After preparing for the typical hot and dust conditions at Madrid it was pretty surprising that a huge storm came though on the Friday night and saturated the track. There were more showers through until race day which was overcast and not super hot (good for me). The rain had eased and after the women had dried out the track for us we had "hero traction" for the mens race.
I decided that in this one i wanted to race less like a tortoise and more like a hare. Although i have been fairly consistent and getting some good results with the old "slow and steady", i want to go faster, so i tried to go out hard and see if i could hang on. The traffic on the first lap was farily bad with a few scary moments and some bottle necks in the early singletrack i came through in about 95th in a small group after one lap. I managed to move up a few places into about 85th by the end of lap 4, but i was starting to feel tired. I really turned myself inside-out on the last 2 laps but i wasnt really moving fast up the hills. I lost a couple of places and then had a crash and lost another. In the end i rolled across the finish in 89th. I am quite happy with how i raced, i may not have quite finished it off but i did ride quite fast for the first few laps. I still need to get faster, but hopefully i am on the way.
We are now in Bagnieres-de-Luchon in the French Pyrenees for 3 weeks with Ian and Kate Potter. I am looking offward to not travelling for a while and getting some quality training done. Looks like i will also get a bit of work as a mountian bike guide for Kate and Ian's company, www.aquickrelease.com.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment