Blogs

Tue, 1 Jun 2010

Racing in Holland with Annie

By Annie Simpson - Horizon Fitness Racing Team

Being my first race abroad for ages, and having not raced or trained much at home recently, I woke up today slightly nervous, and on the line my nerves got even worse as there were near 150 riders.

But once we had set off, I forgot about that and got down to some savage racing. One of my main worries was my knee, which at first wasn't great, but as the race went on, it seemed to get better until I totally forgot about it.

We were dodging crashes and road furniture left, right and centre, and then it rained so that made it even sketchier. It was 3 big laps and 3 small laps, and each lap had its fair share of cobbles (although Dani said they weren't cobbles compared to the Tour of Flanders). The race kept being lined out then bunching up again. For me, it was when it lined out for ages at the end of the 3rd lap that I just didn't have the race fitness to hold the wheel.

The gap grew and I dropped back to a group of 20. We got pulled before the 4th lap, so I missed the last 30 minutes of racing. I still got a good 2 hours 45 of racing in my legs, and I couldn't really expect to do much better seen as I only started training properly again last Saturday!

Most importantly, I didn't get the trouble I expected from my knee, and so now I'm very excited to race again as things can only get better!

For more information about the Horizon Fitness Racing Team, visit www.onthedrops.com.

 

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