Although flat and with mud, it was a nice ride.
On the 7th of August I took part together with my team mates at the 7th edition of the Banat Maraton at Garana (near Resita), a race I attended even when I could only be a spectator (or cameraman). This year organizers have made 4 tracks: 10 km, 30 km, 50 km and 80 km but I felt I was not able to attend long distance, especially given the experience last year when I made 80 km in almost 6 hours , so I preferred to choose the 50 km Race. This year I tried to attend a maximum distance of 65 km (except Medieval Marathon), to regain speed and power, necessary for XCO races.
The track was registered with Gakota 10. You can see it on Connect.Garmin and BikeMap or download the .GPX track.
It was a tough mountainbike marathon, where the road cyclists had less advantage than at other marathons. The only thing I dislike is that there were no photographers on the spectacular and toughest zones. The next weekend I would like to attend
Last weekend, on the 17th of July The Mountainbike National Championships took place, at Paltinis, after 4 years when they were at Izvorul Muresului. In the same weekend, on the 16th of July, DHS Corvin Marathon was held at Hunedoara. Even if I was tempted by the prizes announced at DHS where I think I had some chances at the podium, I choosed to go only to Paltinis, because you not often meet with such a technical XCO track, especially at the XCO National Championships.
My team mate Radu Tudor went better and better as we approach the end of the race, so after the last climb he overtook Juganaru and finished 4th as Elite (5th overall) and came closer to Stancu of Dinamo who win the U23 despite the fact that it has much more experience on the road than MTB. Vlad Sabau finished on the 10th place.
It was a great championship, a technical and spectacular track that everyone missed (I think) and even though I was nervous before the start, more because of the track but because of competition (as here competing with yourself first), everything was ok and even I felt good, better than at the Balkans in 2007 even though I was not climbing as strong as I would have liked. Congratulations for Tudy for another title but also for organizing this race, and to Petrache and Logigan who fill the other two steps of the podium.
After five consecutive weekends of competitions my next two weekends are off, during which I will prepare for August, another month full of competitions: the 6th of August. Banat Marathon, the 15th of August. Crater XCO, the 21st of August . Geiger Marathon and the 27th of August. Uphill Sinaia.
This year I understood why the previous year „Surmont MTB Challenge” was called ”Back to the roots”. Ascent and descent parts on trails with roots, push-bike areas and beautiful landscapes seen from altitude were the ‘key words’ of this event. On Sunday, the 10th of July, I attended this race toghether with my team mates. I participated in long distance, though ‘short disance’ of 44 km had about 1700 m total climb, map and profile of which you can see below.
One of the goals for this week was to make a tour around Lake Bracciano, a lake of volcanic origin in the Italian region of Lazio, located at about 25 km north of Rome. Initially I thought I’d make the road trip starting in Rome. It would have amounted about 85 km but I changed my plan when I found a marathon track on Bikemap, on the hills north of the lake, so I decided to include some of the downloaded track in my track, so that shift meant about 50 km with 700 m total climb, about two thirds on asphalt, the rest on unpaved roads and forest trails of a little difficulty but beautiful landscape.