.bad luck

.the time has come for one of my favourite bike marathons, Horal, taking place in Nizke Tatry mountains. Last year was successful, I finished 29th out of 200 and it was my best placement ever (not that bad considering that I'm a pure hobby rider and among the competitors are always also some professionals...).

This year the result was not that optimistic, due to a combination of many factors (some of them are my fault, some are beyond my powers to change ;) ). First of all, my physical condition is not that good (not enough km (approximately 1350km so far) , low frequency of training sessions). The weather this year is weird and of course it had to rain two days straight just before the marathon (it was still raining 30 minutes before the start). This resulted in really muddy and hard to conquer track. And because of the mud I've experienced also some technical problems with my bike (this is the first time ever on a competition). Both dérailleurs were so chocked with the dirt, that changing the gear became almost impossible (curiously only on the medium front gear, it just kept dropping the chain...).
I was quite desperate, because it was still some 30km to the finish :(. I've been considering giving up. Yet, I've not given up ;). I've made it through the finish line using only the gears, that were functional... The placement was not very good, but at least I've won over myself and technical bad luck. It still counts, don't you think :)? I was dirty but happy, like every good cyclist should be after finishing yet another marathon ;)...