Friday, September 05, 2008

kedzierzyn-kozle

Have arrived here in the small town of KK in southern Poland. Good first impressions of the country, town and race committee. They are well organized here and it shows. Was picked up at the airport and driven 150km here, that is pretty good commitment to the athletes. I was told that this
race will be a world cup next year.

Poland, from the countries i've visited seems to me like a cross between germany and hungary. The language although is terribly hard to pronounciate. Usually i'll learn some words to not seem like im a totally ignorant westy but it is hard here cause whats worse, someone butchering your language, or someone using sign language?

My hotel is at a great part of town, running trails right out the doorstep and an indoor pool about a 5min ride.

Tomorrow i will ride out to the race venue. A few interesting features to this race are:

- wetsuit swim
- river with current
- 2nd transition at different location than 1st
- extra 500m on the run.....that might hurt a little

Having two transitions is choatic as in the 2nd one everyone just throws their bikes aimlessly into the racks. You need to be near of the front of the pack on those ones.

About the only thing i can watch on tv here is eurosport, as sport needs no language. Good coverage of the tour de espana and the us open. The mens semi's for the open are two great matches. I will say Djokovic takes down both federer and nadal to the title. Although i would like nothing better than for Andy Murray to win, just so there could be some happy bagpipers in ol'scotland. Cause when was the last time a bagpiper was appreciated?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wish you could've been here for the US Open Loafer... went to Federer's 5 setter earlier this week.. had an extra ticket too! Hope you kick some ass over there and thanks for the updates!