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