New Blog

Given that my website won't work at the moment, I doubt it has for a while but I've been a bit slack with the upkeep, from now on I will use this blog. At least until I can get it working!

I'll transfer across the last few postings.

Wiltshire Sports Personality of the Year

A few weeks ago I found out I had been shortlisted for the Wiltshire Sports Personality of the Year award, after having been nominated by my Orienteering Club. The winners ceremony was last night, but I couldn't attend due to being in Austria. I didn't think this would be such a big deal given that there was no way I would win - surely there are better athletes in the county than me who have acheived more this year. So I politely declined stating that I was on a training camp.

Little did I think I would win! :-)

After a video session of me receiving the award a couple of weeks ago, the winner was announced last night, and my video played! My parents had been invitied and decided to attend to represent me. I am really disappointed I couldn't make it, by all accounts it sounded like a great evening.

I would post the video, but I don't have a copy yet, so you will have to wait for me to return before you can have a laugh!!

World Cup Italy

The World Cup in Italy is held this weekend near Venice in a small town called Teolo. Originally planned as a middle and long distance - due to bad weather several weeks ago which felled many trees on the long distance terrain - the organisers changed plans to a sprint and middle distance. Perfect for me!

The top two in the World Cup standings - Christine Schaffner SUI and Michaela Gigon AUT - will be battling all weekend for the title of World Cup winner 2010. Both clearly ahead of the rest of the field, Schaffner leads by 3 points to Gigon.

In the men, Erik Skovgard Knudsen DEN has a 30 point lead to Beat Schaffner SUI, who leads another 38/39 points to Anton Foliforov RUS and Samuli Saarela FIN..

Competition will be close fought - with hopefully some technical terrain and technical navigation testing all the athletes to their limits under pressure.

Entries are now online http://www.mtboitaly2010.it/index.php

Austria

Since Thursday 2nd Sept I have been in Austria. First was the WRE in Faak am See near Villach, before travelling to Wiener Neusadt to stay with one of the Austrians. Aside from the car breaking down in Graz which meant and unscheduled stop in Graz overnight - actually good fun since I got to see the city and the Schlossberg.

My time in Wiener Neustadt has also been fun. Friday saw us heading into Vienna, Kevin for a sport conference, whilst I met up with Michi, Per and later Andi and his friend at the FilmFestival at the Rathausplatz. I was at the filmfestival in August after the TransCarpatia and really enjoyed the atmosphere, so I was happy to go back to try some more food from around the world - even if I did have Australian Hot Billabong Prawns and wildreis! Several drinks later and it was 11pm - time for home.

Sunday was another day trip to Wien, this time to the zoo at Schlossbrunn, which was really really great fun. It's been years since I last went to a zoo in England, so to see all the animals was cool! The weather was also perfect for a day out, and more dinner at the Rathausplatz before ice cream at Zanoni's :-)

Training is going ok. I am trying to avoid getting too tired and exhausted by biking every other day for 90minutes maximum, today finding a really great downhill track in the forest!

Tomorrow I travel to Leoben to stay with another friend, before finding my way back to Villach on Thursday evening prior to Italy!

World Ranking Event

The weekend of 4/5 September saw the Austrian World Ranking Event held near Villach at Faak am See. Having told everyone I would be there, and not wanting to miss, I decided to attend. In the hope of saving money, I borrowed a bike from one of the Austrian team - I should add that the bike was the Merida O.Nine Multivan team bike, which has been the bike of my dreams all. The event, I hoped, would be a good opportunity to try out the bike I would dearly love to own!

The only disadvantage of a continental European bike is the brakes are back-to-front! Back brake for the right side, front from the left, whereas British bikes are the other way round. It seems the rest of Europe abides by different rules to the Brits, and has to do everything the wrong way round. But, given my ease of adapting to drive on the wrong side, I didn't think it would be too much trouble. I am having more difficulty with the different key set out on this laptop!

I arrived on Thursday and was picked up by Kevin. Mel, David AUS and myself were staying at the Haselsberger house for the weekend, where we enjoyed some really great meals courtesy of K's grandparents!

Saturday was the middle distance race, where the starts were based on reverse order of the WRE list. I had a scrappy race losing a good 5 minutes throughout the course, and catching Sonja Reisinger-Zinkl AUT didn't help my navigation. Too many mistakes, but I was leading for the first 50% of the course, and ended up second - a mere 19 seconds from Michi Gigon AUT. This race then counted towards my WRE points boosting me up from 20th to 15th.

Waking up on Sunday I felt really tired and fatigued. Mentally I was in a different place to the previous day, and knew I would struggle with motivation when the course got tough.

The terrain around Faaker See is really uber physical. There is no relief from the roots and mud, and the onslaught began from the word Go! The Merida coped well in the terrain, and I felt that I owned the bike, telling it where to go - rather than the bike telling me where to go. My downhill, root and mud handling was considerably improved and I had no headache at the finish! Result!

At 65% of the course in the long I was dieing, and by 75% I was dead. It was really all I could do to ride the rest of the course to the finish. But another second result followed, which makes this one of the more successful weekends this year in terms of results.

Photos to follow later.

New Blog

Hi all,

I have moved this blog to my website www.emilybenham.co.uk

Please follow the blog from the website in the future.

Many Thanks

Em x

Swedish Maps

I have finally managed to relax post-Sweden after writing yesterday off due to extreme travelling and being awake for 35 hours!

Unfortunately, everything seems to have knocked on to today, and I am feeling slightly under-the-weather. But the sun is shining so I will clean my bikes in a moment!

Here are the maps from the Sweden Training Camp. I have not been able to load my route onto them.

Camp Cup 1: night short. 1st place in 35.50

Camp Cup 2: Long Mass start. 15th place in 73.32

Camp Cup 3: UltraSprint The Crying Mile. 2nd place in 14.43

Camp Cup 4: Middle/Long. 6th place in 70.08

Camp Cup 5: Middle. 1st place in 53.34

OjeOjeOje

Here is an account of the annual Swedish (usually Danish) training camp and season opener ....

Photos by: Per Frost, and Mark Stodgell

Merida MTBO Camp 2010

Åhus, Sweden

The 2010 Merida MTBO camp was held from 8-11th April in Ahus, near Kristianstad in southern Sweden. In previous years the camp has been held in Denmark with beautiful sunny weather and many of the world’s elite athletes descending on the chosen location for 4 days of training and racing. This year the weather was once again sunny, with some hazy mornings and temperatures ranging from 8- 12°C, fairly good considering the snow only melted in this region a couple of weeks ago.

I was travelling from Portugal via London with a complex airport change from Luton to Stansted, with 28kgs of bike-in-a-bag. I had left my Austrians friends and fellow athletes the day before and was meeting them in Copenhagen on Thursday morning. Travelling with me to the camp was ‘camp-first-timer’ Mark Stodgell also of Team GBR.

On arrival at Åhus Strand hotel it was down to business with bike building and then a training ride around one of the nearby sand dune areas. The men quickly set a fast pace, which was surprisingly comfortable in the undulating terrain. That same evening was the first camp cup race, the night sprint. Dreaded by many who fear the dark and by those unexperienced at night MTBO, it is also enjoyed by those nutters who crave night rides and meeting other athletes head-on on small twisty singletracks.

Personally, I love the night MTBO. It is a complex mixture of riding fast, planning ahead, and spotting the path junctions you need. Distance judgement is crucial and many small paths are easily missed when your circle of light is pointing the wrong way at the wrong time. Losing peripheral vision is strange at first, but you soon adapt to spotting obstacles and features immediately approaching. With this race being a sprint, it was complex navigation where you could lose 20 seconds on a leg by taking the wrong route. It was permissible to ride the course before dark, and then have 10 minutes added to your competition time. But I declined this opportunity since I figured it impossible to gain a ten minute advantage over a 35 minute course.

The is no advantage in night MTBO of starting late, you cannot see bike tracks well enough to gauge approaching turns and junctions, and a cyclist ahead of you could be anyone, or just a random punter. I had a pretty good race. I was up for it, ready to go, and despite having a cold, felt fairly strong on the bike. I made a few small route choice errors losing only 90-120 seconds throughout the course, and won in a time of 35.50, with Michi Gigon in second, a mere 16 seconds behind. This was pleasing. During the Portugal training camp I had beaten Michi twice, and now I had done it in a slightly more competitive race. 

It was then straight to bed before an early morning and typically Scandinavian/European breakfast of yoghurt and muesli. Yum! The next day hosted two camp cup races, the long distance mass start, and the ultrasprint - also aptly named the Crying Mile. The long distance in the morning was not nearly as long as last years 3.5hours and 5 map changes. But after I was a spoon to the first control and lost two minutes, I found myself unable to catch the leading pack. No leg strength and a lone rider made this impossible. I was 6 minutes down on the leaders in 15th place.

Re-fuelling at lunch and the sun shining through the cloud made me feel better. The Crying Mile was held on the sand dunes in a complex area of paths on a map scale of 1:1500. The were 17 controls in 1.5km, with all athletes riding the same course. You would think opportunities for following would be prime here, but in fact, many people rode of the map and went exploring for 20 minutes before finding the first control, whilst others failed to grasp the map scale and visited most controls before finding the correct one. I had an almost perfect race until the penultimate control, where I dropped my concentration and rode to the final control, losing 45 seconds and thus my lead to Michi Gigon of Austria. I still managed 2nd place and about 20 seconds behind.

Afternoon training was a map memory course with a slightly unusual concept which could be implemented for armchair technical training!

In the evening I felt worse and worse. My cold and sore throat were creeping back and the next day I woke up feeling utterly exhausted. After getting back into bed pre-middle/long distance I didn’t feel much more alert, but being highly competitive and with camp cup 4, I headed out with the others and managed to pull a 6th place out-of-the-bag, only 4 minutes behind Ksenia Chernyk of Russia. Surprisingly, again I beat Michi, meaning that she took the overall lead, with Ksenia in close second and me a few points behind in 3rd. After some crude calculations, we figured that both Michi and I would drop the points of the long distance meaning I only needed to finish the final race 15 points behind to win overall. With the final race on Sunday in technical sand dunes, it would suit both Michi and myself so the competiton was hotting up. Michi has won the camp cup twice, in 2007 and 2009, as well as winning 12 gold medals in European and World Championships, so she is a very worthy competitor of whom I am honored to get close to in the results this year. Last year I was 5 minutes behind in most races, so I have made a huge improvement in 8 months.

I chose to have a rest afternoon and let my body recover, whilst supporting Mark in Paallikoos Diabolo Challenge - a 100m course of 20 controls where the aim is to standing punch, or use the most effective punching technique to beat your competitor in each round. Mark qualified in 4th fastest and after winning the preliminary round, he was seeded against Andreas Rief of Austria, last years defending champion. It was a tense race, which I couldn’t watch, but after seeing Mark was a control behind at half way, everyone thought Andi had it won. But Mark pulled it back, Andi had punched the last control and appeared to coast towards the finish, whilst Mark aggressively punched a second later and piped Andi to the line. Stodge then won the semi-finals easily, but lost the final after messing up a control. 

Also in the evening were some spot prizes, where random letters and numbers are chosen which correspond to a certain athlete. Merida were sponsoring the camp by providing a Matts TFS 900 XC frame. It was very tense. The first name called was one of the organisers who wasn’t present, so a name was drawn again. And it was me ... I don’t travel  light, too many clothes, so fitting a bike frame in my bag was troublesome!! But I won a bike frame ... this week was turning out to be lucky.

And finally to Sunday, and camp cup 5. After some friendly banter between myself and Michi, with both of us being competitive, the pressure was on. Could Michi win the camp cup for the third time? Or could I ride faster in the technical area? I started 5 minutes ahead of Michi and rode a really good race catching some very good athletes on the way round. Aside from making a few small errors and losing 30 seconds or so, I finished in a good time, although I couldn’t tell my exact time. Michi then finished about 5 minutes after, and I did some crude calculations and guessed that we had done a fairly similar time, but that she had probably just beaten me. At download I was told I had a new fastest time and beat Michi by 90 seconds, and thus winning the camp cup overall, which Johan later confirmed by presenting me with the coveted yellow jersey :-) 

With late evening flights back to the UK we hung out in Copenhagen for a few hours, but for me there was more hanging around once we had landed. I am currently sat writing this in a 24h McDonalds, not that I am eating the food they serve, but London Liverpool Street station closed at 1am and the underground doesn’t re-open until 5.30am for me to get back to Sheffield. Oh joy!

Here are the overall results from the top three women

1  Em Benham   21 Team GBR         

35:50    1  1:13:32   15    14:43    2  1:10:08    6  53:34    1           

1282           960          1268          1136          1278           4964 

   

2  Michaela Gigon   33 Thömus Team Austria        

36:08    2  1:10:17   13    14:27    1  1:10:44    8    54:54    3           

1273          1080          1279          1124          1240           4916 

3  Ksenia Chernykh   39 RUSSIA VIK                 

42:06    6  1:06:52    1    15:30    3  1:06:31    1    55:00    4           

1091          1207          1234          1206          1237           4884 

Portugal

I am currently stood waiting for myflight back to England to arrive, in Lisbon airport. I have been in Portugal for10 days and have had the best time. Funnily, it has taken me longer to write these three sentences than what it did to check in!!! The keyboard needs a lot of effort.....

Anyway, we spent some time in Porto and then Chaves before heading south to Lisbon for5 days of sun ,sea and biking. Ventured intoLisbon yesterday which, although a nice city, I´m not in a hurry to see it again. Except for the sweet shop by the old elevators!

Training wise, I amfeeling fit again (even beat Michi G twice!). Next up is an aiport transfer from Luton to Stansted and then a flight tomorrow toSweden to meet the Austrians again. It is strange saying goodbye this morning when I will see them in 12 hours! Looking forward toSweden now. More friends to see again after 8 months.

Ciao

A New Season

I have been on placement at Chesterfield hospital for the last 6 weeks, which has been a mixture of experiences! With all the commuting I have been unable to train as well as I would have liked, but hopefully have not lost a great deal of fitness.

I was concerned that I would not be able to travel as I only managed to finally get my passport on Wednesday ... why do things on time when you can leave them to the last minute and stress about them!

So this morning, it was a 4am start, with some last minute packing and I was on my way to the train station. A four hour train ride, with a couple of changes (not the easiest with a 30kg bag in tow and a heavy rucksack. I made the journey without breaking a sweat and it was the most relaxed travelling has been for a while, if not ever. 

On arrival at Gatwick on of the Easyjet staff permitted me to queue jump (the queue was 60 minutes long) due to my heavy and large bag. From there, I said goodbye to my bike, and headed to the shops for some hair spray, food and Euro's ... and perhaps some perfume :-)

The assistant in the duty free wanted a high five as he liked my earrings! 

During the flight I was restless, but excited to get to Portugal and see all my friends. I had a couple of hours to wait at Porto for the others, but I got chatting to a really hot guy, who was on the same flight with the same bike bag and staying in the same region of Portugal.

The last 8 months have really dragged on, and at times, time has stood still for me. But now I am here, with internet :-) :-) and feeling pretty full after a delicious dinner. Bed time.

Gute nacht x