Polish 7 day 2 and World Ranking Race

Wednesday, 18 July 2007

Tuesday was the 2nd day of the Polish 7 day and an ultra long World Ranking Event.  At 42 km we weren't really expecting a very long race.  Probably 100-110 minutes, but it turned out to be a complete epic when the temperature hit about 40^o C.

The terrain here is generally flat and is forested sand dunes with plenty of tracks.  The heat caused a lot of withdrawals and made navigation much harder as people struggled to maintain hydration and not over-heat.  It's funny what the heat does to your brain.  It can make you see things in completely the wrong way.

The race was a mass start with two loops.  Each loop had splits to break up the field and the total number of separate courses was 32.  So whilst you would ride with someone for a while it was almost certain you would part ways at some time.

Russian Ruslan Gritsan weathered the heat best of all, closely followed by world #1 ranked Tonis Erm, and Margus Hallick from Estonia.  Then Alex was 4th, Dave S 5th, Andy Conn from the UK 6th a couple of seconds in front of Paul.