Stefan reports from Europe #3

Hello Everyone,
I hope you are all well ... thought I would fill you in on the Austria weekend and wish everyone good wishes back home. Attached are some pics (see our Gallery) from the pre-ride, coffee in Luzern with a sleepy John and of course Euro cheer leaders ... I mean really, if the Tour gets Podium Girls we should at least get cheer leaders :-)

Off to Trans Alp tomorrow ... can't wait as I think it will be an amazing experience ...
See you all soon,
Stefan

July 6, 2005

I was really looking forward to the 2005 edition of the Athletissima Track Meet in Lausanne, and it definitely did not disappoint. I have never been to a big track meet, and to see athletes of this caliber was pretty amazing. This track meet is in its 30th year, and the city definitely backs it one hundred percent. I was shocked when we were walking the few kilometers from the parking area to the stadium I have never seen so many people going to see a track meet! I believe the stadium holds 15, 000 people and it was jam packed!

Prior to going to the track meet Myriam, Genevieve, Hugo and I first went into downtown Lausanne to have a little look around. Lausanne it hilly! They say that it is the city of women with the most beautiful legs, because of all the hills hmmm all cities should be hilly!!!! Lausanne is home to about 200,000 people, so a little smaller than Victoria. It is definitely not a big city, but has all hustle that one would expect. Situated above Lake Geneva, and most definitely full of history, it is quite a beautiful city.

The Stadium Olympic is apparently a very fast track. It was cool to see some Canadian athletes racing, with Mark Boswell in the high jump, Dianne Cummings in the 800 and Kevin Sullivan in the 1500. Perdita Felicien was running the 110 hurdles but unfortunately she went down with a bang on the 3rd to last hurdle! The events I enjoyed the most were definitely the men's 3000 and 1500. In the men's 3000 there were some pretty awesome faces in the crowd; Kipketer from Kenya and Tariky Bekele from Ethiopia were awesome to see! Bekele was definitely the star with almost a 100m victory. But the finest result definitely came from the women's pole vault where Russian Yelena Isinbayeva set a new world record of 4.93 meters! Very cool!

John arrived in Geneva on Thursday and we picked him up and pretty much keep him moving until we hit Austria on Friday. It was funny because today he said to me I can't believe I have been here four days. I got here, drove to Austria, rode up a mountain, got beat to crap on some crazy race course, drank beer and somehow ended up back in Nyon. I think it is really just a blur to him!

The drive to Austria was quite beautiful and is about 600km from Nyon. But at 200km an hour that really is not long! Seriously though they do drive fast! We would have made good time had it not been for the mandatory bakery (coffee) stop in Luzern! It took us a few minutes, but we found what we were looking for and it was well worth the stop love the bakeries in Europe and apparently John loves the coffee! From Luzern we made one more stop in Liechtenstein but Liechtenstein just looked expensive so here we had our picnic lunch of bread, cheese and pie! Myriam is good to travel with she brings pie!

Austria is stunning mountains everywhere! I just had a little look around and I knew that this was going to be a tough race! We didn't get to Austria until 5pm on Friday so we headed out straight away to pre-ride prior to the pasta party. Everyone kept telling us that the course was very technical but from the first while we could not see the truth in that. And then John crashed! Hmmm things got tough in a hurry. This course was indeed tough. It was awesome though, as it had a bit of everything. What made it really tough were the climbs and the mud. The fist part of the course was quite dry, but when you got into the forest it made me feel like I was riding at home, but in the winter; wet, muddy, and fully of roots! It was fun though, and you could tell it was going to be a course for the mountain bikers. Once back at our hotel (which was amazing) John started to feel his ribs hurting. As they continue to hurt more and more it would appear that John may be doing IronMan next week with a few wounds from X-terra opps!

The beauty of this race has to be the start time ahhh, 1pm! Sweet! The swim was so nice, as it was a typical mountain lake; clean and clear and cold! For me, the swim would definitely set the theme for the day. A great first lap kept me just off the leaders feet, and then the second lap I faded about a minute back. The bike was wicked fun, but again, I rode really well the first lap and managed to get into the top 5 by the end of the lap one, but then I faded again. I still felt within myself, but I just started to make some small mistakes and sure enough my lap split dropped off by about 2min. Coming into the run I was now in 8th place but lost two more places while I struggled with my insole bunching up in my shoe??? You would think I had done this before? The run was really, really hard and after a tough bike, it felt more like a death march. I managed okay the first lap, and actually put some time on a few people up the tough climb to the waterfalls, but alas, the second lap they would come back on me as I power walked the second climb to finish 11th. The cool thing was that the race was super tough, and I definitely feel satisfied in finishing not too bad. John too had a really solid race despite his sore ribs, and accomplished his goal of no more crashes.

The cool part of the evening was meeting some new people and having a few beers to celebrate Johns 3rd place podium finish in his age group! The life of the party had to be the Italians but the good thing is that they wanted everyone to join there party! Heck they even supplied all the food! The Italians must be proud of their food because they brought blocks and blocks of cheese, sausages galore, and drinks for plenty! Some of those drinks though they look like wine, but we call that the hard stuff. Yikes, watch out for the Italians!

Back in Nyon today. We took most of the day to drive home yesterday as we stopped in Zurich to visit some friends of Myriam's and they were kind enough to take us all around the city. The weather was pretty awful, but the sites were amazing and the coffee shops did not disappoint. It is so nice to have all these guided tours!

Just kicking back and getting ready for TransAlps which starts on Saturday, and for John, IronMan Switzerland on Sunday. We both feel like we met a big bad Swiss dude in some dark alley somewhere, but we can't really remember.

I hope everyone is well back home!!!
Best wishes,
Stefan