After 4 local cyclo-cross races in Belgium last year, I had a little taster and decided I wanted to taste a bit more. So the plan was to have an easier first local cyclo-cross race on the Saturday, followed by a more hard core UCI race on the Sunday in Luxembourg. But as usual, nothing goes quite to plan. Saturday was like riding in a mud bath, with about 5 mount/dismounts off the bike per lap, and that was without planks!! Needless to say I had to go really deep just to try and stay away from my rivals. My mud riding skills were passable, but my mounting and dismounting were rather too amateurish! But I managed to secure a win with my power.
After cleaning my only cross bike, cleaning my shoes and stuffing them with new paper in preparation for the next day of racing, then putting my clothes on to wash, I was hungry, hungry. But no, I couldn’t go and carbo load yet… I had to unblock my washing machine filter which was full of mud, small twigs, and leaves after my not so efficient mud washing off session with the jet wash after the race.
I made a mental rate to do it better the next day or else be faced with another flood in the utility room. So finally I set off for carbo loading on pasta pre-race in Bruges, with Scottish friends and their children who had come to support me. A bit of normality in my life – or was it?? The bistro owner found out we were Scottish and proceeded to tell us a joke about Stingy Scots, but I can’t repeat it here as it was rather rude. I had to drive 2 Belgians back in our 2 seater van; one in the back sitting on a deck chair (totally illegal) and one in the front, being egged on by my other half giving me abuse about riding in puddles on the motorway in the pouring rain. As I was racing the next day, I was the only sober one in the car, but managed to get home to tuck up in bed ready for my next challenge. They, on the other hand, continued their 'night off' on their return.
The next morning, I was up bright and early for my first trip to Luxembourg racing. We arrived early for the race and had a prime parking spot, close to the start/finish. My boyfriend Ronny and I went to reccie the course. He is an ex-cyclo cross European champion and he had to lead Miss novice round on her extremely heavy bike. On the first lap we had a bit of excitement; we came onto the road from a hairy descent through tree routes and on to the road section. Despite the warning signs, one of the drivers was surprised to see us appear out of the forest and proceeded to shout at us not looking ahead of him. He forgot that there were other drivers on the road and drove round the bend on the other side of the road into a £100,000 Porsche… So it was an expensive day out for him.
We continued to ride the course and I was feeling rather concerned about my tyre grip. But as I had no rhinos or mud tyres, I just had to go with it. I had a good start, straight in my pedals and left my rivals behind, but as soon as we got onto my favourite muddy downhill and then steep uphill, the girls started to pass me. On the road, I would catch them and then they would come back on the muddy section. Looking back, I wasn’t able to match them technically, but I also didn’t have my usual power after the energy sapping race the day before. This is all part of learning about how my body can cope with the 40 minute intense effort of racing after only having done endurance cycling before. I now know I can’t race 2 days in a row in cyclo-cross and expect good results. I took 4th place which was decent enough, but off course I want to do better in my next race. After picking up my start money, we went to Luxembourg city for some food before the 3 hour drive back to Oudenaarde.
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