Only 6 days after the race in Antwerp, it was time again to put my international race suit. Now I was going to race the European Cup of Holten (Ned). A course which I knew from my time in the junior category, and one I like very much, technical and with a small hill.
The weather forecast promised a super hot day, and so we got 35°C. For the first time ever I was happy it was a non-wetsuit swim.
I had an ok swim and the field was not stretched out too much. This way I managed to get in the main pack on the bike quickly. This pack consisted of about 40 athletes, which was a lot. Certainly navigating tight turns and doing a lot of cornering in such a big bunch was quite demanding. Reaching the front of the pack wasn't an easy task. I survived the bike leg without any incidents but found myself trapped going into transition. After bumping into many people with and without bikes, I got out of transition a little back on the leaders. I was determined to close to gap to the leaders. Unfortunately this took me 1 of the 2 laps because the pace was high! During the second lap I was running with the leaders and in contention for the podium! But with about 1k to go, there was an injection of pace and I could't accelerate anymore. Also a few others got dropped. In what seemed and endless last k, I could hang on for the 5th place, which I'm absolutely stoked about! Only missing the podium with about 5sec..
A race recap can be found here (Dutch): https://www.rtvoost.nl/nieuws/314912/Duitsers-Lasse-Nygaard-Priester-en-Lisa-Tertsch-wint-35e-editie-Triathlon-Holten#
2 international races equal 2 great results, I couldn't be more happy with how it's going so far! Now time for some training in july and then back to racing in august.
