Tiszaujvaros World Cup Race Report ~ Tiszaujvaros, Hungary ~ August 14, 2005
This was my first World Cup race. Choosing a European race as my first World Cup may have been a risky decision but still would be the best preparation for the World Championships in a month. Although everything didn’t go very successfully, I am still happy I was there to get experience and the opportunity to learn from some mistakes. I can’t race well every time; I need the tough races where I get rocked so I can take a step back to learn from the experience.
The course:
Tiszaujvaros is a tiny town in Hungary about 2-3 hours from Budapest. Although small, its fans who come to watch the race were absolutely awesome. I think they bus people into the town to come and watch, and there is a fair all week long in the town square. It’s pretty crazy. The run course goes through the city, a 2.5k loop we did 4 times. The bike course goes right through the town, a 5km loop we do 6 times, with 11 corners. The second transition area was right in front of our hotel, where there was a temporary stadium seating set up with blue carpet and a ramp leading up to the finish line. The swim is in the Tisza River, a fast moving, muddy river about 5km from town. It rained a lot leading up to the race so the river was very muddy and cold. It was decided on race day, to everyone’s surprise, that it would be a wetsuit swim at 18.6 degrees C. Many athletes did not bring their wetsuits. I had mine, but having only raced in it once this year, I was pretty nervous about getting stuck in it.
Plus after training in the river the day before, I was pretty freaked out by the water. The swim course was 2 laps, one 1000 meter and one 500 meter, with a 20-30 meter run along a pontoon between laps. We started swimming out with the current, then turned around a buoy to swim back into the current. The water was very polluted with litter, fishhooks, dead bloated pigs, glass bottles and huge logs. The pontoon wasn’t stopping much of the debris. The tactic is to swim the first ½ lap where the current was strongest – at the center of the river. After you turn the buoy, the strategy is to swim where the current is least – very close to shore. I didn’t like swimming too close to shore because roots and tree branches swept the surface of the water. And the scariest part was the mud in the water – after diving in, you’re submerged into cold, black darkness.
The night before and morning of the race, I was struggling to change my mind and be positive. My goal was to get top 20 and within 7% of the winner’s time so I would get World Cup points. Top 15 would get prize money. If I swam like I had in Bellingham last weekend, I’d be golden: in a pack on the bike and I could run my way to a top 15. It was as simple as that: suck it up, forget about the mud and dirt, and swim hard.
Still – I was pretty terrified after I had set up my two transition areas, pulling on my wetsuit, walking to the pontoon to warm up in the water. It was sunny out on race morning so the water wasn’t as dark. They had also put a lane line in along the shoreline. That would make it easier to sight and not swim aground. The line was really tight though.
We were called up back to the transition area to line up in our world ranking order. I was number 21 in the group of 40. At this point, with all the video cameras and photographers documenting our every move, I was struggling to keep my cool. I’ve done big races before, chill out! The problem was that everyone seemed so serious and anxious just like me. Definitely not the environment at continental cups in the US. They announced our names in both Hungarian and English and as they called my name, I ran down the steps to the pontoon to my spot. I looked down the river to the buoy, scoping out my line. The buoy looked dang small. It took about 10 minutes to line everyone up and then the crowd went crazy with pumping music and the announcer shouting in Hungarian. Then he said something and everyone shut up. Oh jeeze I was scared.
“Take your mark.HOOOONK!!!” Yeah like that, we barely had time to get our feet to the edge of the pontoon before the horn sounded. I dove - BLACKNESS – then muddy brown as my buoyant wetsuit popped me up quickly. I started swimming hard, but tried to stay calm so I wouldn’t kill myself before the harder part of the lap (into the current on the way back). It didn’t seem as fast as I thought it’d be. The girls on my left (nearer the center of the river) seemed to be getting out ahead and I wanted to be over there. But the girl next to me seemed to match my speed whatever I tried to do to get around her. We kept hitting each other. It was really annoying, why didn’t she want to go behind the faster ones? I kept trying to sight but the buoy was too hard to find. I figured I was alright if I was in a group.
It continued like that, not really feeling hard, and then I was trying to sight and all I see is a big boat bottom – DEEP BREATH! And under it I went. I came up on the other side but I was swinging far wide of the buoy – the boat had been in the way! As I struggled to get back on course, fighting the current and other women’s bodies, I got socked in the eye, and my goggles came off one eye. I was still able to see 15 or so bodies make the turn smoothly past me while I was trying to play catch up. Swimming sideways, partly forward against the current, partly to my left to get to the lane line, I didn’t feel like I was making progress. I finally made it to the rope and got in behind someone. Girls to my right, I was sandwiched. The pace at this point wasn’t too taxing but it was hard to sight, I kept getting mouthfuls of water and getting my arms caught on the rope and branches and roots. As we approached the steps up the pontoon, the pace picked up. Happy that 2/3 of my swim was over, I had a decent exit up the stairs and as I was running, I adjusted my goggles so I could see with both eyes. I ran with a couple of girls down the pontoon and dove in just to the left of them. Unfortunately I didn’t end up on their feet, I was to their left, closer to the center of the river. So I swam forward and sideways to get on some feet so I wouldn’t swim back alone. My second turn was much smoother but I knew I had a much smaller group this time and I had lost so much time from that first turn. This time on the way back I was pushed by another swimmer into the rope repeatedly, getting caught in the tree branches and hitting my arm on the rope. My goggles were falling off again too. I stayed with the group though but didn’t succeed in getting to the front to run up the stairs first.
The first thing I did was take off my cap and goggles when I got out because they were already falling off my face. With my cap and goggles in my hand, it was hard to reach my cord for the wetsuit. I finally got it but I was halfway up the stairs to the transition area, and the girls ahead were dropping me fast. I yanked it off my wrists (it got stuck) and as I got to my bike, I still had to pull it down off my hips and legs. It wasn’t a smooth “pull, pull, step, step”… it took a LONG time to get the dang thing off. I had to freaking hold onto the rack for balance as I struggled with my feet. Meanwhile the other girls had helmets on and were booking it out of T1 already. I was panicking. Charlie was yelling at me. I finally got it off, threw on my helmet, unracked my bike and ran out as fast as I could. Exiting the TA there were a lot of lines on the ground. I ran across the timing mat then I didn’t know where we were allowed to mount. I saw another line up further and kept running to that. UGH! It was a line marking a speedbump! I swung onto my bike fast, stood on my shoes and started going.
I looked up in time to see the 5 girls ahead of me turn the corner. GO Michelle! I was already pretty anaerobic from the swim and from my panic in the TA, it was tough to get up to speed. I was alone though so I could take the corners at top speed. I got into my shoes fast on the straight section and caught one girl who must have crashed because she had road rash all over her. I yelled as I went by saying we can’t lose this group! She goes ok and hops on my wheel. I was pulling HARD. I got full down in my drops, elbows bent, shoulders low. The group was in sight the whole way as we rode to the loop in town. I knew once I lost sight that would be it for me mentally so I hammered as hard as I could. The girl behind me was worthless, she couldn’t corner and was slow. Whatever I wasn’t going to let her slow pulls slow us down.
As we came into town, my throat was burning and so were my legs. The short sections on the city streets made us lose sight of the group ahead. I tried to keep it up, knowing we could corner at full speed, while a bigger group would take it slower. The people in the city were awesome, cheering loudly with horns and bells. As we came through the transition area the announcer said my name, and told the crowd to “put your hands together for the athletes” it was CRAZY! A burst of adrenaline got me going into the next lap, I was beginning to accept I wasn’t going to catch the group ahead but I was worried about getting lapped. Okay so I’ll admit I kind of dreaded time trialing a 40k at this pace and for a second actually hoped I’d get lapped. I chased that thought away and kept pushing. I was thinking about how I screwed up the swim, screwed up my transition, and screwed up the bike. I had a chance to get one of my goals and run a sub 39. I wanted to drop the girl on my wheel for awhile because her pulls sucked and she might be a fast runner getting a free ride. So on the 3rd lap, I picked up speed before this 3 corner section and took it all at full speed, sprinting out of the last corner. That dropped her off maybe 15 yards and I came through the transition area alone, hearing the cheers.
She managed to get back on my wheel again but at least I was making her work for it. On the fourth lap, I made her pull for a bit longer and came around before a turn and I returned to my quick pace. Mistake to let that girl pull. Probably a mistake to have tried to drop her the lap before. After another turn, I heard the follow motorcycle come up beside me…”I’m sorry you have been overlapped.” I sat up, defeated. I coasted to the curb and the tears started. The race official came up on his motorcycle again: “Can I have your chip please. Please leave the bike course, it will be alright.” I gave him my chip and pulled my bike into an alley and sat on a windowsill to watch the races finish the bike laps. I was pretty upset. I peeled the numbers off my bike and my helmet (I thought maybe people wouldn’t think I was in the race when I rode back to the hotel..?!) and biked around to find a back way to the hotel. I was ready to get yelled at by Charlie. I felt like a letdown and I was angry I had come all this way to DNF. I was angry I didn’t get run and reach one of my goals. Now I just wanted to run, for a long time and really hard.
I got back to the hotel and talked to Charlie – he wasn’t mad – and then went upstairs to change and get my training shoes. After I went for a run and took a shower, I felt better. I am still glad I got this experience because I can certainly learn from my mistakes. And now I can use this experience to prepare myself mentally for a great race in Gamagori at Worlds because that race is going to be a lot like this one. Plus I really think I needed a “bad” race so I can see what happens to my mental state during a race. I’ve discovered that when things are going good, I can turn a good race into a great race. But when things go wrong, I do the opposite and make an ok race turn into a disaster. I also need to address my negativity I had before that race.
All in all, I’m glad I went and got my first World Cup over with. I can only get better from here! I’ve got a little less than a month to get ready for Worlds and I will be a busy girl between now and then, moving back to Blacksburg and starting classes next week. Wish me luck and thank you all for your continued support.
