| ISDE Day3 - Tough Day In the Sand! Maria Pounds Her Way Through to Maintain 3rd Overall |
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| Written by Scott Thornton | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Monotonous, back-breaking, bike killing sand whoops! That's the best words I could find to sum up today's course, as it was described to me by Maria's father John just a few short minutes ago. Aparently I was mistaken yesterday when I said day 3-4 loops were more suited to Maria's riding style. It is actually the day 5 map that appears to include more mountainous terrain. As for how Maria handled the day3 course, John said Maria fought back pain all day and was, as we spoke, down at park ferme (where the pits are located) getting a back massage. She did feel much better today hydration-wise, as there was an ER doc on hand to help with hydration and other tips for coping with strenuous continuous physical exertion in the extreme heat. John said that it felt like 100 deg f. out there today.  Maria was 6th on the day but still managed to maintain her overall position in the #3 spot after 3 days. That's great news! I think there were lots of spurts today by several of the motocrosser women in the field. I saw a few of the women down the list taking turns at popping up and winning a test or two. I've gotta give it to Puy though, she's won nearly every test and continues to pull away from the field each day. After day 3, Puy has in creased her gap to nearly 7 min on Jonsson. Jonsson and Maria are both continuing to hang on to their respective positions with Jonsson in the #2 spot. I do see a good sign for Maria on the day. For days 1 and 2 she was losing about 30-40 sec on Jonsson. For day 3, Maria reduced that to a loss of only 17 sec on the day. That leaves Maria just 1min 30sec behind Jonsson after 3 days of racing. That's some close racing!  I think Maria is doing exactly what she needs to do to get her best finish. She's riding consistent and not pushing herself over the edge. That's exactly what it's going to take to pull off an upset at this point. As I said in day 1, this is a long long competition and in six days (3 to go) anything can happen! Keep hanging tough Maria!  You can see the unofficial overall results after day 3 posted below. See complete live results by clicking here.
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