Race report: MTB Marathon Amerongen
Yesterday was the MTB Marathon here in my hometown again. Last year's race was the first cycling event I ever took part in and I really liked it. So this year, as part of the Cape Epic 2027 prep, I signed up again.
Upon sign-up I did not notice you can differentiate between the race and the tour, so I ended up in the race, by accident more or less. But then, how much does it matter, as my goal was to ride the 90km as fast as I could to get a good gauge for where I am, six months ahead of Cape Epic.
After a quick warm-up I lined up at the start around 9:40, the gun was set to go off at 10:00. And when it went off, the pace was frantic. I guess that's also because it is the race, rather than the tour, lots of (super) strong riders. In fact, a good portion of the top 20 are elite and/or ex-pro riders. In that sense, I had absolutely no business in the race whatsoever 😏.
I had set two goals for myself:
- Finish under 4 hours
- Ideally hit 260w of normalized power (NP) of the entire race
Other than that, I had a pacing scenario in my mind, just to practice pacing discipline. On a long race like this, it is an important skill, not to mention the importance during Cape Epic.
The dry summer had left the trails hard and dusty for months now, but proper rain on Thursday and Friday changed that completely. The soil was quite damp, so not the fastest, but tons of grip, which I really like on the single tracks. The organization had added a lead-in lap (15km), to avoid hitting the single tracks to early, where potentially strong finishers get stuck behind slower riders - therefore the first 8km was on wider forest trails, where the pace was high and the pack could get stretched out a bit. I loved it, but it was difficult to maintain discipline on your pacing. After the first 10 minutes my NP showed 315W, which is way too high and not sustainable. But I found it also difficult to dial back the throttle, as it feels you do not want to lose too many positions.
Hitting the single track after 8km brought some relief. Since I am a true local on these trails, you have a massive advantage of track knowledge. On every downhill track I was faster than the one in front of me, just because I know all these corners and details like roots or little rocks by heart. So on the climbs I didn't have to go all out to keep a wheel, as I knew I would catch up later on anyway. NP came down to 281W at the end of round 1. Too high still, but more manageable.
Lap 1 was still pretty crowded, as the race contenders of the 65km race started 5 minutes behind us. The faster riders in this group started to catch up on the slower riders of the 90km race, the ones like me. I'm always amazed by the number of amateur riders that take these events just a tad too seriously.....shouting their way through the field as if their sponsor contract extension is depended on it 🙃.
After lap 1, first full 25k lap (1:05:51, NP 256w) things settled down. The crowds were gone, and for a good while I was a bit in no-mans land. I reckoned that the people that overtook me a bit earlier were too fast to stay with, so I didn't try to catch and hold their wheel. As a result, I was on my own for a good bit of lap 2. I am not sure if that was the right call, but I was keen not to overcook myself early on a 90k race. Lap 2 I did in 1:06:38, NP 241W.
In lap 3 I found myself a nice group of 3 other riders, which was great to ride with. The middle part of the lap was mostly wider tracks through the forest, where you can really draft and ride fast if you work as a group, which we did. It gave me the possibility to recover finally for a little bit, before hitting the last stretch of single track for the last time. In the mean time, I had lost my 11th gear (chain started skipping) and on the last 2km gear 1 till 5 were also gone (just on the steepest part of the trails). At home I found out my derailleur had come lost, together with my rear axle.....I probably didn't fixate it firm enough after doing maintenance earlier and the vibrations of 90k forest riding did the rest. I finished lap 3 in 1:04:59 at 251W NP. So my last lap was my fastest lap, so at least I didn't blow up 😄
And how did the race work out against my goals?
- Under 4 hours -> 3:56:57 ✅
- 260W -> 256W ❌ (but still happy with)
And what about my place in the race ranking? I ended 112th, out of 149 qualified riders. So no, the race was not really for me. For contrast, in the 90k tour my time would have been the 3rd time. So the difference between race and tour is huge.
Now I'll a take a short brake, due to travel for work and an upcoming holiday to celebrate my mother's-in-law 75th birthday. So from the 25th, I'll be back on the bike.
Until then, Keep Chasing!
