Four races to go, came close but not quite.

Think I've worked out why it might have been taking me so long to recover from Tuesday's race, I woke up this morning (Saturday) with a sore throat!  Not a bad one but definitely not right.  Given that it was also a pretty stormy, wet day I opted to stay in bed and watch the Alpe  d' Huez stage of the tour and what a stage it was, epic, but unfortunately more spitting morons out there and I did wonder at the single policeman I saw trying to control the drunken Dutch men, I've always liked the Dutch having spent quite a lot of time there over the years, but after their antics with the Sky team car and riders I need to reevaluate that.

Early night to try and shake the cold.

Sunday and a race at Lendelede, about 30 minutes easy drive to the event, given recent difficulties finding race HQ's I gave myself a little extra time but found it OK so had plenty of time for sign on formalities. The weather was good to start but went downhill quite quickly as the rain came on starting with a bit of drizzle deteriorating to steady rain by the finish.  The course was good for me, a bit exposed to the wind in places, basically a slow downhill into the wind and a tailwind uphill straight.  Probably the only 'interesting' bit was a cut through what I can only describe as an alley way, maybe 2 meters wide, to connect the downhill straight with the uphill straight.

All the 'usual suspects where there and the race was held on the line for quite a long time waiting for the Police to give the OK, they basically go around the course and remove any cars that are parked (illegally) on the course.  By the time we were released to race I felt like I hadn't taken the time to do three laps of the course to make sure I was fully warmed up, I think everybody else probably felt the same since it's the first race where we started sedately.  Coming up the uphill straight for the first time a rider came through quite briskly, I was second wheel, when I glanced back we had a gap so I went over him tapped him on the behind, lets go, we did, I pulled to the top of the hill, swung over and he moved over with me even though we had a 100m gap!  That was going to be the story of the race unfortunately, I wasn't feeling that great but I wanted to race, but the others, the strong ones at least wanted to race me first. 

In a nutshell three went away, nobody but me was interested in chasing, they weren't that far up the road but every time I tried to get across I had company that wasn't interested in cooperating.  Eventually two riders went out to chase, I gave them a gap to make sure they were committed and then jumped across.  I don't they were too happy but we had certainly gapped the bunch who were probably 30 seconds back at that point. The ploy then was to keep me at the front and then jump through to try and dislodge me, this tended to piss me off a little so after a lap or so of this I thought I wonder how strong they are and went at the top of the uphill straight where the speed really picked up  and I got a gap, they never came back, quickly dropping out of sight behind me.  I don't think I was gaining on the front three but nor was anybody going to catch me, so I did four laps on my own.  Not my favourite way of racing, I'd rather be in a small working group and sprint for a win at the end.  But there again anybody that's raced with me recently will know that I'm not the guy that's going to attack uphill at the end of a race either, but that's what I did in Tuesdays race.  Obviously getting old and confused!       

Nice Chinese meal for dinner, several glasses of 'medicinal' red wine to help with my sore throat which I've managed to push it down on my chest!!!

Tomorrow evening, weather permitting is the Aalst criterium, which is the first of the post tour criteriums, allegedly with Froome and Porte same as the last time I was there, plus Sagan etc, but I'm only going if its not wet, I still have three races to ride.