely empty. I rolled to the water, drank some, got rid of my skates and sat there for 5mins. Then phoned home to tell Aniko I was still alive, then sat there again for 5 mins, listening to the speaker announcing the cyclists in the ceremony. After some time I managed to get on my feet and walked to the podium to meet SSz and the other skaters already there. Friendly talk, etc, socializing. Then we saw Feri arrive, just a bit above 3 hours.
Then I caught a ride in a complete stranger's car back to my own car (8 km from the finish line, remember) and during that a heavy thunderstorm hit us. So I was completely soaked when I got in my car, drove back to Tiszafüred and when the storm has gone, we packed up and started driving home. And we felt really grateful that the storm did not come 1 hour earlier :) During the drive - guess what - SSz and FT were asleep for most of the time...
Interestingly I did not feel tired the day after, only felt a little muscle burn. So by Monday I was thinking where to go skating.

Looking back to the event, it was surely fun. Organizers deserve a big bravo, everything was OK. I've never covered such a distance on skates before and I clearly hit some inner barrier at 2 hours, but I want to register for next year's tour again ASAP. It simply felt good skating there!