Full-time job and world championships: Merle Brunnée on her balancing act in professional sport

Merle Brunnée is a multisport athlete. She competes in triathlons and duathlons. This year, she defended her long-distance title at the duathlon world championships, held at the Powerman Zofingen. A short time later, she finished 14th at the Ironman World Championships in Nice. There were only a few weeks between the long-distance triathlon and her sixth place at a world championship in a completely different discipline: cycling e-sports.

You are a runner, cyclist, duathlete, triathlete. And a cycling e-sports rider. Quite a lot. And you're a doctor in your job. How do you manage to juggle it all?

I wish I had the magic answer to this question and an insider tip. It's always a balancing act. I work full-time, that's 42 hours a week, and train 15 hours a week. The only tip is actually: a lot of discipline and a very tight schedule.

In everyday life, I hardly do anything other than work, train and sleep. As long as I enjoy it and I can see that I'm making progress and I can take part in cool events like the World Cup, I'm happy to do it. It's fun for me. That's probably the secret: I enjoy it.

How did you get into cycling e-sports?

That was a development that I hadn't planned. When I bought a racing bike a few years ago and then winter came, I noticed that other people were always riding indoors and training on Zwift.

Especially for me, who works full-time and can often only train when it's already dark and perhaps even cold. Indoor cycling was the best way to continue training in winter. In other words, I bought a roller, which was the first step. Initially just to be able to continue training.

Training advantage through indoor cycling and racing

Then a triathlon team I was friends with approached me. They wanted to take part in a triathlon twin series and needed some support. They knew I was a good cyclist and asked me. That's how I got involved. I took part, did quite well and then I did more and more Zwift races, indoor bike races.

I realised, hey, that's totally cool. It's also easy in terms of logistics. You can just set up the roller and ride off, you don't have to travel anywhere. The big benefit for me is that it gives me an enormous training advantage. The races are a huge incentive for me to train well - and the races themselves are good training. When I regularly take part in races, even indoors, and compete with others, it's a completely different training stimulus than if I were just riding something in front of me. It's also a lot more fun. Of course, I don't just race, I also do my structured training sessions. The racing dynamics and riding against others is simply fun!

Hard makes hard

How important is roller training in your training plan?

A very big one in winter. In winter, I mainly ride indoors, maybe outside at the weekend. I also continued to train indoors in the summer. The importance of indoor training this summer was of course very low. Indoor training in summer makes sense for me for two reasons:

1. Roller training is very efficient. Two hours of indoor cycling is almost more efficient than two hours of outdoor cycling. You don't have to stop at any traffic lights, you don't have any descents, you're actually pedalling the whole time.
2. It has the great advantage of being safe. Especially if I want to ride TT for hours (editor's note: time trial bike), you first have to find a region where you can do it and where you are safe. Especially for intervals on the TT, especially if they are longer, it's not easy to find a suitable route to ride for 15 minutes or longer at a time. You have to watch out at junctions, for other road users anyway, for traffic lights, etc.

Driving inside is of course more boring than outside. But hard makes hard, right?

How does that complement triathlon?

I can train well in the TT position. Indoor training is also great for practising catering. You're always in control, you have everything you need and you don't have to rely on petrol stations. Of course, you have to have everything with you when competing outdoors. I think it definitely makes training easier.

Favourite at the Cycling E-Sports World Championships in Abu Dhabi

This was your third time at a Cycling E-Sports World Championships. What is your background?

I have steadily improved. I don't think I was in the top 20 when I first took part in the World Championships, but I think I was 14th in 2023, so I made it into the second of three races. I wasn't allowed to take part in the last one.

The system was different again this year. First you had to qualify for the semi-final and then in the semi-final for the final in Abu Dhabi. To do that, you had to finish in the top 20 in the semi-final. That was my goal. And it worked, I was even fourth in the semi-final.

Thanks to my good position in the semi-finals, I was placed as the favourite in the front row in Abu Dhabi.

Last-minute preparation

Did you prepare specifically for MyWhoosh?

Rather than preparing for the special platform, I prepared for the special requirements of the three races - or at least tried to. Tried, because I had actually focussed fully on my long-distance multisport events (triathlon and duathlon) over the summer. My goal was to be able to pedal a lot for a long time.

I then had to change my focus for the Cycling E-Sports World Championships. That put me in a bit of a predicament. I had my outdoor events, but I knew that I would have to focus on completely different things shortly afterwards. I had to improve my 1-minute power, I had to improve my sprint. I then tried to train for that rather than preparing specifically for the platform.

Are races in MyWhoosh different from those in Zwift? For example, the behaviour in the slipstream?

Yes, it's different. It starts with the fact that the view is different. For example, you can see the route profile differently. On Zwift, for example, you can't see the vertical metres that are coming up so well. You can see that better on MyWhoosh. You can see when you are riding in the slipstream and the colour of the wattage changes.

The slipstream behaviour is different. I have the feeling you fall out more easily on MyWhoosh. It's different. It's a game from that point of view. And the programming behind it is simply different. You notice that too.

Another difference is that Zwift has power-ups, while MyWhoosh does not.

Athletes meet for the first time

What was the atmosphere like on site during the event?

It was spectacular what they had set up there. You had your seat, your monitor, a whole screen full of monitors behind you and all the lighting systems. They made a really cool event out of it - staged it really well. It made it feel much more festive - or even much more like a World Cup - than if I had just done it at home. It was more dignified to hold it on site. And they did a really good job, great organisation too. It also had a lot of advantages. The centralisation made it a fairer competition:

• Everyone had the same equipment, which makes it fairer
• Everyone was weighed on site, which is also a fairness factor. The avatar has to weigh as much as the athlete so that it matches the power.

Was it your first time in the region? What was it like for you?

It was my first time in Abu Dhabi and my first time in the UAE, so it was completely foreign to me. It was impressive to see everything they had built there and what was being created. But it was also a different world. Starting with the climate, it was completely unfamiliar.

We were very well looked after on site. Everything that should have been considered was taken into account. I liked the fact that we also had the chance to cycle outside. Of course, most of it centred around the event and we had a lot of appointments around it.

Positive experience

What was it like for you as a woman, do you want to say something about that?

Of course, that was the question that everyone who hadn't been there before and didn't know the culture had been asking themselves. We had already been told beforehand that behaviour there is relatively normal.

Because Abu Dhabi, like Dubai, is a huge city and very international, it wasn't so special for me there as a woman, I'd say. I never felt strange. I think that was simply due to the big city - or thanks to it.

So it was a positive experience for you?

Yes, absolutely.

Valuable exchange

Have you exchanged ideas with other female athletes?

Yes, and I really enjoyed this personal contact. The fact that you didn't just see the avatar and the names, but that you could also talk to people. We were all staying in the same hotel. Talking to the others was really fun.

I also went out for a ride with a few people in the heat - it was really hot. It was a great added value to be able to do something together and get to know each other. That made it very valuable.

Merle Brunnée's training set-up

Where did you ride in your two other World Championships? In the living room?

Exactly, I either ride in the living room or in the study. I have my setup here, which I've perfected over the last few years. I have two fans, my reel and two monitors. I have the game on one monitor and the map on the other, for example, so that I know how the course is set up. I have a table with drinks, carbohydrates, gels, ... That has worked very well and proved its worth. I always set everything up quickly.

Of course, it was different in Abu Dhabi, where you didn't have your usual setup. But I knew the course and found my way around.

A car only drives when the tank is full

Compared to your outdoor races, the Cycling E-Sports races at the World Championships are very short. How did you eat?

Yes, it's actually quite different. I thought about it beforehand: "The first race lasts 15 minutes, but it actually only consists of a sprint, so I don't need any refreshments. The second race had this one main climb that lasted five minutes, so I don't need to eat anything during that. The third race lasted about 20, 25, 30 minutes, I can't remember exactly. There too ... I thought I didn't really need to eat anything during that."

Of course, I made sure that my carbohydrate stores were full and that I started the race with a full tank. A car only runs when the tank is full.

If you reach for the bottle and drink at a key moment, you run the risk of missing those two crucial seconds. - Merle Brunnée, multisport athlete

I handled it in a similar way to how I know it from similarly "short" competitions, i.e. when I run 10 kilometres or a half marathon outside. In other words, I took refreshments immediately before the race in the form of gels or something like that. Between races, I took something from my sugar drink. In short: I didn't eat anything during the individual races, but before and in between.

I don't think I drank either. You always have to stay focussed and make sure you stay in the slipstream. And if a favourite tries to break away, you have to react. It was very exciting in the men's race, for example Jason (Osbore) rode away from everyone in the last race. I was surprised that nobody went after him. If you reach for the bottle and drink at a key moment, there's a big risk of missing those two crucial seconds.

Strategy for the World Championship races

What can you tell us about your strategy? Have you thought about: when do I do the sprint?

I thought about it a lot and also talked about it with my training partners. I came to the conclusion: There is no right solution, you have to see what happens during the race. There were two likely scenarios for the race (sprint) in particular.

1. First scenario: Everyone sprints in the first round - that's what happened. Everyone wanted to sprint in a group, as the winner is not the one who pedals the most watts, but the one who is the fastest. In other words, you had to take into account factors such as slipstreaming and sprinting in a group. If I ride alone with 200 watts more and am slower, it doesn't help me at all. So I have to make it dependent on the group dynamics.
2. Second scenario: Everyone looks at each other and no one wants to go first, no one wants to go into the wind and something only happens in the second round or everyone does their own thing.

I went through various options in my head. My tactic for the first race was to stay focussed and see what was going on around me. Don't oversleep.

Then I was a little annoyed about one fact. As a favourite, I was placed in the front row. I can only see the avatars in the game on my monitor. If I had seen the others sitting behind me, I would have seen that someone was already getting out of the saddle or someone was straightening up - you can see when someone is about to sprint. Maybe my position was a disadvantage for me. But it still went quite well. And it turned out as expected: everyone sprinted in the first lap.

I had similar thoughts for the other races. But I also came to the conclusion that you just have to be attentive and see what happens. There is no plan that will definitely work. Unless my only plan is to start strong and get stronger.

From the Ironman World Championship to the Cycling E-Sports World Championship in 4 weeks

You've already said a lot about your preparation. How did you prepare specifically for the World Cup?

I didn't just have the Cycling E-Sports World Championships as the highlight of the season. With the Duathlon World Championships and the Ironman World Championships, which came as a relative surprise in my schedule, I had a completely different preparation than the others. Cycling was only one part of my training. I also ran and swam a lot and focussed more on the long-distance stuff. The Ironman was in mid-September. After that, I still had four or five weeks until the E-Sports World Championships. Others definitely prepared longer and more intensively. That may have been a disadvantage for me, that I didn't just prepare for it but also had these multisport events.

I've tried to dance at all the weddings and this is the result. I'm happy with it.

I only started my specific preparation after the Ironman. Nevertheless, I didn't just train on the bike, but continued in a similar way to before, i.e. also running and swimming, just doing other training sessions such as 40-20s (40 second intervals with a 20 second break, about three times 10 x 40-20) or other short intervals. I didn't do that at all before.

The Cycling E-Sports World Championship 2024 on MyWhoosh

What did you think of this year's race format with the three final races and the semi-final?

I thought the semi-final and final were great. It was yet another incentive to qualify for the final. It was worthy of this World Championship. I also thought the three different races in the final were great. The aim was to find the best possible rider, the best all-rounder. The three races, in which different strengths were required, was a good method. This perhaps made it more exciting than if it had only been one race. Of course, if the wish fairy had come and asked me "Merle, what kind of race format would you like?", then I would probably have wished for something else. Namely a 15-minute climb, because that's simply my strength. But who knows what next year will bring.

There were already three races last year - but a little differently ...

Exactly, only last year not everyone was allowed to drive all the races. I liked that much better this year. All the finalists were allowed to drive all the races.

A look into the future

How do you see the future of e-cycling?

Difficult. Many people smile at it a bit and say "What's that? Riding indoors? Why don't you ride outside?". I think anyone who has tried it will quickly appreciate it. Especially for people like me, who aren't full-time athletes but do it on the side, it's a big advantage.

You can ride 24/7, you have a community, you have social rides, you have races on the various platforms, you can do it from the comfort of your own home, ... I see huge potential there. Another thing you shouldn't underestimate is the inhibition threshold. For me personally, there is a very low inhibition threshold when it comes to getting on a roller and riding indoors.

It's different outside. If I know it's 16:30 and the sun is about to set, I could still ride for half an hour. But I don't go out on my road bike for half an hour - especially if you live in a big city and have to get out first. A quick 30 or 45 minutes on the roller is no problem at all. Maybe it's even already set up? This makes it much easier to fit bike training into everyday life.

I would like to give a tip to all those who are still a little sceptical about this: Just give it a try. It's different to riding outside, of course. A in terms of intensity and B in terms of entertainment value. I enjoy indoor riding, I have to say.

The next competition plans?

My 2024 season is over, what is always possible are local running events. As far as multisport is concerned, I'm now looking at what triathlons I can do next year. That will start again in spring.

Cycling e-sports is a great way to spend the winter. Until the outdoor events come round again, it's at the top of the list. If you look not only at MyWhoosh but also Zwift, there's the Zwift World Series. I'm taking part in that. Next year, I hope to qualify for the Zwift Games and all the "online elite races", so there's a good chance I'll be there.