Hoogerhide-World Championships Preview

World Championships. Wow, we're almost there. What a journey it has been.

Hoogerhide, Netherlands. Man, what can I say.

So we got here yesterday, Thursday and the course was already packed with people watching us pre-ride a few days before the show. Kids lining the street begging for autographs. Not just one or two, but I'm talking boat loads. I stopped to sign a couple today and they were ecstatic, they just kept on coming and coming, seriously it was almost overwhelming.

Natasha and I finally got our team Canada kits. It has been our shared dream for the last couple years to be able to wear our Nations color and represent. Let me just say I made sure to take a quick picture of Tasha. I put mine on and funny enough the skin suit is the best fitting skinsuit I've ever had and as a change of events from this year, no one has worn this one!

So, the Canadian crew is pretty cool. Wendy and Norm had hoodies made for us, that say Team Canada, and are last names are written on the back with a huge maple leaf and and a picture of a guy carrying a bike, thanks guys. So we're all looking pretty cool. Our manager here is Dan Proulx, he was involved with the Canuk effort in Bejing and we had a pretty rockin showing there so...

The U-23 guys are pretty cool, Kyle Fry, Andrew Thomas and Brian Robinson, they are up tomorrow and we'll be following them closely, as our hotel is about 900 meters from the course, yah Norm reserved this hotel last year! Good call him. It's a perfect location, we even have a place for all our bikes and I got a free tour of a Chinese food kitchen in our hotel.

I could describe the course for you but you can get a guided tour.
http://www.wkhoogerheide2009.nl/en/parcours.aspx

It does it some justice...but the downhill is not as prominent in it and there are a few 180 degree turns off camber that are pretty tricky.

We've already ridden it a couple of times, it keeps on changing, its fast mostly dry, frozen in the morning and then thaws out later.

The venue is insane, the whole town is shut down as the course goes right through downtown, all the shops have jerseys and bikes in the windows, there are flags everywhere and the atmosphere is electric, it's gonna be MENTAL.

We've been getting lots of encouraging mails and facebook comments, keep em coming, it helps, the energy and the enthusiasm are greatly appreciated.

Oh yah, I was able to order our coffees this morning in dutch and we actually got what I ordered, so I'm pretty stoked about that. It's amazing that coffee in most languages is pretty much either "koffee" or "cafe". Did I ever pick a great beverage to enjoy.

The only thing better than that is Natasha is 100% and I haven't seen her ride like this since Nommay, it was like a switch flipped. We fixed a couple little things on her bike, that were causing her some grief and bang she is on fire, it is so nice to see, oh my GOD, did she ever pick a great time to find the fire again....

Booyakatcha!(Snap)

Milano World Cup

Ciao...gratzie...prego.
Well this post could be about 10 pages long if I don't police myself, but I'll try to do it as briefly as possible without taking out too much of the details that made this trip to Italia pretty fantastic.

Logistically not as easy as you would think. Stef drove us to Charleroi airport in Southern Belgium Friday afternoon. What I love about southern Belgium is that it is french and it's nice to be able to read signs, understand what people are saying and not feel like a half whit.

So we're waiting to board, we look over and see that Sven Nys is on our flight as well. Pretty ironic, well ok it's not ironic, but it's just cool to see that sometimes we think alike.

Off the jet, cab ride to the hotel in Bergamo Itay, which is for sure one of the nicest places in the World. Waiting to check in I see this guy in the hall, humm that guy looks a lot like Verveken.
Mainly there was a good reason for that, it was Verveken and his buddy Stybar. Cool thing about Verveka' is he's totally down to earth and Wendy and Helen know him a little, so they chatted a little. I tried to think of something funny to say...but I was also trying to pretend like I was really cool and so I said nothing. I think it worked.

So I had the best 8 Euro ravioli ever for dinner. I could write about it, but I mean , fresh pasta in Italy, enough said.

Next day, hop on a bus to the train, train to Milano. Really cool train station. So now we were looking for a bus to Linota airport...then cab ride to Linota NH hotel. Luckily our bikes followed in the van, we traveled with an overnight bag only. It was pretty cool to be in Milan, get a little tour through part of the Centrum on our way to the hotel. It must be off season, cause the hotel wasn't very expensive but it looked super Euro chic.

I'm still trying to understand the whole "bidet" thing. I mean it looks like a toilet, but it's obviously not for that. So I think it's for washing purposes as the soap beside it was called "intimate wash". Seems like a huge fascination for washing private parts, I just didn't think that it's necessary to have a whole area designated for such a procedure, really whats wrong with just washing in the shower. Maybe I'm just a Moose, but I just really can't see myself ever using one of those. Maybe they just had extra pipes in the bathroom and needed to hook em up to something. A water fountain would be nice.

So, the Milano course. On the edge of a lake. Long pavement drag on some grass, lots of sweeping corners and steep ups and downs as part of the course is a BMX track. A couple sweet burms, some tacky thick mud, some long straights, more sweeping turns, shallow stairs a few kick ups and downs, some fast barriers and voila.

Womens race.

Pretty big crash on the starting straight and Natasha had to scrub some speed which didn't help with the fact that she was already in the third row. The course did get really congested at one of the climbs as some girls weren't able to ride it, then there was a crash in one of the bowl sections and Tasha had to dig to get around some of the girls. She put in a really great second half of the first lap and rocked the second lap, she was going pretty good until she lost traction in a loose section and wiped out a little. She worked pretty hard to come back from that and put in another couple big efforts only to once again wipe out 2 laps later in a similar part of the course.
She put in a solid ride, everything is falling into place and the stars are starting to align for her.

She was looking a lot more like the rider I know she is. I think the rest did her some good and expect that everything will come to blossom next week. We're not really putting the pressure on her though. We know she has all the tools necessary to pull off a great ride but the lessons we have learned along the way have been extremely valuable and are definitely what we will be building next years success and the years after success on. So lately we have had a little more of an open attitude as we have controlled as many of the variables that we had control on up to this point so she's just staying focused but allowing herself a little room to breath.

This season has already been a huge success and it's just one more chance for her to put some extra cream on the top. I know that once she puts on that National Team kit, she will have the desire to feel the pain and it will make her hungry to go out and grab a hold of her performance and strangle it.

Mens race.

Well I have to say that this week I eased off on a few things, first was training, I took two days off and just did a few sprints here and there and just "piano" in between. Also, I knew travelling to Italy I wouldn't have as much control on my diet and such so I just gave myself a little freedom and didn't stress that there was no Muesli on the breakfast table. Ok well I brought my own oats, but I ate some Nutella and a chocolate brioche here and there.

So, just to set the mood. Milan, by the lake, 10 degrees, sun is shinning bright, screaming Italian fans, some mud, but not insane amounts, just enough to make it sticky. No leg warmers no undershirts, thin socks. Viva Italia!

I told myself that I was going to rid the start demons today. So I made sure the coffee was flowing, the bike was good, head was good, highly motivated, all systems go and I really felt like I was rocking the course. Call up, well sort of in the 6-7th row. Got the elbows out.

Gun goes, great reaction, into the pedals, making my way up and.....all of a sudden Bart Arenouts (RaboBank) goes down, not sure what happened, but as I was coming straight up into him I slam on the breaks skid and just barely miss his wheel. If you think I'm exaggerating, check it out...
http://cyclingnews.com/cross/2009/jan09/worldcup9_09/index.php?id=/photos/2009/jan09/worldcup9_09/worldcup9_092/amen104
{that's my butt to the left)
Ahhhhh. So I loose almost all momentum. No prob, get back to speed, huge traffic jam on the first hill, jump off, run, ok. I had the pedal to metal and I miscalculated a corner and hit a snow bank, bobbled, but corrected it then screwed up my line coming into the corner before the stairs and dropped my chain as I bounced my bike off a rut really hard, as I didn't want a repeat of Zolder where my chain got stuck in my my frame, I bent down to fix it. Once again DFL during the first lap of the World Cup. Last week I got mad, this week I just raged!
But I used it to just start riding my brains out as hard as I could and just staying 100% focused on getting the job done. I just thought that I would just ride as it if my life depended on it.

For only the second or third time during this trip I was truly on a mission. The course was coming together really well for me. Especially since the lines were getting progressively harder to ride as the course deteriorated, my laps for the most part actually got faster.

There were a lot of things that went through my mind, I loved the speed, big ring for 90 % of the course so yah it was just great. I started catching guys and just riding through them. I caught Francis Mouray and ran past him through the barriers. It was pretty good. I'm happy about what I did with the hand I got dealt and that was all I could do. Only shitty thing is they pulled me just before the pavement cause I would have made the same lap as the leaders but as the start finish was super long I would have been in the way of the photos for the sprint finish. But just for the record I was on the same lap, so I finished 41st. Best yet World Cup performance, by far. I would have been just about 6 minutes down, maybe a few seconds more cause I turned myself inside out and back over again not to get lapped. It was a real visceral kind of gut wrenching experience, it is the whole reason I started racing cross, cause it hurts so bad.

After the race I was wrecked. It was amazing, I felt like I had never raced that hard in my life.
So if you are wondering how hard it is race an Elite World Cup it's that hard. Excluding the first lap misfortune's, I rode technically far and above what I've ridden and perhaps harder than ever and it was barely enough to make the lap, it's that fast. There is just not a whole lot of room for error when you start out from the back.

Final thoughts.

Italy, we loved it. Absolutely beautiful, great food, but beware of cab drivers who give you "flat rate", ie rip you off. If you love great tasting food, go to Italy. And I don't think I've ever heard anything like cheering in Italian, it just sounds so cool.

Se amate l'alimento grande dell'assaggio ed il lato bello del paese dovete visitare Bergamo, Italia. La vista del sole di regolazione sulle alpi prenderà il vostro alito assente.

DSJ

Is the juice worth the squeeze?

Ok, well maybe I stole that from chick flick we watched a couple of days ago, but it just kind of stuck with me since then. I think that it was from the Forgetting Sarah Marshall flick, and the main characters buddy was asking him if going through a troubled relationship was worth while, hence the juice, and squeeze were all the trails and tribulations along the way.



As I was re gluing some tubulars in the catacomb like basement here in Belgium, I thought about that. All the money, all the time, travel, training, effort, is it all really worth it. I think it's ok to periodically question what you are doing. Not necessarily stray from what you are doing but just give it a little thought. You might read some of our blog posts and think the same. Like why on earth would you subject yourself to all that.



We probably had a little more time to relax today as both Natasha and I took an unscheduled "day off". If cycling is like religion, we are pretty devote followers of the Gospel according to Ken. We do have a little bit of blind faith in this man who guides most of our "training". Just like an orthodox Christian sits at the pulpit, we sit firmly on the trainer in a habitual lamentation of suffering in front of one another. So for Natasha and I to miss a day of training, is like my Grand Mother missing her Sunday morning mass, it doesn't happen very often.



But once you realize that the training is just like going to church or saying a prayer to the gods of fitness and form, you realize that you are not a sinner for just taking a day off. Your not questioning your faith in what you are doing, you're just little tiered and giving yourself a break.



That was a long analogy to say we were taking a day off, but it's our blog and most of it is rambling on about nothing anyways, so this is no different.



As a full time athlete, it's hard to admit that you are tiered or a little burned. In one way it was easier when I was working, as work was the best excuse in the World and when you work, train and race you are about 60% more productive anyways. Theoretically your "job" is supposed to be racing and training. But as long as you realize that the "r" comes before the "t" and you just have to minimize the S in the stress in between, you're doing your job. After all, as the season is nearing an end it matters not that you did all your training the weak leading into worlds. All the work is done, we just have to listen to our bodies, be rested and sharpen the knives to go into the next two races aiming for the jugular going for the kill.



Success here in Belgium is harder than squeezing juice out of an unripened mango, but I sure do love my mango juice....especially with some Shawrma Palace. mmmmm



DSJ

Roubaix World Cup-The hell of the north-long version

I can honestly say I know why they call the Paris Roubaix the Hell of the North. Not that we had to do 250 km like they do, much less as obviously it's a cross race and it's 40 min for the dames and 1 hr for les hommes.

I don't even know where to start. I will give you a caveat, I have so many excuses for my poor performance in this race that I could organize them by alphabetical order! I think it was fitting that the French organize such a course like this. What else can you expect from the people that bring you Paris-Roubaix, the Tour de France and such races. They are masochists!
They are true organizers of the bloodsport. I wish I could write this post in French (well i could because I am Franco -Ontarian) but only does the French language have such a descriptive nature that I could clearly and concisely describe the day, the course and my feelings.

I'll give you a couple of words..the course "horrible et miserable", the conditions "l'enfere", and left me feeling "decourager".

The course started and finished on the famous Roubaix Velodrome. Made it's way out around the track though almost knee high muddles of water, mud mud mud, off camber mud, a 3 meter descent that was unrideable and you just did a mud slide down, slog through mud so deep it pulled an American riders shoe right off his foot and a spectator had to help him find it. Then up stairs so massive that the top guys were almost walking and had to use their hands to push against their thighs to get up, then "the descent". Well of the 60 best riders in the World I think maybe 5 guys rode. It was a mud slide 6 meter drop off. It wasn't that bad the day before as I rode it 5 times. But it was one of those things that you could probably ride 90% of the time, but that time that you wouldn't make it...yeesh, cross bikes were not designed for that. Then the course went through more mud that seemed faster to run, although once you started running, well it wasn't really running, you felt as if someone pressed the slow motion button. Then there was a bunch of off camber running, then there was a sand pit that if you didn't get enough momentum after running that you were hold on....guess what...running. After that there was about three inches of packed gravel to ride around a gravel/mud track, that if you strayed you were almost up top your pedals in mud, then a set a barriers so high that I actually ran on top of then more sand. All that to bring you back on to the track for a little respite. Yeesh.
The course was so challenging that they actually removed the stairs and the massive descent from the Womens, juniors race but kept it in for spectacle sake in the U23 and Elite men.

Natasha had a poor start as she got some water/sand in her eyes off the start and hesitated a little. She was riding just out of top 20 until she ran down the mud slide and fell/vaulted on her arm with pins in it. She took about 30 seconds to get up, then every time she jumped on her bike could only use one arm as she could not bear weight on the other and has tires burns allover herself. Needless to say her legs are a mess and her arm was pretty swollen. She decided to go to the medic tent to try and get some ice for it. They thought it was swollen and broken and forced her to go to the Roubaix Hospital.

I'll get back to that.

So during my warm up, Stef tells me that Natasha hurt her arm, its swollen and she may have to go to hospital. I wasn't totally worried cause I know Natasha worries and figured it was ok. As it got closer to my race I was a little concerned that she was not back, but focused on my race.
My race started and it was over, literally, pretty fast. I too got some sand in one of my eyes and had to close an eye while everyone was screaming down the berm of the track before the bottle neck into the course. I came onto the parcours last, bobbled a couple times and was pretty much out of contention. I fought hard to pull back some places. I had a great half lap, as I made up some serious ground, so great that the pit crew missed me and when I came around to get my bike, it was on the wrong side and I was in the pit off my bike waiting as they brought it around. I should have just jumped back on, but I was a little frazzled from digging so deep to pull a few spots back and I lost all the ground I had gained and was right at the back again. I didn't give up. I fought back again and did what I could. Then I saw the leaders coming on the opposite side of the course. I felt like I was a small planet in the galaxy and the Death Star was preparing to hunt me down and blow me up with a huge lazar beam. I was riding horrible. I was cursing under my breath, it was painful to put myself through it. I saw Verveka coming through I eased up and surrendered before I taught myself any more bad habits. It went from bad to worse to awful and I wasn't firing on all cylinders. Yeesh.

Get back to the car, find out Natasha is gone to Hospital. Frick. Well that's not quite what I said.
Then I almost lost it. I just thought of worst case scenario, Tasha in the hospital, freezing cold , full of mud in her kit, in pain, confused. I felt a wave of nausea come over my body, partly sickened by poor embarrassing performance, partly of fear for Natasha.

Stef gave Steevie a ring on his mobile, Tasha was ok. He dropped me off at the hospital and she was just awaiting x-rays. Nothing broken,just a bruise over the plates in her arm that according to the magnificent French doctor , should have been removed quite some time ago as they will cause heamatomas every time she crashed on that arm. So everything ok, Tasha in one piece.
Feew.

After days like that you search to find the positives. You try to find meaning. Sometimes you just look at the race and that's a mistake. Yesterdays race didn't really teach me anything, it was bad, so was I nothing good to say about that. But I think for the first time I really truly got scared. It put fear into my soul and respect. And it made me realize how much I love Natasha. I know sometimes I'm hard on her and I'm a little sarcastic. Maybe it was a lesson to teach me to just really appreciate what we are doing and although it would be notice to be racing better, the glory in it is to be here and to get beat with the shit stick, loose the battles and just fight. I've, well we've been trying so hard since we are here. Believe me, eating right, training right, resting. Giving it all we have and it just hasn't really showed in our results. I sometimes feel like maybe I should just eat waffles all day and watch movies cause realistically it didn't take a hole lot of anything to do what I did yesterday. But once again, no said it was going to be easy. And if you just look at the results sheets and focus on how far down you are you've lost more than just your 8 minutes or lap or 2 laps or 4 laps for that matter.

I know I've painted a pretty grim picture...believe me it's grim. But hey racing in the mud in January in Europe against the best in the World that have been doing this since they were 12.
I'm glad it's hard. It should be hard. It is made to crack you. Crackla lacka daka.

If we were into ez we would just stayed home and said we wished we were here. Wishing is ez. Doing not so ez.

So shine on you crazy diamonds, I was totally defeated yesterday. I wanted to quit and go on vacation. I was mad, I had every excuse in the book.

But as the French say, and I love this and it makes every single ounce of pain worth it...think of me saying this in French or with a French accent..."Today was not so good, but tomorrow is a new day and it will be better...courage mon ami courage". Today we live to wash the clothes, our bikes and rinse the evil experience from our minds, this week we go to Italy. Maybe its good maybe it's bad, but we go and we try to have good race and that's all we can do.

DSJ

All that matters is how you finish

As Derrick had written, the last week and a half has been tough. Even coming into to it has been tough. Obviously my racing here hasn't been what I had hoped for. Yes the first race off the plane I was super happy about, but after that I didn't plan for. It sucked, I didn't get sick all cross season and what I did to myself travelling every weekend throughout North American and training hard the days in between, I pretty much should of been destined to get sick. But because of not working those months it just allowed me to stress my body a little extra in another way other than work and cope with it.

Then of course I get sick a week into being in Europe. I felt awesome the first week and then it totally left me when I got sick. I was pretty upset, and I tried to race when I felt better but it wasn't there, nothing was there and I thought I should just pack up and go home as I didn't make this trip to be finishing over 2 minutes back from the wins at the races. The picture above shows what I felt like doing while I was riding (basically putting a mask over my face). I thought I should just stay home to get stronger and not waste my time or money I didn't have. Yeah, I'm all for gaining experience but I'm also not made of money. If I can only afford so many trips to Europe for racing, I want to save it for the times when I am there to win and deserve to represent our country. As I'm sure you all know, cyclo-cross is not an Olympic sport and is totally self funded.


The good news is that with Derricks' help I snapped out of it this past week. For all of his efforts I have made him a super nice dinner every night for the last week or so. In return he is also spending a great deal of time on my bikes to make sure they are ready to give me 100% confidence. Derrick is also making me doing some visualizing each night of me racing to my full potential.


The first couple days beginning this last block of training did start off slow thought. But, I had two weeks to train, it did start to get better. Believe me the first few work outs were awful and my power was crap. But then I got the feedback of what I needed to tell me why the races weren't going well, cause my power had gone down a bit because of the illness. But my attitude with this was okay, I have 10 days to turn this around and get back to what I am used to seeing. Ken (coach) said everything would be okay, the power of a year just doesn't disappear all of a sudden. The 385 days spend giving it 110% just don't vanish. And guess what, sure enough everything is back with all my hard workouts under my belt this week and just recovery to the World Cup on Sunday after today.

That's kind of all what matters, it doesn't matter how my Europe racing started or was going, it just matters how it finishes. Most importantly, how it finishes on the day of the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS. Everything I have done over the last 13 months has been put into this final day. All the sweat, tears, pain and frustration has been for it and that's what I have to remember. This World Championships is the first one of many in the future to build on and I will leave it all out on the course to push the bar for the next one.

How are you going to finish, are you going to finish strong?


NCE

yesterdays post

Well I can really say that this week is/has been pretty hard. Not to bore you with too many details but a few close to 3 hour trainer rides, one 5 hour ride yesterday in -6 weather and a few hours today, and a monster day tomorrow. Thank the lord we will be racing next weekend!

Yesterday's ride....I just don't even know what to say about that. I never really thought I was that tough, until now. I could have kept riding, but I would have needed another coke. But something really funny happened. I saw a red Horse! Picture me riding in Belgium, the roads are bare, the fields frosted in snow. I haven't shaved in a week or so and I have snot boogers all over my gloves, jacket sleeve and encrusted in my goatee. My water bottle is frozen solid, but I just have to get a good ride in. So I just start crushing it, my plan was to do the workout, then just ride for a bit until was 1.5 hours from home then turnaround and hope to find my way home.

So I'm out in the middle of nowhere..and I mean nowhere, when I crest an escapement and I see a magnificent Stallion standing on a hill on top of the snow covered field. I can see the horse is cold as vapour is coming out of his nose in puffs and looks like tobacco smoke. He is bright red and the eyn uur (1 oclock) sun is beaming off of him. As I get closer he looks a fantastic fluorescent red, he is a huge red horse, a Clydesdale, or even bigger, the biggest horse I've ever seen and he is standing in a field covered in snow, it was breath taking he actually looked like the bull on the Red Bull can, bright red almost on fire, crazy! Until I lifted my Rudy Project sun glasses, it was the reflection off the snow and the sun that made him look so red, he was brown...I put my shades back on cause he looked wickeder in RED...just about that time I decided that I was also going to need a coke, cause my MP3 wasn't working for quite some time and the sound of the wind and brain and the sight of the horse, I just started laughing....yup time for a coke.

I found my way home, just about 2 km away from the house I had to sip the last drop ok coke I put in my bottle as my handlebars felt like they were melting into the ground and all of a sudden the roads with about 2% gradient seemed like huge hills....thank god I made it home!

Funny enough, I wasn't really that cold, but I did have wool socks x 2 pair, thermal booties, leg warmers, thermal tights and 5 layers on top. When my hands would get cold, I would just do a sprint to keep the blood flowing, crazy.

I did get the comments bout Legendary Cross riders(Moose Story), yes how could I forget Mr Cross, Peter Wedge, definitely one of the most underrated Canadian Cyclists ever. I didn't really forget him, I just have never really met him so I don't really know him, so I don't have any stories about him. All the other guys I know...so it's easier to talk about them.

Oh yah shout out to Octto Dave who is sending us some gear from Taiwan, this guy is awesome, his company is great I would highly recommend supporting his products, even if it's just the bar tape, or a pair of carbon bars, or seat post.

Also a huge thanks to Vince and Peter for helping us out with our awesome Stevens Cross bikes this year and for helping us out straight through until Worlds.

Final shout out to Natasha for being nominated and winning Ottawa's Cyclist of the year. We're trying to hook Vince up with the tickets to represent Natasha at the awards banquet, it's supposed to be a pretty posh affair.

DSJ

Moose Stories

No I didn't see a moose, not in Belgium anyways. But that's what the Brits call us, the Moose.
Stef said Dave Coughlin wins the prize for the toughest Moose though. If you've never heard of Dave, he's at times the toughest guy and the softest all in one. Dave didn't come over this year, but for the last couple years, Dave makes the trip over and does his best to race Euro Cross.
As if Cross weren't hard enough, when Dave was here he didn't even have a car so he would either pump up his tires and ride there, to the race or take his bike on the train and then ride from the station to the race. He would pick up the odd job while he was here to pay ends meat and try to get the rest on start money and such. Now that's what I call tough.

Greg Reain raced in Europe the last couple years as well, and man Greg paid his dues, he suffered over here year after year to finally come home and get himself the National Jersey.

Kris Westwood, I'm told was the Original Moose. He was racing Cross in Switzerland years ago and he was there before most of the American guys and to this day still has one of the best finishes at Worlds of any Canadian in Cross.

So now it's going to be up to us to be part of the history. I hope what we do here inspires other Canadians to try to take their performance to the next level. For the sport to develop in Canada and to produce strong riders, we need those individuals to come over here for a few months every year to really get a feel for this. Coming over for two weeks is great, but two months really allows you to immerse yourself into the culture, get comfortable and find your legs.

That's what I think.

DSJ

pic

If you lookat my photo of the sand in the previous post this is me almost eating a fistfull of sand, well the guy beside me did...
and here is Andy .


DSJ

Vlaamse Witloof Veldrit, Tervuren, Bel (C2)

Bet you can't say that without a double take.
Today was the final bit of preparation before my bid to win the World Cup in Roubaix in two weeks. Haha. No seriously, it was the last race of our mini Euro race training camp. I mean you can train anywhere, but you can only get this kind of racing here. Obviously the goal was for a few top spots for Tasha, in which 13th at Nommay World Cup, 5th in Luxembourg and 9th today was a fair showing considering her illness and not being 100%. She could have probably trained a little less and had slightly better results, but she would have paid for that doubly at Worlds.

Today's course was super fast F1 style frozen, bone dry, twisty turny course with some some wide open sections to lay same power down and lots of blind 90 degree crit turns that looped their way through some crazy frozen ruts, a wide open power section, some pretty coarse sand and then a roller coaster of power hills.

Natasha had a respectable ride coming 9th in a pretty solid field. She still wasn't a 100% cause I know that other than being totally frozen, the course really suited her riding style. She tried to make up time on the power sections and then was a little too gassed on the technical sections and bobbled some things here and there that were not a problem in warm up. She wasn't totally content with her performance today, but the last couple of races have just been training to get the speed back and get some juice back in legs. She now has two weeks until Roubaix WC in which she can focus on training and preparation and we can work out a few little things in training and be well prepared for this round of the World Cup.

Wendy had another mechanical today and was pretty bummed, while Helen rode well to finish 3rd in her 1st Belgian podium this year.

Men's race. I was a little tired going into today and I knew that it was critical to be ready when the race went off as these races in which seem more like a criterium with some mountain biking thrown in here and there, you just can't make up any time. I had a descent start, but I was a little blown and faded back. Luckily I did as not 15 seconds later someone crashed hard on the fast and furious frozen ruts. Man this guy was out, I didn't stop to see if he was ok, I actually jumped over him, but he was down. It was kind of funny to be running on this flat frozen ground, but it was so bumpy I knew if I jumped back on right away I would go down.

So I was right behind the group of guys just out of the top twenty. I was trying to catch them and I overcooked the sand then bobbled and dropped my chain and they were gone. I fought back in forth with some dudes and dropped them in the crit corners.
I was on the last lap when Roger Hammond (former World Champion) was 8 seconds away.
I dug and dug and railed some corners and came about 1 mm from running into the leg of a barricade about ten times to catch him, but I finally did. I got on his wheel and was preparing myself for a full out sprint, I set up a good exit line around the last corner and popped out on the pavement with some good speed. I hit the pedals a few times and he sat up. I guess for a guy like that he would rather just sit up as opposed to possibly loose in front of his hometown crowd. Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily saying I would have taken it, but it would have been nice to see how I measured up today. Not that it really matters cause it was for 29th place, but for me it's a great result, 1st top 30 in Belgium!

So Tasha and I are pretty happy to have the day off tomorrow and to be done this little bit. We got to race everything from super muddy in Nommay, to sand pit downhills in Zolder, frozen ruts in Loenhout, a night race on sketchy gravel paths shooting through peoples backyards and through an alley, a frigin hill/mountain that has the Toronto day 2 course looking flat as a pancake and descents that had your arms numb after, to todays fast course with ice underneath frozen ruts.

Above is a pick from todays course...

DSJ

Petange Luxembourg-Tasha 5th DSJ 25th

We had an early start to our day today as we drove through the early morning smog into the hills of France and Luxembourg. Wendy said this course was comprised of a huge climb, then a descent, couple turns in a field and voila. Well she wasn't lying. The course just went up and up and up and then up again and then down through muddy single track roller coaster like trails. Not really your typical Cross race that's for sure.

I didn't really get to see Natasha's race as she finished up 5th, Wendy was 4th. For the ladies the top spots were pretty competitive and it was a good way for Natasha to realize that she belongs racing against the best in the World. I think she was content with her performance and she is returning to form and all the pieces are starting to come together for her. We recieved an email that she has been nominated for an award, but it has not been confirmed yet, so we won't let the cat out of the bag...or the rabbit out of the hat or however tht goes.
Also you can check out her interview on Pedal mag: http://www.pedalmag.com/index.php?module=Section&action=viewdetail&item_id=14900

When I signed in for my race, I asked if they had my points, as I havn't been getting a call up.."yah yah, we have the list, pas de problem". If only it was that easy. No call up for Tasha either, but I just said something to the commisaire and made my way forward, they said ahhhh ok, 160 points "pas de problem". So today I had told myself that I was just going to go all out and see what happened. I knew if ever there was a day to squeeze out a better result it was today. So the gun goes off and it was just balisitc, and I just kept the pressure on for as long as I could. I have to say that today I think I learnt to go pass the limits. I was top 15 or so, maybe even better for the first two laps. I couldn't hold it to the end as I was loosing a little ground on some of the descents as I'm just not used to that style of racing. It was really hard, I think I went a little too hard when I was battling with a couple guys for 17th place or so and I attacked them on the climb, full out attack. In retrospect that was a little too hard cause i was so buggered i couldn't go through the technical corners as well mainly cause I couldn't see and had trouble focusing. And then the last lap I just fell apart as my bike had about 50 pounds of mud on it and it just felt so heavy. So I ended up 25th. And I got the last bit of prize money. I bought a coke, a rice pie and a magnum ice cream and now I am broke again. I was completly spent after the race, like never before.

I'd like to think my fitness is better, but Ken would say that it takes months to make physiological changes, so I'll chalk it up to learning how to suffer a little more "Euro Cross Styles". I'm pretty happy about this as usually I start off slow and just play catch up, but this actually felt more like racing, but I go a little too excited, next time I just need to relax a little more to also finish strong. But it was a good day at the office in one sense, since to know your limits you have to go pass them every now and then.

DSJ