Time is flying! For those wondering what I am up to here is finally an update:

http://www.alpcyclescoaching.com/blog/2016/5/6/an-update-on-our-swiss-miss

I spent the time between Christmas and New Year in Moab. MTB-ing and hiking with friends was on the program. It was my first trip to Fruita, Moab and Arches Nationalpark . The landscape there is just awesome. It was a great& fun time with nice company.

Here is to a great 2016!

I’m on the mend from surgery. Yesterday it was already 1 week since the surgical intervention. The wound looks good, I still have to wear a special compression-bandage around my right thigh for another 2 weeks. Every day brought a little improvement over the past few days. From doing nothing I started to take some very easy walks and then some super easy trainer “rides”. The first ride I did was 15mins, for the 2nd ride I improved to 30mins. I will need a lot of patience to get my fitness back to an ok level. Step by step is the way to go.

I’m about to pack up my stuff here in Switzerland, as I will head back to Colorado next week.

Just made it back to SUI from South Africa but tomorrow the next task is waiting for me. I have to undergo surgery on my right thigh. One of the reasons for my visit in SUI was also for an appointment& tests at the Crossclinik (Swiss Olympic Medical Center) in Basel. The diagnosis I got is: saphenous nerve entrapment in the adductor canal. This sounds complicate but basically means that the surgery will give the nerve in my right thigh more space and hopefully release the chronic pain. I carried that problem for 2 years with me. I tried a lot of different treatments but nothing solved the problem. I’m very glad the problem is finally found. My right leg just can’t handle high power output. The pain is simply forcing me to ease off with pushing when it is getting very hard in training or racing. It was very difficult to deal with that problem for myself and it was also hard to handle for the people around me (coach, family, friends). The recovery will take some time, I have to be very careful and have to build up slowly again.

Because of the surgery, my stay in SUI will be 2 weeks longer.

We arrived on Wednesday morning in Johannesburg. That was good as it gave us a couple of days to acclimatize to the heat and altitude. Our days prior to the race were busy with getting some rides in, trying to figure out the race course and then we also did a Q& A event at Cycle Lab. Cycle Lab is South Africa’s largest National Cycling Retailer means they are selling Fuji bikes too. The #CCTwitterRide on Sat morning was a cool& good warm-up for the race. The race on Sunday started at 6:03am, the race course was very hilly and the strong wind made it even more challenging. I did prepare for this race as good as possible and I also felt pretty good. But my last race was at the end of August so I had no idea how I would cope with the race rhythm. The bunch split up on the “long mountain” in the race. I had my problems in that phase and finished 32nd. The whole event was huge with 33’000 cyclists! After our race we rode and enjoyed a part of the “fun-ride”. The whole trip& race to South Africa was a very good experience. We saw a lot of new, crazy but also sad things. Big thank you to everyone who helped us out! Especially to Cycle Lab and Dave from Advanced Sports South Africa.

Vergangenen Donnerstag, begann das Wintertraining 2015 für den Veloclub Fischingen. Wie jedes Jahr findet das Hallentraining 1x pro Woche statt. Ich wurde kurzfristig angefragt, ob ich die Lektion leiten würde. Da ich zurzeit in der Schweiz bin, habe ich das sehr gerne gemacht. Nach einem Warm-up, gab es einen Parcours mit Koordination, Gleichgewicht sowie Kraft- & Stabilisationsübungen. Danach wurde Unihockey gespielt und zum Schluss stand Stretching auf dem Plan. Es hat Spass gemacht diese Lektion zu leiten!

A bit unexpected but yes there is 1 more road race to come in 2015. Normally, at this time of year the road season is over and I am enjoying the off season. But my Team TIBCO-SVB got an invitation for the new UCI race Momentum 947 Challenge in Johannesburg (South Africa). The race will take place on November 15. it is also called Joburg’s most iconic cycling event. I’ve never raced in November and I’ve never been to South Africa before. I am looking forward to this race adventure, bring it on!

If you like to know why quality is more important than quantity in training, then read this blogpost written by Alison Powers!

https://alpcycles.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/quality-over-quantity-2/

Bischof Optik, einer von meinen persönlichen Sponsoren organisierte am vergangenen Donnerstag Abend einen Event. Eingeladen war das Fit-Bike-Team Wil, ein lokales MTB Team/Club welches von Bischof Optik ebenfalls unterstützt wird. Bischof Optik hatte mich im Vorfeld angefragt, an dem Event einen Vortrag über mein Leben als Profi- Rennfahrerin zu halten. Da ich zurzeit in der Schweiz bin war das Timing perfekt und ich kam dieser Anfrage gerne entgegen. In meiner Präsentation erzählte ich über Training, Rennen, Erfolge, Material, Team, Coaching, +/- Punkte als Spitzensportler und natürlich das Sehen im Sport. Ich trage seit Jahren Kontaktlinsen (Tageslinsen aber auch 2 Wochen-Linsen) denn ohne korrigiertes Sehen geht bei mir nicht viel. Der Event war ein Erfolg. Herzlichen Dank an Bischof Optik für die Organisation und natürlich auch für das langjährige Sponsoring!

In case you are you looking around for a training camp in January….ALP Cycles Coaching has the solution! Since our camp last year in Tucson was a big success we are doing it again! Sign up soon as the camp is limited to 12 athletes only! More info can be found here:

https://alpcycles.wordpress.com/january-tucson-training-camp-16/