That familiar sinking feeling..or is it?

Well, another week of abysmal weather conditions for the most part, up until the weekend at least. It rained pretty much none stop from Wednesday evening till Friday night which was pleasant. This meant a lot of sitting around promising to make up for the lack of training when the weather was good, so far we’ve got a backlog of about 30 hours. This meant that once again it would be a pretty easy week, but this I didn’t mind as I knew we had another double race weekend ahead. To pass the time I mostly sat at my computer scowering the internet for anything of any interest, unfortunately, despite its size, the internet can only be so interesting...even if 95% of it is porn. So to pass some more time I played on the Xbox, but this got boring, so I decided to have some food. Once I had done this I went and looked at the internet some more (I found a site which hosts some of the Futurama episodes this time). It was because of this doing nothing that I began to question my weight, I’d always been about 72kg but now I am nearer 76. Now whether I’ve grown at all or I’ve just put on some muscle I don’t know, but 4 kg is quite a lot when you think about it. I’m sure I’ve grown an extra roll on my stomach (the extra one being the first). So now, in my quest for Bruce Lee-dom my new task is to find a good race weight and stay at it. I reckon it’s probably around 74kg, but I intend to not over eat and to keep the training up and hopefully it will drop before levelling off nicely.

After the previous Saturday’s reasonable performance I was still actually thinking about the Sunday, which was a pretty dismal performance. If they had been the other way round I would have been much happier, but never-the-less I did my best to put it out of mind and concentrate on the positives...at least I had finished. I needed every positive I could think of coming into the weekend as it consisted of two Elite National races, races I hadn’t had a good experience of in the past. Not that I’ve done many of them, but they are pretty daunting if you think about them too much. The first would be the Tour du Charolais, a relative Brit fest, with 8 on the start list. At 154km the race would be pretty hilly, although with no major cols it is either up or down, but usually up. The Sunday would consist of Dijon-Auxonne-Dijon, a completely flat and fast 160km race but this time with only 3 Brits riding. I now know that any race with two place names in with a dash between them is going to be tough, this also applies to races with the words “Tour du/de/des” followed by a town, area or name of a country... generally, the bigger the harder. So the weekend was shaping up to be a toughie.

It came around slowly but surely and it was finally Saturday morning. The first race was a hell of a long way away with a 5 hour drive, if you are from England, imagine driving from Birmingham to Newcastle (if you are from anywhere else just imagine driving 5 hours) to get to your race. After finally arriving we signed on, picked up our numbers and went to warm up, little did I know it would probably be my worst ever day on a bike race wise. For the race I would be using an earpiece, a first for me, although it’s probably best if you understand the language being spoken into it, he might as well have been speaking...well... French, it wouldn’t matter in about an hour anyway. We lined up for the start and I had managed to wriggle my way to the front once more and here I stayed for the first few kilometres which were more of a procession. The action kicked off soon enough and I was quickly having to move up as riders attacked and then slowed. The road began to roll up and down and we were suddenly on the first climb of the day. Cleverly, the organiser had put a rush sprint half way up the climb, 2km before the top. This meant the pace was pretty rapid up the hill, but I still felt it was manageable being not too far down the peloton, but then 1 km after the Rush Sprint, disaster struck. There were a few wobbles just ahead of me to the left and these soon turned into a tsunami of a wave, causing riders to touch wheels and come down in a sort of domino effect across the road. I wasn’t one of them, but I was exactly 0.5 metres away from becoming one of them and because of this came to a dead stop unclipping in the process. What happened in the next kilometre decided what I would be doing for the next couple of hours and it wasn’t my preferred choice.

Basically, I panicked and tried way too hard to get back into the string of riders, this put me into my weird overload mode that I have only ever experienced during this season of racing. It meant riders where coming past me at an alarming rate and although I desperately tried to get on before the top of the hill, it was only a matter of time before the string of riders ended and the cars began. When this did happen I was sort of able to go again, but the peloton where motoring and I was struggling to hold them. The DS told me over the radio to wait for a small group behind and try to get back on with them but this turned out to be the final nail in the coffin. Only 30km gone and my race was over. I spent the next 70km thinking how rubbish I was and wondering if I’d ever finish one of these damn races. Once I got to the finishing circuit I pulled out and spent the next 30 minutes looking for the team van, before waiting for the rest of the riders to arrive. I was pretty non-plussed to say the least.

Luckily our drive was short as we were staying in a hotel for the next race which wasn’t far away, so there wasn’t much chance for question asking from the rest of the team. We had a good meal, got rested up for the next day’s race and joked about how rubbish I had done. We arrived at the race with plenty of time, but this time I decided to warm up on my own for a bit and made myself work hard so my body knew what it was in for. I was coming into the race with about 0% confidence and so decided that I no longer cared how my race went as long as I got past 20km. I felt a little better for my warm up and at the start I once again managed to weasel my way to the front somehow. The race was waved away and the attacks came from the gun, with me in and around the front wanting to avoid being swamped at all costs. The pace was very fast with the roads being flat and the wind not being as ridiculous as it has been in recent weeks, so we soon reached 20km and I had achieved my goal for the day...now what? Well I kept going, and going...and going, hell, I even ventured off the front a couple of times although never gaining much of an advantage. Up until about the 130km mark I had kept a reasonable to good position in the peloton (on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give it a 7.5), but after this I seemed to lose impetus for some reason and slipped back. I think it had something to do with the fact I’ve never finished a race any longer than 140km and so didn’t really know what to do with myself.

After slipping back the pace began to really pick up occasionally as riders chanced their luck in an attempt to get away in the final kilometres. At about this point I saw a board saying 10km to go and it was then the pace really started to hot up. The peloton lined out in the gutter and it was impossible to move up, people began to pop in front of me as the length and high speed of the race wore them down. But unlike the day before and all the other times before that, I could come round them and close the gap. It was only with 1km that the pace got too much for so many riders in front of me the gap became far too big to close and I rolled across the line a handful of seconds behind the back of the bunch. I had finished my first Elite National, be it 102^nd, but I had finished none-the-less. I was jubilant to say the least. The rest of the team were annoyed that they had missed the small break at the end and messed up the sprint, but I really couldn’t have cared any less... I had finished.

There is something horribly depressing about not finishing a long hard race when those around you have. You miss out on all the stories about how you nearly crashed, how you closed the gap, how you nearly made the break. Whereas there is something incredibly fulfilling about finishing a long hard race, you do get to tell those stories and you feel 1000% better walking to the showers afterwards knowing that you crossed the line with everyone else. It’s something I want to experience more often than not from now on and although it will be hard, I will do my best to finish every race physically possible.

I can’t really say I have some form coming after my poor effort on Saturday, but I definitely felt better. I have now purchased a 20 Euro Heart rate monitor from decathlon to help me train a little more specifically, not quite the fancy all singing all dancing polar I sold before I came over, or the Powertap I left at home, but it works...just about.

Next week two Criteriums in Germany, but not like your wimpy hour Criteriums in Britain, these are full on meaty 90km Criteriums.

But until then,

再见

PS. If you enjoy reading about my exploits here are a few links to other riders who have written similar articles that I know about (be it at a slightly higher level). If you know any more please comment and i'll them here:

Kieran Page:
http://www.kieranpage.com/news.html
Andy Tennant:
http://www.andytennant.co.uk/
The dave rayner fund blog:
http://www.daveraynerfund.blogspot.com/
Braveheart funded rider diaries:
http://www.braveheartcyclingfund.com/Diaries.asp