Hi Team!

Well here is my first update from Europe for the 2010 season! It's a biggy, so I'll be impressed if you manage to get through it all, but I've tried to keep it to the point and mix it up with some pretty colours.

IRELAND
On the 19th of May it was time to jump onto NZ2 for the beginning of my time with the NZ Track Cycling Squad's campaign in Europe - with the first stop Ireland. Here it was a couple of days to gap the jetlag before getting straight into the 8 day FBD Ras Tour of Ireland. The total distance was 1240km over the 8 point-to-point stages, covering a fairly large portion of scenic Ireland. We raced through a large variety of conditions, roads, and terrain. The best being dual carriage ways in 25 degree sunshine at 60km/h in solid tail winds early in the tour, going into the hard of pot-holed climbs, up through the rough Irish mountains.

The team for this tour is pictured below:

And the stage plan was as follows:
Stage 1, May 23rd, Dunboyne – Dundalk, 149 kilometres
Stage 2, May 24th, Dundalk – Carrick On Shannon, 155 kilometres
Stage 3, May 25th, Carrick On Shannon – Oughterard, 171 kilometres
Stage 4, May 26th, Oughterard – Tipperary, 169 kilometres
Stage 5, May 27th, Tipperary – Carrick On Suir, 175 kilometres
Stage 6, May 28th, Carrick On Suir – Gorey, 127 kilometres
Stage 7, May 29th, Gorey – Kilcullen, 154 kilometres
Stage 8, May 30th, Kilcullen – Skerries, 140 kilometres

The tour was really well organised and ran pretty smoothly, however there were still some pretty big dramas. The first of these came in the 2nd stage when 5 riders were ploughed through by a 4x4 round a blind corner on a descent, leaving some of the riders rushed to hospital, luckily with nothing fatal - but there were a couple of fingers to be re-attached and some broken bones... - and the remaining 50km of the stage neutralised with the bunch to ride to the finish together. The next incident came the following day when during the sprint finish, team-mate Tom Scully got caught up in a bit of argie-bargie with about 200m to go, and ended up in the rare leg vs. power-pole scenario, resulting in bad injuries to his knee's ligiments and so has returned home on a road to recovering to get back into knocking it up as soon as possible.

My turn to crash did come, but luckily not nearly bad. While sitting near the front of the single filed, fast moving peloton, the guy in front of me clipped a wheel and hit the deck, and it was too late for me to do anything other than run straight over the top of him, and consequently over my bars. Luckily, landing half on top of him and half on a grass bank. I got up, spun my wheels up as a quick check to see everything was still ok, and so began the chase to try and get back on with a group of about 15, after the crash had clogged the road and left the bunch in tatters. They were spending a lot of time looking at each other though, so I ended up riding off the front and eventually catching another group further up the road, which I ended up finishing with. It was just a cruise into the finish from there, with the exception of a spoke in my front wheel going *PING* which had been pretty buckled in the crash, so a quick change from neutral service for a boxy wheel and I was able to get back on and finish the stage.

Our best results in the tour game from Novie (Archbold) who claimed 3rd in the 6th stage with winning the bunch sprint following a break of 2 riders, and Dream (Ryan) who climbed to 6th place on the 5th stage as part of a break on a hill top finishline.

It was my first tour at elite level, and I came away from it a much smarter and stronger rider. I began to feel better and better and the stages went, and picked up 11th place on the final day.

So a few pints of Guiness and some more potatoes (which seemed to appear on our dinner plates in at least two different forms every night!) and then it was on the plane early the next day to head to our base in Belgium.

BELGIUM
A couple of easy days were required to let the body recover, but not too long as we had a big Interclub race in Belgium, the Phil van Conningsloo Memorial, in just 6 days time. We decided to prep for this with a Kermesse two days before it, which is the main form of racing in Belgium. They are 110-120km in distance, around a circuit of a town. The lap distances, and so the number you do, can vary, but generally they are in the range of 6-12km. A break of 6 riders left the bunch (with a bit of "team" tactics from the local Belgies) coming into the last lap, which was a bit frustrating as I was feeling good and managed to win the bunch sprint, but only for 7th place.

Unfortunately, the interclub didn't go our way at all. After perfect weather all of our days in Belgium so far (and even the morning of the race!) the weather gods decided to mix it up a bit with rain as soon as we assembled on the start line. This turn the roads into a slippery nightmare, with the first crash of the day involving a few riders happening in the neutralised zone before the race had even started. We had ridden the course two days earlier, and knew of a rough downhill cobble section early in the race, but didn't really expect what hit us. I was sitting about 50th back of the nearly 200 starters and saw a big group come down in front of me. A rider to the left of me - without even touching anyone else - then hit the deck, and before I could even finish thinking "what the heck are you up to mate..." I was joining him in a slide on our backsides (along with half of the bunch) down the cobbled hill. Shane, West and George Bennett (who joined us for this race as a NZer based in Europe racing with a French team) also joined in on the slippery slide action, where the road did a pretty good job of removing skin. West unfortunately also fractured his forearm (he's back into it now though!) which put him out of racing with us in Germany. And, Novie managed to give himself a massive bruise on his arm which is still changing colour on a daily basis now after almost 3 weeks! This left only Shem and Ruaraidh McLeod (another kiwi, but based with a Belgian team. On an interesting note he also managed the feat of 4 punctures before crossing the finish line!) in the race, who managed to finish up with the dwindled peloton.

I didn't have long to recover from the crash, with the tour in Germany just around the corner, so Shem and I went and raced another Kermesse not too far from home in a town called Neiuwrode. The place could definitely have done with a bit of a sweep before the race, with how filthy we managed to get in the drizzly weather. It did the job of opening up the legs again to some more intensity though, and even a few photo opportunities.

Afterwards it was back to the books for a bit more cramming, as Shem and I both had two exams to sit the two days following before packing up and setting on the road to Germany.

GERMANY
This was a big tour for all of us, and the main race of our campaign in Europe. Michael Vink was called in to take Wes' place in the tour due to him being out with his fractured forearm. Ruaraidh also rejoined the gang, and Jason Christie flew over from his team in the UK to complete the 6 rider squad. The tour started on 15th, so on Saturday the 12th we loaded up the Skoda and the Iveco van and set off on the 6 hour drive to the first of the German race accomodation (which was stretched out a wee bit with a detour half way into the Netherlands thanks to the outdate software on the GPS...). Upon arrival, we were pretty shocked by the Auckland winter-like climate we stepped out into with 10 degrees and drizzle, after leaving warm Belgium. This was because we were in a mountainous nature park in the central German region of Erfurt, with ever-changing weather. The 3 hour ride the next day was also a bit chilly, but come race day the sun was out and we were back into summer again. The stage distances and locations were as follows:

1. Etappe, 15.06.2010, Sparkassen Mannschaftszeitfahren Bleicherode, 23.7 km
2. Etappe, 16.06.2010, Bleicherode - Wasungen, 148.0 km
3. Etappe, 17.06.2010, Wasungen - Brotterode, 159.7 km
4. Etappe, 18.06.2010, Rund um Bad Berka, 142.5 km
5. Etappe, 19.06.2010, Masserberg - Masserberg, 138.9 km
6. Etappe, 20.06.2010, Hermsdorf - Hermsdorf, 145.7 km

The first stage being a 23.7km Team Time Trial, which we were all a bit unsure as to how it was going to go, since the day before while checking out the course was the first time we had ridden together - and it wasn't exactly smooth! But we were pleasently suprised, and had a solid ride, where I'm sure all the years of TTT's at Grammar payed off for me, with us setting a time of 29:12, only 1 minute behind Trek Livestrong who had fellow kiwi Jesse Sergent and Taylor Phinny in their ranks, 2nd and 1st respectively at the World Champs in the Individual Pursuit earlier in the year.

The following day was a bit of chaos, with all the Euro's all over the place in a very panicy fashion.There were riders hitting the deck left right and center, so it was a bonus for all of us kiwis to stay up right. I finished with the main bunch, with only Jason and Ruaraidh getting caught out by a split which occured in cross winds after a long and fast decent.

The following day would have been close to, if not, the hardest day I've had on the bike. Early on a large kiwi-less break went, which after a "time out" (also known as a piss stop!) call was made got a decent time gap on the bunch. After a couple of attempts I then managed to slide into a group of 6 that attacked off the front of the bunch, where we managed to also collect another 3 early break-ies, on our way lapping through up to the break. We were also join by Shem in a small break group of his own to make a total of about 25 riders now all together off the front of the bunch. The group was too big to be organised enough to stay away however and the race ended up eventually regrouping. From here however, it wasn't long before the climbs kicked in.

I managed to hang on to first finishing bunch of 28 riders, after a break of two who went on to place 1st and 2nd in the tour overall.

Stage 4 was relatively low key, with one minor hickup where I was caught up in a crash 15km from the finish. This time it was just my luck to be taking a drink from one of my bottles when the riders in front locked up their brakes and a few hit the deck. I was sitting on the outside of a german who decided to turn right, off the road, into a grass ditch, leaving me no where to go but to join him! In the end this worked out as a pretty good option however, with no damage done, apart from that to the legs of having to chase back through the convoy of team cars to rejoin the peloton.

Stage 5 was another grueling day, which was really the last chance for the GC (General Classification) placings to change. But as I've already spoiled earlier, no one really managed to get away from the bunch for very long. There were just a few seconds of change here and there as the hilltop finish (which we had already done 2 laps of as it was the finishing circuit!) was a real killer stretching everyone out a bit. If you didn't give the climb absolutely everything it would've been easy to lose a minute or two on the last time alone though, so I really had to go deep into the hurt box!

As expected, the two leading teams Thueringen Energie (Germany) and Trek Livestrong (USA) weren't going to leave much to chance on the final stage. Michael managed to get away in a break which stuck for most of the race, but the bunch was just too fast over the final 40km of the race. I cruised in across the line, happy with how the tour had gone for me, finishing 16th on GC and 9th in the young rider classification, as well as top for New Zealand.

I now have two big tours in my legs, so am looking forward to putting the miles to good use in the two big one day races we have coming up, along with some more Kermesses, back here in Belgium.

Yes, 3 seconds again was all that separated me from 200,000 US big ones! It's so hard to have that perfect race these days when the caliber of the field just keeps on getting better and better. But to come so close in the last two years just makes the fire burn even more so early ahead of next years race. It was however great to stand on the podium this year, you feel like you come away with just a bit more from such a major race but I know everyone dreams about standing on the top of that dais in Des Moines and if its one thing at least I'm getting closer.

I always like to start with thanks, and as it is with every race they all develop differently ahead of time and the people around you become just as important leading into the bigger events of the year. And I start with "Little shogun" aka Ryan Sissons, thanks so much for keeping me company over the last 5 weeks in Boulder. We had a great time smashing it up together and although I know you were not happy with your final result you learnt more than you will know at present and all those pecies to the puzzle will fit in nicely come Budapest I'm sure of that. To Marty and Kate was cool to live with you both over the last month and a bit and I'm sure you will all be bored senseless now I'm gone for your entertainment ;-) The whole Triathlon New Zealand High Performance squad, Greg, Tim, Rob and Pete the results overall reflect the culture that is being born into this group that was individuals and is now so much more than that. I'm know there is much, much more to come from everyone this year.

So to the race itself. As I've said before this was my first real peak of the year. The first part of the season was geared to racing here and racing well. I've spoken about it before, and this is something myself and Chris want to develop further over the next two and half years. Getting it all right on the day is for sure a fine art, I"ll be honest and say I'm still yet to achieve this, but there has to be a blue print to work from. The results are reflecting we are getting closer to something that we both feel comfortable we can work from. I've been in great shape before big races in the past but for one reason or another lady luck has just not shinned down on me when I needed her. You have to constantly believe thats going to change, and that perfect day is just around the corner, so I keep pushing

The field at this years race was as always, full of talent! When you are racing for 200,000 US dollars there are not many who wont have a go and risk it all. There were guys in form, guys who were maybe under the radar, guys who had prepared for this event more than others and lastly guys who had raced in Madrid the week before at the World Championship series event. All these factors would prove to make for a great race for all of us as athletes, and for the fans in Des Moines that yelled and cheered us on.

I choose to start on the inside for the swim this year. Last year I started on the outside and found myself having to swim too wide around the first two cans as they were almost 90 degree turns and lost alot of ground in doing so. It proved a perfect call as I started right next to my mate Courtney Atkinson on the left. We had a great line ( which he provided for me) the whole way to the first can and most of the way around the swim. I ended up exiting the water 6th and looked across to see Ryan ( amazing swim for him) and had a quick joke to him ( set the tone for the day ) as we ran into transition to grab our bikes.
The big boys were up front early and really any thought of getting away on this course was probably a waste of time and energy. However as in Seoul the tight nature of the course meant a great deal of concentration to remain at or near the front to save as much energy as you could and also to stay out of any ensuing trouble. About the only athlete that actually got away for real was Ryan! he managed to slip off the front when we both rolled through and every one just looked at me to close the gap, fat chance! I tried to block for him as much as I could and he actually had around 40 seconds at one point while he rode solo for two laps. He just needed someone to go across and hook up with him and it might have stuck. Funny thing was all the guys in the group kept asking "can that guy run" I was like "nah he's crap" which of course is very far from the truth! oh well next time little shogun.
The all important 2nd transition was nearing, and with a big group and a tight and narrow course positioning would be criticle. I pride myself at this small but important aspect of our sport and I waited for the right moment to get to the front, and eventually dismount in the lead together with my good buddy Jan Frodeno. We hit the ground running and legs felt good I chucked the puma's on and waited for fireworks to really begin.
The first meters were good on the run as I got out early and found my rythum without pushing. But some meters later Mr Tim Don arrived on the scene! I knew before the race there were guys to watch and right at the top of the list was Tim. His change of pace had an instant impact on the field and after 1k there was just Tim, myself and Jan. I heard the call from the coaches at 1k and I thought no way can I hold this pace, relax, find your own rhythm, and they will come back later on. I dropped off and begun to run a pace I felt I could hold onto. Jan scrapped it out with Tim for a bit longer before he also got distanced and then Tim was set free to run alone. By the end of the first lap there was a 5 or so second gap between all of us, and Bevan and Courtney were hauling a group of 4 or 5 behind us all towards the front. This is where the race changed. At this point I was feeling very good after settling down, I knew Bevan would roll towards the front as he always does. I was ready for it and I saw him start to move and thought here we go the race is on now for good. But then out of the corner of my eye I saw and official jump out at Bevan for a penalty he had accrued during the race at some point. These types of penalties are served in a box beside transition, as a stand down period for 15 seconds. The whole rhythm changed at that point and there was a bit of indecision between the group. In the end Courtney took up the speed and began to push the pace again. Guys started to drop off one by one and we seemed to start to limit the losses to Tim at the front. I made a decision at that point to also push a bit at around 6k. It was now or never in terms of making our way to the front and so I surged to move up on Jan who was still in between us and Tim. Only Courtney could follow and then he quickly moved around me as we both went past Jan. The two of us were now alone in pursuit of Tim and the win. There was no doubt Tim was hurting, but of course so were we! I tried to swap turns with Courtney, but I found it hard to have a rhythm running in front compared to following him. Heading into the last lap of 2.5k we had a 19 second deficit, I hoped it might not be to much. I was banking on Tim's mighty solo effort falling short of the line and him giving us that window of opportunity we were looking for. The last lap was by far the hardest, it always is, I struggled really bad to hang on as Courtney pushed hard at Tim and now we had Mr Docherty charging from behind after his penalty ( Respect!). At the final turn we had it down to 11 seconds. 1k to go, what would be would be. Courtney pushed hard and I drifted twice in the last 800 meters as I lost a bit of focus and was taking water like it was going out of fashion! I knew this was the same position I was in last year, all be it racing for first which now was looking out of our reach. With 400 meters to go I had to think about the sprint for 2nd. Last year I know I had the legs and the kick but I made a mistake. Not checking out the finishing chute and starting my sprint to early was a rookie error. This time I had to make it stick. Sprinting against a mate is never fun but I knew we both would give it everything we had. Courtney started the sprint and gained a small gap straight away, but I saw he kind of stopped and so I went for it with around 60 meters to go ( I know this as it's the only thing I made sure of for 100% before the race, check and measure the finish chute!) I managed to slip under his left shoulder whilst Tim was holding up the finishing banner aloft just in front of us. Bitter sweet, 3 seconds ( minus some celebrating on his behalf ) again two years in a row. But second none the less, and a huge step in the right direction in terms of my perspective about what this season holds for me, and my intentions come September in Budapest at the World Championship grand final.
So a huge congrads to Tim, what a race, and you deserve everything you get. To Courtney another great race, and another amazing performance that you keep laying down week after week. To all the crew at Triathlon New Zealand well done to you all and enjoy Boulder again I'm sure it will be mint.

For me it's time to get on my last plane towards Montpellier and then onto Sete to stay with Mr Laurent Vidal and Miss Andrea Hewitt. From there we will all be heading up to my old training Haunt of Font Romeu. I can't wait to get back there after missing out last year. Not to mention smashing it up with Mr Vidal! I know it's going to be a great time and a lot of fun for sure.
So think of me doing the "hard yards" in the mountains of France, sipping red wine, eating fresh bread and great cheese and of course enjoying that French culture ;-) Of course that's all when I'm not training my ass off!!.

Talk care everyone,
Kris

I just got back to LA after a good 2 weeks on the road. Firstly last weekend where I finished 2nd to Ironman World Champion Craig Alexander, then this past weekend where I managed to back it up and win the Eagleman 70.3, a race I won last year.

This year the conditions were tough with wind blowing in all directions and the temperatures reaching about 35'C/ 100'F, not to mention the tough competition.

David Kahn lead the swim from start to finish and managed to hold that lead for a good portion of the bike, that is until young uber biker Andrew Yoder swallowed him up. Behind them I was with a good group which included James Cotter, Richie Cunningham, Tim Marr & Philip Graves. We all seemed to be struggling and the gap the Yoder grew to almost 6 minutes before we decided we needed to dig deep to gain a bit back. Cotter and Graves rode strong.

We were off the bikes with a 4 minute deficit on Yoder and I guess we were all questioning our ability to run him down. All I could do was find my rhythm which I struggled to find and let the rest take care of itself. Slowly we were making time but with the sun blasting down anything could happen. Cotter was only seconds behind me. I have done some training with him in the past and knew he was going to be dangerous.

It wasn't until about mile 8 where I caught Yoder, but things were getting ugly out there. Every stride was a struggle and I am not proud to admit I spent more time looking over my shoulder than I did looking in front of me. Counting down the miles to the finish and it wasn't until the final stretch where I knew I had the race.

By the time I got to the line I didn't have enough energy to grab the banner, all I could do was get my hands about head high and try to smile.

Cotter also managed to run down Yoder in the closing stages of the race.

Fellow Kiwi Samantha Warriner took out the girls over Sam McGlone and Michellie Jones rounded off the woman's podium.

Chilling out for a couple days before trying to find a little extra form for my next race, Buffalo Springs 70.3 in 2 weeks in Texas.

Regards, Terenzo