Candi Murray/Oregon Bicycle Racing Assn

another note from LArssyn



Candi





Subject: Polish National TT champ (kind of)





Friday, yesterday, I went to Chestahova for the Polish junior National TT

Championships with young Bodnar and his coach. (Bodnar is the junior?s last

name, I don?t know his first, but his older brother was third in the TT at

the 2000 Junior World Championships). I think it was just over a two and a

half hour drive, it seemed like forever. They didn?t really speak any

English, nor did they really try. I just sat in the back and put my head

phones on. Once at the race the coach went to register us, where they so

kindly decided I couldn?t race after all, not even for a time. The coach

speaks a little French, so he came back saying, ?Nous allors un petit

problem.? Even an official came to speak to me, explaining that it was

Polish only championships. Which I understood, because it was their

Nationals. It just left me trying to figure out how I was going to get some

training in. We were in the center of a town, I don?t really know where or

what was near by, and we weren?t going to be back home until 9:00 or

10:00pm. Plus I didn?t know where to begin to explain to them that I was

going training and I?d be back in a while. The coach finally said, ?One

momento.? We like using every possible language we can. That moment turned

into about an hour. Finally came back with a number telling me to get ready

I was the first starter. So I went to get ready.



While getting ready one thing that started to annoy me, is that they

wouldn?t let me do anything myself. They would push me away when trying to

take my bike off the roof, shove their hands in the way when trying to put

on my disk. Even when I was trying to get on the rollers they were going to

hold me while I started so I wouldn?t fall. I convinced them I could do it

myself. Then while I was warming up the coach stood over me, watching my

heart rate and my speed; all the while writing things down in his note book.

Later he told Mirek that I must have been practicing my warm up for over a

year, I was very put together, and prepared like a Pro, doing all the right

things at the right time. All I did was get on my rollers and spin up a few

gears; I think they are just bit over obsessed with Americans here. I know

they were trying to be helpful, but it is a tad much I?d say.



Finally I was ready. I?d felt good in my warm up, and if I could win on

style points it would be guaranteed satisfaction. I had my national champ

long sleeved Saturn skin suit, Cervelo P3, Mavic carbon cosmic front and

disk, and a white TT helmet. The course was a bit rolling, with lots of

false flat sections. It was fifteen k exactly, out and back, false flat up

to the finish on rough roads throughout. I can?t really say much about the

race; it was all kind of a blur. I had one of those days where you just go.

You?re in your own world. You don?t notice anything other then the road

before you, nor can it affect you.   Looking back on it, it is like a time

warp, the 21:21 it took for me to finish was merely seconds. I did catch a

glimpse of my heart rate monitor a couple times. It was 189bpm on the way

out and 194bpm on the way back that?s pretty smooth for me, right where I

want it.



During the race the coach followed my in the car. It?s actually pretty

funny what they do in the follow cars here, though I was annoyed with it at

the time. All the team cars have PA systems hooked up to them, with a

speaker on the roof so that the coach can scream all he wants at his riders.

The whole race the coach was yelling at me. We covered three languages.

Every couple hundred meters he would yell, ?Dooooobja?..

ddddoooooobja.?(Dobja is good in Polish) Or he might yell, ?Allez, Allez.?

Then in the last five k of the race he continually yelled, ?Finito, Finito.?

I think it?s all ridiculous. I couldn?t have gone any faster no matter how

loud, or how much he screamed at me, nor would I have slowed down if he had

told me I was winning by five minutes. Which actually I only won by

twenty-four and a half seconds!



After my race I followed young Bodnar, in the car with the coach. He wrote

down my time every kilometer, and now I had to do it for him, while the

coach yelled. All the coaches have PA systems on their cars, so you hear

other coaches screaming as well as you pass by. Lots of the time passengers

in the back will hang out the windows and yell at the competition going the

opposite direction. It was pretty comical. Bodnar finished eleventh, which

apparently was unacceptable, at least I?m pretty sure that was the topic of

their heated discussion was on the way home.



When we got home Mirek and had just arrived also. He was pretty happy with

my time trial. I?ve now taken care of both the US and the Polish girls, so

far so good.

Larssyn















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