It's been a pretty boring week this week because of the weather. It has been non stop windy and rainy and cold. Before I arrived, the weather was great with temperatures in the 20's and the tiniest amount of rain so I think I've done something. But I'm sure it'll get better soon.
Done a few good rides since being back here so jet lag hasn't affected me too much. I caught up with a mate from back home on Monday and we went for a coffee ride together which was pretty sweet and I was feeling pretty good so I decided to carry on and do some extra K's after he went home. Ended up being a pretty big coffee ride 4 hours later. It was a pretty nice day that day, only wearing a short sleeve jersey and a jacket but then the weather went downhill pretty much from there. It got freezing cold, wind picked up and the rain came. Had to buy some leg warmers because I still don't have my new riding kit. I have to go and get it from the other house in Zottegem so I might just ride up there with a back pack and make it a solid training day. It's about 80km there so it'll be a decent ride.
Went for a biggish ride with my roommates on Wednesday and did a few hills and cobble sections, it's nice to be riding on the cobbles again, they're fun because everyone else hates them. It rained a bit that day. Or it was on Thursday? Can't remember but either way it rained on both days.
There is a tour on at the moment in France that our team is at so Andrew is away till tonight and that means we have no one to do our washing (because we're not allowed to do our own washing) so Andrew's mum had to come collect it on Friday and I was all out of kit by Friday so it was a good excuse to have a rest day. It was another windy as day so I wasn't complaining. I decided to take the towny bike and ride up to Kortrijk to get my sim card sorted cause I forgot my sim passcode and I entered the wrong code too many times and it locked me out so I needed to go to the mobile company to get my Puk Code to unlock it. I slowly made my way down there because it was blowing a gale from the side of me and then it started raining on me but luckily I had my sort of rain jacket on that I bought back home that was $200 but I got it for $100, Score! Had to wait 45 mins to talk to the lady and it was only a 5 min job but it took up a bit of time cause there's nothing else to do at home anyway. Thought it was going to be a tail wind on my ride back home but na head cross wind all the way home so I didn't really have a rest day cause she was a hard ride there and back.
Saturday, she was pouring with rain and cold and I don't have too much wet weather gear and I wasn't too keen to ride in crap like that so I just did a roller session in the garage for 1.5 hours and that was tough. It was so boring! There's nothing exciting to look at like when I go to my coach's house and do erg sessions I just stare at the Asians who live in the house next door, it's better than looking at a door. I just threw in a few efforts just to make time go a bit faster but I mentally cracked at 1.5 hours.
Today I was thinking of just going out for a big ride but one of my roommates was going out to do a race so I just thought why not give a race a crack. Not sure how I'll feel but ah well, bit more fun than training or so I thought. It was blowing a real gale today, leaning 45 degrees in the crosswind and a bit of rain here and there. The race started full gas as normal and a lot of riding in the gutter and I was feeling pretty good as well but I did the typical me and tried attacking fairly early because I knew that the bunch would split up heaps with the big crosswinds and it would be easier to ride in a small break because I would get a lot more shelter from the other guys in the break and not have to battle for position all the time but nothing was really sticking. I worked a bit too hard trying to set that up and I moved a little too far back in the bunch once I got caught. While I was in the bunch a fairly big split happened with about 20 guys up the road. Typical Belgium racing; no one in the peleton was lapping through and the bunch slowly got further away. The break was probably 15 seconds up the road so I thought I might have a better chance at bridging the gap by myself but again, typical, the bunch just chased me down and then sat up once they caught me. Another big split happened and I was in it this time and the lead break was probably 30 secs ahead. The bunch was not working though because of all the big crosswind and headwind sections so I ended up on the front too many times out of frustration. Whenever I went to the back for some rest, riders were dropping in front of me on the crosswind or headwind sections so I would have to try and bridge back up to the group which really took it out of me. Half way through the race, the rider ahead of me couldn't hold the wheel on the crosswind section and I was already redlining just riding on his wheel so I couldn't quite bridge up to the bunch again. So that was my day pretty much done. The bunch got pulled out of the race the next lap anyway because the break got too far ahead but that was probably one of the hardest races I've done in a while. There was just no time to rest because you were always hanging on for dear life in the gutter. Still fairly happy with it being my first race and I've only been here just over week. There's plenty more races to come and I'm confident I can win hopefully a couple of these club races I just have to be patient and think smart. Happy to be racing again.
The Giro d'italia is on at the moment too so now we have something to do in the afternoons after we come back from riding for 3 weeks. Just sit back and watch some good cycling.
But yea, everything is good here and I might do another race on Wednesday.
Cool. Thanks for reading
Nick
No comments:
Post a Comment