Winter Blues

​Phase 1 - check 
Phase 2 - about to take off 

​They say, that stress is your best friend and your worst enemy when it comes to pursuing sport. You need to stress your system and break it down - in order to gain and build up. You need to find that spot-on area where it’s not too little nor too much. Phase 1 was all about that balance. Building a base but don’t overload, so I tip over because getting back up is simply too hard. 
Building the foundation in winter so I can ride my bike fast in the summer, is something I really enjoy. Well. Okay, riding bikes for hours every day isn’t always so entertaining, I must say. But it has another side to it that I enjoy just as much as racing in the summer. It’s kind of meditating and so addicting. I love the feeling of progress and trying to be a better me every day. I like to make improvements from earlier mistakes. And I generally just really love to ride bikes. All of that I can do in the winter time, without worrying too much about performance, travelling and so on. I mean I didn’t start riding mtb because I won races, I just enjoyed riding with friends, and in the winter months, I kind of get back to that place.  

​So in my first ‘phase’ of training this year I had 2 blocks of base training. Which in January consisted of a lot of road cycling and as I moved to the Barcelona area in December the mountains made the road cycling pretty cool. Now in the second block, I got my Orbea Oiz (bike-check a few stories back), so a new motivation kicked in - a new ride that would bring me back on the trails. Adapting to a full-suspension bike after 10 years on a hardtail was for sure a weird feeling the first days. Plus a month on the skinny tires made the transition a bit sketchy and not so pretty for me ;-) Whatsoever I felt the benefits of the bike quite fast. A few days after the arrival of my Oiz I took a plane to Lanzarote, where I participated in the Club La Santa Stage Race a 4 days race + 5th and 6th stage with the Danish team the following days (You can read more about that in the last story). When I got home from the island I was pretty dead. My body was low in everything so I pulled the red-card and took some days away from athlete Malene. Okay, almost a week I must admit, but honestly, I was tired.

​​The biggest part of the foundation is built, now the focus will change.

​When I came back to Spain I had one week to get back into training routines and get ready for the Mediterranean Epic, again a 4-day stage race. The Mediterranean Epic was again on a new bike, still an Oiz but my race machine for the year. But as I had decided to use the two stage-races like some intense training-camps I thought it would be a good test for me and the bike. And what a cool race! The stages were super nice and the trails were technical and demanding. After this race, I didn’t need more stages :-P

​The two races were not only good training it also gave me good UCI points as I finished them in 4th and 5th position. It was not the most glorious racing of mine, but defiantly good training, allowing me to push more than I would have done by myself. 
So now I'm back in my apartment and resting with a good feeling in my stomach. I came through this winter strong, finishing my coach’s training plans, competing in the two stage-races on my own demands and made some new PR’s. So far - so good. 

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​‘Phase 2’ is about to take off. I’m just about to find the start line to months of xc-speed focus. The biggest part of the foundation is built, now the focus will change. Change to an xc-performance orientated path. Which will be kicked off with nothing more appropriate than an xc race. No, wait, actually a double-trouble. Two weekends - two xc races. Team KMC Ekoi Orbea will race in Banyoles and Chelva. 

/Malene