Finished the day with a Chinese meal, although I think I must be too predictable since the nice little Chinese waitress didn't even bother to give the menu! I guess I did have the same meal as last weekend. Afternoons with no racing can be a bit slow now with no TDF to chill out with, I think I'm ready to go home now, usually happens in the last few days when I start thinking of what I have to do get ready to leave, can't wait to see Hilda.
We had a Swiss team staying at the hotel for the weekend, Jurgen had said to me that Fabian Cancellara's sister had called to book the accommodation, so we had both expected it would be a women's team staying for the big women's race in the village this weekend. They arrived quite late I was in bed reading but did hear the cars pull in, I was a little surprised how quiet they were I would have expected 6 female riders to make more noise than they did. All was revealed at breakfast, they were boys, juniors in fact. What did strike me when they were all sitting at one big table for their breakfast was how quiet they were, there was virtually no chat, they weren't on their phones they were just very quiet. Thinking back to VC d'Or days I can't imagine any six of our riders being that quiet for that long, just impossible!
Well another race day, this time Ertevelde, which is just North of Ghent, an easy journey on the freeways according to Google. Well that's where it all started to pear-shaped!
My SatNav took me to a ferry at the back of Ghent sea port, unfortunately the ferry was out of service! So I had to go off a find another route. I'm sure everybody has had the experience, despite telling it we needed to detour, the bloody thing just kept calling for U turns or trying to send me round a block to get me back to where I had just come from, at one stage I was hammering along a freeway for 10km only to be turned at the next junction to go back, I was starting lose it at this point. Even though I had allowed extra time and it was Saturday and lighter traffic it was now eating into my comfort zone for getting ready to race. I'm not good at rushing and thoughts of just heading home were starting to encroach into my thoughts.
I eventually arrived, got parked up and signed quick enough and headed out for a couple of laps, the first was just to find my way around what was quite a complicated circuit with a mix of wider, hotmix and concrete roads connected with narrow cobbled and broken surfaced lanes, it was actually a very a fast circuit. That was the good news, however I felt absolutely crap on the exploratory lap, then even worse when I booted it up, or at least tried, on a second lap, I could feel my throat wasn't very good but it was a warm sunny day, I had driven all the way to get there and finally as Hilda will tell you when I say I feel crap, it usually means watch out. I tried to convince myself that this was the case today.
It was quite a big field, as was the younger age race lined up behind us, which did surprise me a little given that Sunday is the ICF championship and also the WAOD version of a championship, I had thought that some riders at least would be saving themselves.
Anyway we got underway and I started at the front so held good position through the first lap, I started drifting backwards a bit on the second lap, my legs seemed fine but I was having a little trouble with my breathing and there was some unusually dodgy riding going, some riders were getting severe 'ear ache' from the bunch in general for some very erratic riding. I must admit thoughts of the time I crashed here with a only week left and had to travel home with a severely chewed up hip and elbow, very very unpleasant spending 24 hours on a plane, even in Business class, with weeping holes in your body!
So I found myself at the back, however we had already lost a lot of riders, knowing that's not the place to be so I moved up into the middle, which is far less stressful than swinging on the back on quite a technical circuit. Half way through lap 3 the other race came up, couldn't really pass us very well on the narrower sections but eventually came streaming past, I was surprised that it was their whole bunch, much more normal is for a break to come through which splits our bunch and the whole thing becomes much more manageable. Today we had two fairly large bunches fighting for position on the narrow roads, to be honest I usually prefer it since it puts the whole thing in a line and people just get 'popped' continually.
So having established a position I was happy with, not near enough to the front to get involved in their race but far enough from the back to avoid being behind 'dead' wheels. Then I got stung in mouth by a bee!!! I react badly to bee stings and I could feel the inside of my mouth swelling quickly "oh ****' as if I didn't have enough problems focusing on the race, I really wasn't totally in to it already but that was just about it, sod it I'm going home, drifting right to the back. I didn't quite sit up and I'm having this conversation with myself in my head. stop, don't stop etc etc, I eventually compromised with myself by staying on the back with the intention of finishing the bike race.
So that's what I did, there were numerous little splits in front of me but I managed to stay vigilant enough to bridge them quickly each time somebody 'died' in front of me. I was so not into the race, I didn't even attempt to sprint, to be honest I don't actually think it was good sprint for me anyway, out a corner is not my favourite since I don't really have a 'kick', just good top end if I have time to get there. Got changed quickly, collected my money and headed home, the SatNav deciding to take me through the less salubrious areas of the Northside of Ghent, very interesting on a hot day.
Got back in time to see the big women's race, a UCI 1.2 I think, 1.1 is the top, so reasonably big deal, so its ongoing and I'm ducking out every 15 minutes as they lap around the hotel, I've been cheering Kristy Glover 'guesting' for her Dutch team, possibly not the best thing for my throat but she was holding good position until the last lap where she slipped back a bit.
