Falling at season start – but Hanka struggles through

MAY 30 2009

Before start, Hanka and her 120 competitors at the world cup race in Montreal had prepared themselves for a rainy race but then the sun still came out as it was forecast. Then, only 2 kilometres later came the main ascent which had to be climbed eleven times in total. And right after the race had come to life, Hanka’s competitiveness was challenged again. Reason: Right before the climax of the first ascent she fell off due to a cyclist in front of her. Furtunately nothing happened to Hanka but her handelbar and brakes were twisted. She could fix both quickly but then she also had to readjust the front wheel. „So I didn’t get up the bike again until the last material car passed by. That was frustrating – we hadn’t done four kilometers yet and the race already seemed almost over“, Hanka illustrated the incident after the race.

But she still hadn’t resigned – far from it! First, she caught up to two cyclists who had fallen behind and then they slowly fought their way back to the front together. Due to the high speed she couldn’t manage to catch up to the main field until the middle of the second lap. She could hold that position for two further laps until the pace was forced and the big group fell apart. Hanka could fight back to the second group once more by mobilizing all her power but at the sixth ascent she had to pay the tribute to the exertion.

Emma Pooley, who attacked right after the start, moved around the course seemingly easily and in the end she won the race by a clear margin. „I can remember myself doing similarly to Emma but this is my first race in the season and I’m still starting up. I can be happy to have kept up with the first third of the world leaders for 70 kilometers.“, Hanka sumed up.

Due to cutting edge technologie Hanka knew exactly what was going on in her body. „I could watch my race at the netbook and analyse it easily to see how intensely it stressed me. The readings of my CS 600 say: Two hours in the high ‚red area’. Reason: Due to the bad luck at the beginning of the race there was no recovery for me in the slipstream and so this first race was extremely tough for me. Furthermore the heart rate diagram shows that it was good to quit the race to not provoke any overstressing. The Tour of Montreal is already taking place next monday and I want to collect as many race kilometers as possible there.“ 

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