I am beginning to think the end is near and I must be getting to the point where I don’t keep finding somewhere more beautiful to train and race than before.....   I am sat writing this report from Immenstadt in Germany.   A small town nestled beside a lake under the snow topped mountains splitting Germany and Austria, surrounded by lush forest and cows grazing in the fields.....sound good?   It’s times like this when I can’t believe how lucky I am.

It’s been a great week as I spent Monday chasing a top amateur long distance alpine cyclist up and down mountains in Liechtenstein and Switzerland!!   I met Elias at the ITU Winter Triathlon I did in Liechtenstein in February and we had agreed to get together in the summer for some long bike miles.   Thankfully last weekend he had done a 220km race climbing over 4000m the day before so wasn’t fresh or I really would have been in trouble.   We did a tour of Liechtenstein, a tiny country beside Switzerland and Austria. It takes about 30minutes to ride across if you stay on the flat but hours if you take on her huge mountains.   A few years ago the Tour de France finished a stage at the top of one of them.  

It was stifling hot although nothing compared to those hot, humid Hong Kong days so I was quite happy starting at midday.   The terrain is great as there is a huge long valley where the river runs between the mountains and it has a bike path on each side, so plenty of good warm-up ground were we started out.   One of the great climbs goes from Vaduz up through the forest, past the castle which you will see on the front of most of the postcards.   I am starting to feel stronger climbing after a couple of weeks back in Europe so we opted to take the tougher route up to Trestein as it didn't look so bad at the fork in the road.   After another 10minutes of climbing through the forest we caught a 50yr guy out on his mountain bike.....easy prey I thought as I attempted to go past.   If any of you have ever raced or training in Europe, you will know what I am talking about when I say every man (even old granny!) and his dog knows how to climb mountains here.   There I was panting away as he was merrily chatted beside me in English...his second language!!   As we came round the next corner, the climb went steeply up to about 18% through the pastures with not a piece of shade in sight....please shoot me next time I suggest the harder route!

After recovering from near cardiac arrest, we descended through the villages and into the forests along the smallest roads I have ever seen to Switzerland and a trip to Heidi's house.....yep, no kidding, it really exists.   Elias did warn me that to climb up to the house involved a little off-road but assured me that the road bikes would be fine....didn’t mention the riders though!   The track to the house was fine and we stopped at the fountain to refill our bottles with the cold mountain water...it took a lot of will power not to jump straight into the well.   I knew we had arrived at the place as I saw a couple of Japanese tourists appear round the corner with camera's in hand.   

We headed off and again I was warned to be careful with the off-road section....yeah, yeah do you think I am a complete girl?   Conveniently I had forgotten that Elias used to be a mountain biker and his idea of what a road bike can handle and mine were two completely different things!!   We came round the next corner into a wooded section with bad lighting and the worst piece of road, no correction this wasn’t a road but something that resembled a riverbed.....keep centre and you'll be fine was the last thing I heard as he disappeared...oh, and don't go right whatever you do!!   Man, I nearly bottled it a couple of times but my pride stepped in last minute and I refused to be defeated and get off like a girl.   To be fair, I am not sure I could off stopped and got off without doing a full face plant as stopping on gravel/rocks etc isn't easy and I soon discovered the best option was to let her go and hope for the best........

It all ended well and the ride finished with a nice 45minute hard flat section ready for my interval run off the bike.....I love this sessions Siri dreams up for me from her living room.   I had to laugh as we were hammering along in the headwind at 35kmph thinking this was a good pace when we past this guy on a regular bike wearing sneakers.   He must of tucked in behind us and suddenly mounted an attack to go past us like his arse was on fire and he was Eric Zabel in the finish shoot.   Elias went to counter but I was so busy laughing at this ridiculous sight, I couldn't have caught him and it was his day.....hopefully mine will come on Saturday.

So back to Immenstadt and the ½ Ironman this weekend....The course is so beautiful that I can be nothing but excited about racing and my main focus will be to go FAST, avoid any encounters with the local cow herds and NOT enjoy the scenery - that will come post race!   Full race report in a couple of days......

Happy training

Cheers Claire